Blog

Good Technology 2023

Great final day of the Good Technology 2023 video shoot yesterday!

June 24th marks 40 years since Red Guitars number 1 Indie debut single “Good Technology” was released and the band are issuing a limited edition red vinyl 12” extended remix and video to celebrate the anniversary. A radio edit and remix of second single ‘Fact’ is included along with a digital download of the tracks.

Good Technology 40th Anniversary gig at O’Rileys, Hull ticket link: skiddle.com/e/36300908. UK tour dates to follow.

Thanks to Simon at Factor Fifty Films

Photography by Richard Duffy-Howard

Red Guitars Mural

As we were rehearsing for our Slow to Fade reunion tour last year a mural appeared just off Princes Avenue, Hull. Painted by Ed Ullyart the mural celebrates Hull music, it looks fantastic, still as good as new.

Here we are, the real us visiting the painting of us.

Good Technology 40th Anniversary gig Saturday 24th June at O’Rileys, 83 Beverley Rd, Hull HU3 1XR, doors 7 pm, last few tickets remaining tickets from skiddle.com/e/36300908

Good Technology 2023 Anniversary Vinyl Release Party

Red Guitars invite you to our special gig at O’Riley’s, in Hull, on the 24th of June 2023 celebrating 40 years to the day since the release of their debut single and number one indie chart hit ‘Good Technology’. 

Ticket link: skiddle.com/e/36300908.

We have good news! The Good Technology 12″ remix is going to be distributed by Cargo and will be released on June 24th 2023. We are awaiting news of when we can take orders for pre-sales. Will keep you posted!

To mark the anniversary we are releasing an extended remix of ‘Good Technology’, which will be available in a limited edition 12″ red vinyl. A remix of ‘Fact’, the second single, is included.

Expect a party! As well as a full set of old favourites, we will unveil some new songs from our forthcoming album set for release in 2024. Terra Fin, who supported us on last year’s reunion tour, will again open the show. Tickets are available from Skiddle, the Red Guitars website and Disc Discovery, Spring Bank, Hull, from March 17th.

The Good Technology release party will be followed by a newly commissioned video and UK tour later in 2023.

Anniversary gig Saturday 24th June at O’Rileys, 83 Beverley Rd, Hull HU3 1XR, doors 7 pm, tickets £17.50 plus bf from March 17th from skiddle.com/e/36300908.

Good Technology 2023 plus Fact (remix) and Good Technology (extended mix) will be available on 12” red vinyl from Red Guitars website and good record stores from June 24th 2023. Released on the band’s own Self Drive Records Catalogue number SCAR 16T, distributed by Cargo. Orders can be taken soon on the Red Guitars shop.

1983: it was a different world. The world wide web hadn’t been invented yet, Facebook and iPhones were another 20 years away and there were a mere 100 McDonald’s in the UK.

Thatcher had just won her landslide victory and the first cruise missiles were arriving at Greenham Common. Unemployment was over 3 million. A hundred years of industrial might was to be scrapped in favour of the deregulated banking and service industries which would make us all wealthy. The burgeoning new technology promised a brighter future for us all. Life would be easier. Culture Club were at number one.

Some very popular songs fade over time as tastes change but a great song should be able to speak to every new generation that discovers it. At its core there is a truth. Alternative facts don’t exist despite what the New Right would have you believe.

Good Technology is a very simple three chord song based on a hypnotic kick drum and bass that remain constant and unchanging throughout the entire song. In essence it is a call and response song. For each vocal line telling us of the wonderful new things we’ve got, there is a response from the guitars starting with simple harmonics and building slowly and uneasily to a blistering breathless solo before the pay off. Politically it is pin sharp but there is no tub thumping here. A dystopian prophesy of things to come. It’s all there. It uncannily predicts the power of the internet and social media, environmental catastrophe, reality TV, the fast food industry and an ever more grotesque arms industry.

40 years on and the promise, like the country, is broken. Public services have been hollowed out to the barest shells. Levels of poverty are unprecedented since Victorian times.

The new gig economy has left people who are working minimum wage jobs struggling to survive. Today there are more food banks in the UK than McDonald’s.

It seems the right time to rerelease this song to a new audience… JR 2023”

Good Technology was first released on the 24th of June 1983 as a 7″ single with Heartbeat Go! (Love Dub) on the B‐side. It was the inaugural release on Self Drive Records and had the catalogue number SD006. The band played Dingwalls in Hull that evening to launch the single on an unsuspecting world.

The track was re-released in 7″ and 12″ formats in April 1984. The 7″ (SD009) backed with Paris France, the 12″ (SD008) having an extended mix of Paris France and Fact on the B‐side.

Here We Go 2023!

It’s our first band get together of 2023 tonight, here we go 2023! A big thank you to everyone who followed us in 2022 and a special high five to everyone who came to see us on our tour. It was beyond our dreams to get back together. The ball is rolling now, and we’re excited about our plans for 2023. Come and join the adventure and see where it takes us! 🎶🎸😍

Red Guitars video shoot tea break these days. Photo by Richard Duffy-Howard
And the same back in 1983 Stella break back then. Red Guitars photo by Syd Shelton

Our Red Guitars Tree

This is delightful – a tree has been planted and dedicated to the band, with a lovely message. It’s a beech tree, in Annis Hill community woodland in Suffolk. 😍

Beech is the queen of British trees where oak is the king.

Feminine, colourful and lovely.

My grandma Constance Sibbles painted this beech woodland.

I look into it every day.

Beech Tree Woodland painting by Lou’s grandma, Constance Sibbles