Goodshirt are a New Zealand band living in the Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn. The band is made up of:
- Rodney Fisher - Vocals, Guitars, Percussion, Samples
- Murray Fisher - Guitars, Vocals, Synths, Samples and Programming, Percussion, Keyboards
- Gareth Thomas - Bass and Lead Synths, Vocals, Keyboards, Organs, Guitars
- Mike Beehre - Drum Kit, Vocals, Samples
Their music is mainly guitar based, but instead of lead guitars, many of their song's hooks are played on keyboards. They have a great range, from the acoustic strumming of Sophie, to the surprisingly Air-esque Catch this Light and Mud Sky, to the pure grunge intro of Mousey (which sounds a lot like Smells like teen spirit) that leads into bouncy pop-rock and slightly distorted, almost bubbly vocals.
They describe their influences as (shameless cut-and-paste):
"Nirvana, Beck, Air, The Mutton Birds, Steve Abel, Daft Punk, JPS Experience, Regurgitator, U2, Supergrass, Weezer, Blur, The Beach Boys, Bob Marley, The Beatles, John Lennon, Micronism, David Bowie, The Police, Blondie, Bressa Creeting Cake, REM, The Cure, The Pixies, Faith No More, Split Enz, Willie Nelson, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Eagles, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Mockers, Cassette...can't think of anymore at the moment, but there are definitely others...".(I'm not going to hardlink all of those, but I will link my favourites from the list, because I can)
The band gets their name, shockingly enough, from a good shirt. They were trying to come up with a name for the band, when Rodney's dad came in to the room and said 'That's a good shirt'. The rest is history. The song Green is also about the shirt, which is worn at every concert - 'Got a good shirt; Wear it all the time'.
So far they have released only one album, 'Good' (2001) which was recorded in their home studio, built in the shed. The songs were taken to Sydney for the final mix before release.
I highly recomend making an effort to get a copy of Good, although it is probably quite hard to find for those of you in the states. Perhaps you could order it in.