Oakland, California power pop outfit The Goods return September 16 with Goodbye Summertime, the sophomore LP on Dandy Boy Records. Less than a year after Don’t Spoil the Fun, songwriter Rob Good delivers the rare follow-up that doesn’t simply build on a debut, it blows the walls out around it. Drawing from Beatles-inflected psychedelia, Brian Wilson-esque balladry, sunshine pop, jangling folk rock, and the timeless pull of classic guitar pop, Goodbye Summertime is a record that refuses to sit still, chasing melody around every corner without ever losing sight of the hook.
For fans of The Lemon Twigs, Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, Young Guv, The Apples In Stereo, The Raspberries, and Sharp Pins. For anyone who’s spent time around the Bay Area underground, Good has always been there. Playing clubs too small to remember their names. Loading gear into the back of a car after midnight. Watching rehearsal spaces disappear, venues close, neighborhoods reinvent themselves, and another generation of bands figure it out the same way he did. That perspective runs quietly through Goodbye Summertime. It’s a record made by someone who understands that places change, people change, and the trick isn’t hanging onto the past. It’s deciding what deserves to come with you.
Produced almost entirely by Good in his Oakland studio, the album captures an artist trusting instinct over expectation. Songs were written, recorded, rearranged, and rebuilt as inspiration arrived, pulling from every shelf in Good’s record collection without feeling trapped by any of it. One minute the band slips into kaleidoscopic psychedelia, the next into sunshine pop or chiming folk rock, before circling back to the crunchy guitars and towering harmonies that have always been The Goods’ calling card. Rather than sounding like a collection of influences, Goodbye Summertime feels like the moment they all stopped competing and finally started working together. That freedom is heard across every corner of the album. “Summer’s Almost Gone” embraces the urgency of living in the present before it slips away. “Minor Key” quietly mourns what’s already been lost. “Driving” looks back on the years when an empty gas tank and nowhere to be felt like endless possibility. “Wing” captures the terrifying optimism of new love, while “Sleepytime” closes the record with stacked harmonies and a slow-building swell that feels less like an ending than the first deep breath after everything has settled. Like the album itself, each song is searching for solid ground without pretending life ever really stands still.
Good is joined throughout the record by longtime collaborators Cherron Arens, Yea-Ming Chen, and Ian McBrayer, whose contributions add subtle texture without ever pulling focus from the songs. Mixed and mastered by Bart Thurber, Goodbye Summertime balances bedroom intimacy with widescreen ambition, allowing every Mellotron swell, Wurlitzer flourish, vocal harmony, and ringing guitar line to find its place naturally. “There’s some pain in there, but there’s a lot of joy as well, and creating the record was a joyous experience,” says Good. “Ultimately, it’s about persisting through difficult times and finding a way to carry on. That’s what making this record helped me to do.”
Some records feel like a snapshot. Goodbye Summertime feels more like a season. It’s the sound of fog rolling over the hills while the last light hangs above the Bay, of skateboards cracking against broken sidewalks outside tiny clubs, of one more stop at the record store before heading back across the bridge. Most of all, it’s the sound of a songwriter finally trusting every instinct he’s spent years developing, and discovering there was a bigger record waiting on the other side all along. Goodbye Summertime arrives September 16, 2026, on Dandy Boy Records.