https://www.discogs.com/release/406827-The-Buoys-Give-Up-Your-Guns
Given the colour of the cover and the time, you would expect this to be a disco hit. You would not be further from the truth. The title should tell you more of course, since it is well known in Europe. However, in the US this song totally underperformed.
That is not all that is hiding this band. They started somewhere in 1968, Pennsylvania, and pretty soon hooked up with songwriter Rupert Holmes, who brought them the one hit wonder Timothy. Timothy was about cannibalism by two miners eating a third.
In 1963 there had been a mining accident in Pennsylvania, and somehow rumour spread that the song was about that, implying some of the miners had eaten their colleagues. When that came out, record executives claimed Timothy was a mule. But writer Rupert Holmes didn’t want to give in, and the song got banned on several stations.
Here is where it gets sketchy. Timothy never reached Europe, here the big hit was Give up your guns. Much more melodic, more classic subject matter. By that time, for some reason the band was already on its way out. Spotify has one album, called Timothy, but others have nothing of them.
I found a single entry of Give up your guns on my other streaming, and it was just as badly advertised as my vinyl. And it is linking to an Australian band called Buoys, formed in 2016, that sounds completely different. Then the wiki talks about an 18 track album published in 1993 that should hold all their records, but is actually unauthorised.
It is interesting to see that what is probably bad management and general neglect is able to destroy a good song. It is still manages to survive on streaming, but for how long?