Day 102. Over a hundred days now.

Most important news today, we have the preorder button up for the Macguffins retrospective album and also the combo pack with the 3″ with their first lost demo! Record went to the pressing plant on Friday, so hopefully in no more than 2 months from now it should be arriving home!

What new music we found this past weekend? Here you go:

Gutingukuku: “Leisure Time” is the newest single out on the very fine Shiny Happy Records from Indonesia. This song will be included in an upcoming EP by this band. I don’t know much more about this band, but I can see they make some very lovely indiepop ala early Poppyheads.

Paris Street: “Catchy shit”, that’s how the band describes themselves. “15th Street – Part One” is the first of seven albums to be released this year as part of the band’s 15th anniversary. I must admit I am not familiar with the band nor with their 15 year career. As far as I know though it is a one-man project by Carl Polgar, and here are 10 fun songs worth listening. Bedroom pop, synth pop, and good catchy hooks.

Nos Etes Trop Courts: the second demo by this band based in Nantes sounds ace. This is actually not new, but from 1991-1992. This band was from what I understand one of the first shoegazey bands in this city and they were around from 1990 to 1992. They were formed by Gerome, Pascal and Jimmy. The first two went to be in Crash while the latter went to be in Les Autres. It is very interesting! Would love to know more about this band, would love to interview them some time.

NewCastle: last week I was recommending this Uruguay band because their latest single “Skates” sounded ace. Now they’ve released the “b side” for “Skates” and is called “Sunrise”. It is good too! Maybe not as immediate as “Skates’ but it is very nice, and I suggest checking it out.

Todavia: the dreamy pop band from LA is back with a terrific track called “So Close”. This song is said to be the opening track for their upcoming LP “Orange Faint of Sky” to be released this year. It will also appear in a compilation with Nicer Living Presents. That’s what we know at the moment. We can wait then for the album patiently.

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Why not another Japanese band on the blog. As you might have noticed that’s my latest thing, discovering indiepop from the 80s and 90s from Japan. Mostly because I know much less about that scene than others. And it was quite big! So there’s lots to find out.

Bubble Bus is not that unknown to me. I do own two of their releases, the “My Funny Face” 7″ and their split 7″ with The Paisley Shirts. But there is more to them and I would love to find out!

The first release they were on was a compilation CD called “See-see-You, Tomorrow!!” that was released by the very fine Pushbike label (UFPB-001) in 1993. They contributed two songs to it, “I Wanna Be With You” and “Bubble Bus Theme #2”. We could already tell at this point that the band was into making very nice jangly songs!

In 1994 they would release a split 7″ with the band The Goldenrods from San Francisco. The release was called “Motorway Strip” and came on the Japanese label Motorway (MOTOR 002). This release I don’t have yet. I should try to get a copy myself. Bubble Bus had the A side for themselves with two songs, “Words of Love” and “You Wanna Be Free”. The Goldenrods would only contribute 1 song. Thanks to this 7″ we know a few things. Firstly that the band hailed from Tokyo. That the songs were recorded at the R.d.s. studios. And lastly we know the band members:

Takahide Horiuchi – vocals, guitar and handclaps
Fumie Tsuji – backing vocals tambourine
Atsuki Nara – 12 string guitar
Tohko Kageyama – double bass
Fumihiro Ejima – drums

In 1995 the band would release the “My Funny Face” 7″ on Motorway (MOTOR-005). This is the only release they are on their own. They would have “My Funny Face” on the A side and “The End of Dreams” and “Maybe” on the B side. The band members on this record are the same as in the previous but we do find another credit, that for Isao Orita who designed the sleeve.

Lastly in 1996 they had a split flexi with The Paisley Shirts on Rover Records (ROV000). Bubble Bus would contribute the song “It’s A Clear Day” while The Paisley Shirts had “Stack of Dreams”. This flexi came alongside the fanzine “La Grande Illusion: vol.1” and was limited to 500 copies. That same year the band would contribute a song, “Scrap”, to the K.O.G.A. Records compilation “Pop Goes the Weasel Vol. 2” (KOGA007). This one song was record at Studio JAM in June 1995.

Lastly, I suppose when the band was no more, their song “Words of Love” would appear on the 2006 compilation “Musique Dessinee 01 – Just a Groove!” released by Production Desinée (PDLP-004) from Japan. This compilation was released both on vinyl and CD and looks like a mix and match of different music styles.

Now I am looking at the band members, see if they had been involved in other bands. The only one that seems to have worked on other projects is Fumie Tsuji who was in the band Fleckfumie alongside Nick Glöckner and JOhann Von Schubert, releasing 3 albums in the early 2000s. She also seems to have contributed with the Estonian band Popidiot, in their album “1111”.

Then I stumble upon a Soundcloud by Takahide Horiuchi where he has uploaded a bunch of his own tracks.

And that’s it. But quite a bit isn’t it? I just wonder why the band didn’t get to release an album or more records. And also what happened to the other band members. It seems Fumie was quite productive but what about the rest? Would be great to know more about them!

EDIT June 24

So thanks to a reader we’ve learned there are at least 3 albums and 4 singles by Bubble Bus that I wasn’t aware of!

First there was a 1995 album co-released by Hawaii Records (HAWAII-2) and MIdi Creative (CXCA-1008) called “Assnallo”. It had 11 songs, “Adventure”, “It Won’t Be Easy”, “The End of Dreams”, “A Picture of Boyfriend”, “I’m in a Fog”, “Like a Fish in the Air”, “Happy Days”, “My Funny Face”, “Troublesome”, “Road Runner” and “Walkin’ on the Railroad”. This album came out on CD.

Then in 1996 the band goes all Japanese, no more songs in English and they even write their name as バブルバス. They release CD single with Midi Inc. (MDCS-1002) with three songs, “バイバイ”, “君がそこにいる” and “通り道”. That same year, they release another CD single with the same label (MDCS-1005) with three songs, “タイムマシーン “, ” 青い屋根” and “ボクラシマッタ”. I am very curious why the change of language all of a sudden.

In 1997 they release  “ヒトトキカイ” a 12 song album on Midi Inc (MDCL-1318). The songs on these album are “カフェ･オーレ”, “明日はバイク”, “風の便り”, “月のかけら”, “何度も言うように”, ” 祭りのあと7 バイバイ”, “4、5年前の恋の歌”, “タイムマシーン”, ” 夏がやってくる”, ” 望郷列車” and “ボクラシマツタ”.

A year later, again on Midi Inc. (MDCL-1337) they release “Bubrock”, and even though they had changed the album title to English they release 12 songs in Japanese, “夕暮れの三叉路”, “舟の家”, ” 春来”, “夕立が止まらない”, “月がいつも”, ” 19才7 エンディング”, ” 工事現場”, ” 春色(アルバム･ミックス･ヴァージョン)”, ” 遠吠え11 スクロール1″ and “カントリー道路”.

Their last release will be a CD single on another Japanese label, Rhyme (MDCS-1010) with three songs, “春色”, ” 期待しないで” and “描けない空”.

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Listen
Bubble Bus – I Wanna Be With You