Day 144.

Tigre Ulli: Kocliko Records is back in full force! There are two new releases worth talking about. The first is this one by María Zamtlejfer, one of the founding members of the great Argentinean band Las Ligas Menores! Tigre Ulli is her project and she has just released a 7-song EP and it sounds amazing. I will need a copy for sure!

The National Honor Society: remember I was complaining that there was no proper release by this amazing Seattle band? Well Kocliko was the smartest of all and picked the band up! They have just released “All the Glory We Never Had”, a wonderful jangly 10 song album that may be among the best this year. Not to be missed!

Majorelle Blue: the Malmö band have 4 new songs on their Soundcloud part of their “Nostalgia Porn” EP. I have recommended this band in the past and I have to do it again as these are great in-your-face pop songs. It doesn’t look as the release is available on physical formats, but at least we can play it time and time again online.

Lisa Bouvier: our friend Lisa will be releasing a 7″ this coming October. It will have two songs and one of them is available to preview, “Every Year Until We Die”. The songs were also recorded and produced by another Cloudberry friend, Adam John Miller from The Manhattan Love Suicides. So yeah, this is good. The 7″ will be limited to 120 copies and it is up for pre-order now.

Saturday Looks Good to Me: the great Michigan band have a few live recordings from different gigs on their Bandcamp. The latest they have shared is from October 14, 2007, at the legendary Schuba’s in Chicago. There are 15 songs here that sounds good to me.

—————————————————————–

I discovered Roof through their song “Chick House” that was included in the classic, legendary, compilation “Grimsby Fishmarket 4 – Norrkoeping 0”. This tape compilation compiled by Marcus Törncrantz is one of the most important ones in my book, especially when it comes to the early 90s. Released in 1991 in Sweden on his own label Records from the Cookie Nose Tower (CNT001) it introduced so many great bands. I have talked about this compilation many times in the past, like when I wrote about Mary-Go-Round, Bummer Twins, The Apple Moths, My Finest Hours, and more!

Roof appears on the A side of this compilation, with the fifth track overall. Until now I didn’t know anything about them really. My surprise would come almost immediately after doing a quick search. One of Japan’s leading pop figures was involved in this band playing bass, Hideki Kaji!

This particular song “Chick House” is credited to Mitsunori Sasaki who had been in another band called The Bachelors. Now, The Bachelors just got reissued a cassette on the Blue-Very label last year. Wow! I should interview him one day I hope!

So we know two members. There were two more. There was Hirotaka Shimizu and Yasunobu Arakawa. Hirotaka had been in so many bands, Bridge, Brother’s Sister’s Daughter, If By Yes, Marble Hammock, Mi-Gu and Spielgusher. Yasunobu on the other hand was in Favourite Marine, Flipper’s Guitar, Lollipop Sonic, Marble Hammock, Museum of Plate and The Stars. Okay we are finding this band is formed just by Japanese indiepop royalty! How cool!

This means one thing, I should try to track down the two records they released in the early 90s. The first was a mini-album called “Two-Lane Blacktop” that was released by Confusion (PCCC-00015) in 1992. Confusion was a Japanese label run by Kazuhiko Hirata. He had released Loco-Holidays (remember them? I wrote about them last year!). This mini-album was released on CD and included these songs, “Point at Issue”, “Planes”, “Going Home”, “Story about Love” and “Cities”.

The band’s last release seems to date from 1997. It was a CD mini-album as well. It was also released by Confusion (PCCC-00020). Again 6 songs appear on it: “River and Road Part 2”, “Small Town (is a Strange Place)”, “Feel Sick on Sunday”, “Free Land”, “Standing in the Station When I Think of Him” and “Pink and Blue”. The art was created by Yutaka Kawase while the liner notes were written by Asako Koide. The record was recorded and mixed by Hidenori Ataka and Masaki Hayashi.

But that wasn’t all. The band appeared on compilations as well. Aside from the “Grimsby Fishmarket 4 – Norrkoeping” tape they would appear on the 1991 Crue-L Records (CRUELCD 001) CD compilation “Blow-Up 6 Singles and Jingles” with the songs “Tears of Crown” and “Green”. Then that same year they would contribute “(Waitin in the) Ferry Boat” and “Chick’s Room” to “Les Frederick Presents Innocence & Peppermints”. Worth mentioning that both songs were written by Mitsunori.

In 1991 they would also appear on the “Confusion Label 2nd Release” CD released by Confusion (DSP-138) with two tracks “Small Town (is a Strange Place)” and “Feel Sick on Sunday”. Lastly in 1993 they would have two songs, “Angels are Coming” and “Standing Still” on the very fine compilation “Ask the Sky” co-released by the great ¡Por Supuesto! Records and Rail Recordings (STAP 0313).

Interestingly enough, there is about no information about the band on the web. Sure they had all these well known members in it. But for some reason that I understand there are no reviews, no bios, no nothing. This is a true mystery to me! I should try to get the records. The compilations they were in also look great, so many good bands. I don’t know if it is good time to be spending lots of money, but these records look great. Promising. And the little I’ve heard by Roof (2 songs only!) are fantastic.

So yeah, I wanna know more about them. If they had more songs. Maybe more releases. Anything would be great. Help is appreciated!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Roof – Small Town (Is a Strange Place)