I’m very disappointed and sad with my Peruvian team. We played well both games. We just couldn’t score. We weren’t good at finishing our chances. We weren’t clinical. But we played with flair, with passion and excitement. It makes me sad that teams that have been playing mediocre football will go on the next round like Denmark, Uruguay, or even Portugal. But that’s how it is. France was better yesterday on the 1st half. But we did a good second half, and had some chances through the game. But we knew this was the hardest game of the group. We lost our good chances against Denmark. That was the game.

We lack experience at this level. That was the truth. Being away from World Cups for so long truly affected our minds. It is no surprise that teams that have been away from this event for many years, like Morocco, Egypt or us, are already out. If you go often to the World Cup and have that experience, you can fare better, be more practical and know how to react in different situations of the game. I think for us, what we’ve learned this time around will be very valuable for the next qualifiers, for Qatar, that I believe we have good chances to go to.

Anyways…

Important news. You know Salt Lake Alley 7″ is now available right? Have you ordered your copy already? You can listen to “Deals at the Crossroads”, the opening track on this link. This is the debut release by the band! Salt Lake Alley consists of Gustav Tranback (Paper Hearts, Dismal Plight) and Mikael Carlsson (The Honeydrips, Dorotea). 7″ EP out on Cloudberry Records this spring, and it is a winner!! Salt Lake Alley sound like Teenage Fanclub and Popsicle swapping Sarah singles. They call their music orthodox indie pop. Includes 3 more songs: “So Differently”, “When We’ll Meet Again” and “Matter of Fact”. I’m very happy with this release whose art was created exclusively for this release by Mexican illustrator Alex Herrerías. I hope you like it!! And once again thanks a lot for your support!

And when it comes to new finds, here are my latest:

The Wolfhounds: what great news! “Hands in the Til – the complete John Peel Sessions” by The Wolfhounds will be released on July 20th on A Turntable Friend Records and Slumberland on both vinyl LP and CD. This is amazing news. One of the best bands from the C86 period gets this long-awaited release. This record comes with 12 songs, taken from the three sessions the band recorded for the legendary John Peel in 1986, 1987 and 1988. Right now you can stream two of the songs from the band’s Bandcamp, “The Anti-Midas Touch” and “Disgusted E7”.

Randy Jupiter: a nice discovery thanks to my friend David. Randy Jupiter is a Winnipeg, Canada, band that seems to be new. They have two songs on their Bandcamp, “Hypersped” and “Big on U”. It seems to be a digital only release but these are two fine jangle songs, especially the second song, “Big on U” which is a terrific fuzz pop track. The band is formed by Brady, Randy and Arthur, and I hope to hear more from them, especially if they sound more like “Big on U”!

Starmine: I don’t usually recommend much electropop on the blog, but this band from Tokyo, sounds pretty good to me. Their latest EP, “Starmine is Dead”, was released digitally and on CD last May. The duo formed by Derek and Ryan say that this release is a prologue to their debut LP that they should be releasing in the near future. There are 5 songs on the EP and I think my favourite might be the opening track, “Never Heard So Much Before”.

Homecomings: one of my favourite Japanese bands is Homecomings. That is no surprise. I was happy to include them once on a compilation CD and I’m happy to see that they continue releasing great music. The latest is this new video for their song “Songbirds” which is the A side for their new 7″ on Second Royal Records which has on the B side the track “Songbirds (Miniascape Sunset)”. It is also included in the “Songbirds” CD which includes one extra song, “Play Yard Symphony (for New Neighbors)”. I need both records. That is very clear to me.

Plastic Girl in Closet: another Japanese band with a new video. I have recommended this band before because it sounds amazing. So why not recommend them again with this video that looks vintage, from the 80s. This new official video for the song “Like a Strawberry” looks cool and sounds better. It is included in the new album “Lesson 1”.

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I continue with this trend I started last year of rotating the countries of the bands being featured on the blog. Sure, I can’t do it like last year were I showcased bands from almost 50 countries back to back, but I can manage to share with you bands from all over, right? So today is the turn for Japan.

I wanted to do some digging details about a band I know very little about. A band that as far as I know had no proper releases but just a few compilation appearances. Compilations I don’t own, and I wish I did. That’s the case with many Japanese releases for me. Wish I had more.

I would love to know where the name of this band comes from. Like who was Margaret? The only facts I know from the start, before writing this post is that they were on two compilations on the legendary Bluebadge Label in the early 2000s.

They had the song “Sunny Day” on the label’s second release, “Bluebadge Compilation Vol. 2 Pop Comes Up!” (BBCD 002) from 2002. They actually had the first song on the CD. This compilation includes many bands that I’m not familiar with and that I wish to explore. The ones i know are only a few like Hairsalon, Mondialito or Hazel Nuts Chocolate.

Their second compilation appearance is on the superb CD compilation “Guitar Pop Crazy! (Bluebadge Compilation Vol.3)” (BBCD 009) from 2005. This time they had the fifth song on the CD and they share this compilation with classic bands like The Caraway, Spaghetti Vabune! or Sloppy Joe who have been featured on the blog! The song the band contributed was “春街日和”. The song name in English would be “Sunflower of Spring Town”.

I keep looking for more information. I find a Mixi community group for the band. There is not much information sadly. It does seem as the band used to have a website. Now it doesn’t exist anymore.  But I do find an interesting detail, the vocalist was named Mayumi Hozaki. And she actually performed solo for the first time in 5 years in Tokyo in 2012.

I was then to find a Soundcloud with a few songs by the band. It is an account by Hideaki Hamada who I believe was also part of the band. There are a few compilations he has made of his favourite pop songs, including a lot of indiepop and most importantly some songs by Margarets* Hope like “春街日和“, “赤いスィートピー“, “ひこうき雲“, “One Year” and “From June to July“. The sound quality on some of them is not the best, maybe they were recorded live. But still it is worth checking out!

From what I gather these days Hideaki is a photographer who has worked in many projects and has had exhibitions all over Japan and also Taiwan. He was born in Aawaji Island in Hyogo and these days he lives in Osaka. That makes me wonder if Margarets* Hope was based in Osaka? Or maybe in Tokyo as Mayumi played a solo show there.

Also why the asterisk on the band’s name?

I stumble upon a blog that shows what may have been a proper release, an EP for “Sunny Day”. The images seem to be broken, so I can’t say if it existed at this point. But 5 songs are listed for it, “Sunny Day”, “Be Happy Again (Rock ver./demo)”, “Now I Know (demo)”, “Square of Summer Sky (live recording)” and “Snowy Street (live recording)”. There are some credits too, Mayumi Hozaki is credited for vocals, flute, chorus, percussion and programming (yamaha qy70) and Hideaki Hamada on guitars, chorus and programming (logic audio).

The band also used to have a Myspace back in the day. Today there’s nothing in it. But I could see that Mayumi had a profile too where it shows she was based in Temma, Kansai. All these locations are confusing to me. Can’t figure out where the band was based.

Then on the Japan Live blog, I notice an entry from 2011 where it mentions that the band was based in Osaka. At last! Someone confirms it. This post mentions that Mayumi was to play in an event called Pop Planet in Seoul, Korea. Actually it does seem as Mayumi had released a CD album though I can’t figure out much as it is all written in Japanese. I believe it is called in English “Wind and Hitomi” and included 5 songs and released by Lepus Records. On the description it mentions that Margarets* Hope was started in 2001 and split in 2007.

I find a listing where it mentions that Margarets Hope* played on September 30th 2006 at a gig commemorating the release of Philia Records’ “Good Day”. The bands that played that night were Kunoshibi, Kobayashi Shinano, Haydon, Trans Alphabet and The Sweet Onions.  There is another gig I found from January 20th of the same year, 2006. This one at the Cyclone venue where they joined Humming Parlour, Orange Noise Shortcut and Three Berry Icecream.

Lastly I found another song on Youtube, one called “夕暮れ通り“.

I could confirm the band hailed from Osaka and also the names of the band members. I couldn’t find if they were involved in any other bands. Or if they had proper releases. It looks like they did have one, a “Sunny Day” EP, but maybe it doesn’t even exist. Would be great to find out more about them! Do any of my Japanese friends remember them?

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Listen
Margarets Hope* – Sunny Day