Winnifred by Roommates

Ben Cook Aka Young Guv (Fucked Up, Marvelous Darlings, The Bitters) and Marvelous Mark Fosco (Marvelous Darlings) lived together as flat mates for 4 years. Mark came home from his deli job one day with an illicit substance he traded a customer for a deli sandwich. The first session "Back to the Sun/Girlfriend Swap" cannot be remembered by either Roommate but nevertheless ended up on a run of 66 cassettes by now defunct label from the Arctic, Scotch Tapes. "Back To The Sun" is a smashing, soaring bit of power-pop that would sound right at home on a Power Pearls comp, complete with soaring harmonies and mod-ish drum fills. "Girlfriend Swap" is even more tumultuous, exploding in a blur of pop-art guitar flash.

The next session ("Kelly, I'm Not A Creep"/"1st Floor Blues") was of a similar nature, and also ended up as a tape series by Scotch Tapes. "Kelly, I'm Not A Creep" is just an amazing ballad, radio-ready in some weird parallel universe where The Raspberries are on Midnight Special every week, Bram Tchaikovsky is still in The Records and American Bandstand still has skinny tie power-pop bands on every Saturday morning.

The Roommates played 5 shows in a small cafe in the east end of Toronto called "One Stop Sandwich & Coffee". They were all matinees. The cafe was next to the Don Jail, and was mainly a place for family members visiting inmates to get a cup of joe and a donut. Although originally meant to be a band of extremely limited and rare pressings that no one would ever really hear, the songs are now smartly compiled on 7" by Slumberland. Too catchy to be so secret. Too packed with mod/power-pop goodness to miss. Enjoy!

Pop label with a stubborn streak, since 1989.

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