This is one that is more …and music in the football and music category. The band uses the theme and imagery of football, but none of their material ever really covered the subject of the beautiful game.

The name as you’ve already guessed, is after the legend. Their music is shoegaze and they are from Japan.

They formed at the advent of the World Cup in 1998, which was also the first appearance by Japan.

Here’s a quick (google translated) paragraph about them from their Japanese wikipedia entry:

Cruyff in the bedroom is a Japanese rock band. Genreally it is classified as a shoegazer. In recent years, elements of various genres such as jazz, post rock, house (music), world music, etc. are scattered. American shoegazer by clairecords of specialty label, named “King of shoegazer”, recently has also been so self-styled in the band side. While playing Hata as a vocalist of THE ZIP GUNS, encounter with shoegazer and Creation records, conflicts occurred within the band trying to incorporate the sound creation affected by them, and THE ZIP GUNS broke up. Later, in 1998 cruyff in the bedroom will be formed around Hata and Hironaka. Leader Hata Yusuke is known as a football fan, emphasizing what he formed in 1998 when Japan played his first appearance in the World Cup, calling the release of sound sources “kick off”, receiving interviews with football magazines.

That’s the one thing you need to get right when forming a band. It will either help on hinder your success as much as the music. By using the name of Johan Cruyff it opened doors, got them featured and interviewed.

A side thought: I don’t know why The Cruyff Turn hasn’t been used yet. As I said gets you noticed.

– That imagery (or exploitation ?) of Cryff was used on their 1st EP:

Cruyff In The Bedroom - 1st EP

Again no actual mention of football in their music.

This continued with their 2nd and 3rd EPs (gallery below), before they even went to have the cheek of calling their 2001 release: Top Of The World and put a football on the cover but still without any football references inside any of the songs. And then there was the Shoegazer Of Happy Valley EP with a picture of a football pitch. Finally there was the Carillon Blue single with some Subbuteo figures on the front.
Still no football in their music.

It’s not that I’m unhappy about any of this though. I’m fine with that. It is their band their music. But they could have at least had one tune that included a referee’s whistle being blown at the beginning or something. That would have satisfied me.

Despite a lack of actual football and music credentials they are still worth a listen.

» The aforementioned Shoegazer Of The Happy Valley EP is good:

– And one for you to take away. A very mellow tune:
» cruyff in the bedroom – carillon blue

Extra time and additional notes:
We Love All That first noticed them back in 2010. It’s took me this long to actually write something.

The KCPR blog has a look at this band and others in the Japan shoegaze scene.

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