LAS ROBERTAS

002. FEB2012. TALK.

Mercedes Oller, 23, spends her days dreaming of a new life for the El Antiguo Banco Anglo, a neoclassical building designed by her great-grandfather, Jaime Carranza. Its blue half-columns tower over downtown San José, the Costa Rican capital, and with its imposing arches and majestic flags, the bank looks more suited to its future life than its present one: badly restored, empty for most of the year, an echo of a once vibrant neighbourhood. People now want to turn it into a museum.

While not writing her thesis on historical building preservation Oller her spare moments playing guitar for Las Robertas, a four piece tracing its roots back to The Ronettes, C86, Phil Spector and Sonic Youth.

“There are no bands in San José doing anything like our music,” says Oller. “Which is surprising, because our city has one of the highest number of bands per capita anywhere in the world. People say: ‘We can’t hear your voices. It sounds reverberated.”

Oller became interested in music through her father. “I remember sitting on his lap at the age of four with his guitar and trying to jam with him to the Beatles,” she says. In 2003, she became involved in the city’s music scene with her first band, Alta Costura.

The following year she met bass player and vocalist Monserrat Vargas Hernández, 21, via MySpace. The pair collided with vocalist Lola Miche, 18, in a bar. Ana María Valenciano Aymerich, 19, their drummer, is a graphic design major.

The band now plays in the city’s venues like El Cuartel de la Boca y el Monte, Latino Rock Café and El Observatorio. Oller is currently listening to The Shop Assistants, The Rosehips, Black Tambourine and other Slumberland outfits from the early 1990s.

“There’s not enough money in the city, that’s for sure,” she concludes. “But it will get better for the new generation. Some friends of mine converted El Steinvorth, a small venue in the city for parties, where we recently opened for Japandroids. It’s really small but we like playing there, even if it means we have to hire in all the equipment and crew ourselves.” (@robbiesharp)

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