Busted!
Pinkberry have been recording music and making videos up at Soma recently. And when I was checking out some of the photos on Douban I spotted Shanghaiist music writer Jake Newby. That's him in the blue T-shirt.
Actually that sounds a bit different to the reality. I knew Jake was going to be there, in fact we were going to go together but I had la duzi. I didn't know the idea was to be actually in the video though. So ... anyway ... Pinkberry are not really on Soma's label so what's up with all this free studio time and development? Sonnet drummer and Soma employee Lezi tells me that he will start his own label to promote Sonnet, Pinkberry and 21G. It's all early days now but the resources are there for him to use.
I thought SOMA had signed pinkberry after reading the follow:
"SOMA who, incidentally, recently signed Pinkberry to their Indie Top label." in this article - http://shanghaiist.com/2009/06/08/pinkberry_and_the_pepsi_pullava_3.php
Not true?
Ha! Thanks Andy, I promise I was awake even though it seems my eyes are closed in that photo.
@Suzy Seems I may have been a little hasty there. Given the amount of support that Soma have been giving Pinkberry and that the band had said they were "working with" them, I thought that meant that they'd been signed. Apparently, not so. It seems Soma aren't convinced they can make them pop enough, hence Lezi stepping in to fill the breach and taking them on with their own sound. Sorry for the mistake.
@Jake, thanks for clarifying. And yay for Lezi!
Hi Suzy
There is a little more to it potentially too. Actually, we all initially reported PB as being on Soma after PB themselves told us directly they were.
Then after I watched the Pepsi comp on TV (that PB won) I noticed that some of the judges had connections to Soma and one, Zhang Wei, worked for them directly. When I followed up and asked Lezi directly about it, PB were then 'not on Soma, but recording for free there'.
Actually, it's fairly normal in the music world for labels or managers to throw boons to potential bands or do a bit of development work with them prior to giving a full deal. I suppose.
Soma has just started the new musician cultivating plan.that is to help potential bands or musicians to record their demo songs for free.and if the song's good enough, soma will put the song into the Indie top album.Pb is one of the bands which are now working with soma.that does not mean soma will sign pb or pb wants to be signed under soma.
acctually, indie top is an album label that concentrates on the new bands/musicians and will release every 6 months. soma will offer some fee to the bands/musicians to use their songs in the album.and that also does not mean the band take part in the indie top album is under soma's label.
:) and thank you andy and jake.
Thanks for the details Lezi.
I must say ... if free developing, to see if a song might be included on Indietop Two, includes shooting a professional video like Pinkberry ... then I must start hanging around with you more ;) ha.
You can DL my stuff now right here. The singer is local.
By the way. Do you have any plans for developing Candy Shop (tianpin dian). They are a good band and I saw them at the DF gig too.
Speaking of Expendable, when can we get our hands on a physical EP?
Andy you are very welcome to come to soma to record ur songs but the video is not included, cause pb contact the video director themselves.
candy shop has finished recording their song named 'chao liu' at soma and i recommended to the radio station and one of the radio program uses the song as their theme song. you can hear it on fm 101.7 every Sat. from 5pm to 6pm.
Hey Lezi
Sorry, I was half-joking about the studio. But I think me and Jake will certainly come and visit you there sometime soon.
I have a video of Chao Liu live on the blog from 6 months ago or more. Unfortunately Youtube is blocked now so we need a proxy to see it. In Tianpin Dian the two singers Melody and YKE also have star potential and are great performers. The band are all nice people too.