How independents slip their discs
- Source: Global Times
- [09:17 September 01 2010]
- Comments
Members from local band Pinkberry play at the Mao Livehouse Shanghai. Photos: Courtesy of ZLHF
By Nick Muzyczka
With the incessant summer heat battering people into a state of inactivity and the culture programs of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai dominating the landscape, the local underground music scene is quiet at the moment.
The Global Times takes this opportunity to consider the scene's infrastructure, turning its attention toward independent record labels to see how they are faring.
The Shanghai scene is still relatively immature and most of the currently active non-mainstream labels have only been around for a couple of years.
In recent times Zhu Lu He Feng (ZLHF), a label founded by three members of Sonnet, a popular post-punk band, has been the most active.
Appearing toward the end of 2009, ZLHF aims to focus on the indie and underground scene. On its roster at present are eight local bands and one French rock group called "The Nitwits."
"To form this label was always my dream. At university I played in a band and thought that running a record label would be very cool thing to do," said drummer Yan Yang (aka Lezi), a founding member of ZLHF.
The label promotes itself in a variety of ways, including organizing university tours. In May it organized a successful series of gigs in the Songjiang University Town and on the Shanghai University campus in Jiading district.
"The tours are an important part of boosting the local music scene. They provide access to music for college students who live far away from the downtown venues, while also generating more interest in these venues. And of course, some CDs are sold," Yan said.
Finances at ZLHF are complicated, with no standardized processes in place. "We don't have very tight contracts with our bands. With each of the nine bands we have different agreements," Yan explained.
"For Pinkberry, Sonnet and Jiao Ke we do full management and album stuff, so we help them record and cover the costs for albums then the CD sales go to the label. Other bands want more independence and we can work with this too."
While Shanghai may not yet be an easy place for labels to thrive, ZLHF's approach of being quietly industrious seems to be paying off. At the moment it has five of its bands - Sonnet, Mr, Jiao Ke, Plastic Chocolate and Manbanpai - in the studio.
Local music buff, writer and one-half of the very informative kungfuology.com blog Jake Newby believes that Yan has shown that with a sensible and organized approach it is possible to make progress in the scene: "He's basically taken a bunch of bands who have had a decent set of songs for a while now and gotten them to record them. He's shown that it doesn't need to be particularly fancy."
