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Saturday, July 22, 2006
Espina: A New Day Breaks
By Cattski Espina
Til the Cat lady sings
MAINTAINING our professional relationships make our lives challenging because it demands a lot of effort. Relationships, regardless of nature, simply require a lot of work. Personally, I wouldn’t mind that because it’s also very rewarding to be part of a team and achieve goals with teamwork as the empowering factor. But when personal differences get in the way, the healthy thing to do is cut ties and separate.
In the music scene, it’s not just bands that separate and break up. The entities that support the bands…production groups, event organizers and independent labels also have their share of conflicts or ‘personal differences’.
That’s what happened with Ace Rivera whose departure from Lighter Records last year paved way to the birth of a new independent label called Daybreak Records.
Ironically, a Manila band was first to sign up with Daybreak–a statement that even if they are a Cebu-based label, they don’t just sign up Cebu artists. The band was Menaya. Menaya recorded their album in Backyard Projects Recording Studio and played Cebu for a while before they were deployed back to Manila.
Early this year, Daybreak released another album dubbed Shewowah of the band Tabularaza from Cagayan de Oro City. Cebu’s very own Powerspoonz is scheduled to release their highly-anticipated new album this September while Gasulina, another band from Cagayan will be launching their debut album this October.
Sheila And The Insects, who recently had their separation issues with their Manila management and distributing label V3 (a subsidiary of Viva Records), will entrust their 2005 album Flowerfish to Daybreak. A re-packaged Flowerfish album with additional new tracks will soon be released to answer the nationwide demand. For some reason, their major label wasn’t so effective in getting the albums accessible to fans nationwide thus the discontentment from the SATI boys. But Daybreak is geared to put an end to their woes and SATI fans will soon find Flowerfish on the shelves of popular record bars everywhere.
Though it has only been a year since they started operations, Daybreak is at the top of their game with activities lined up for their artists. They have a sub-unit called Daybreak Management where a key person is assigned to each of the bands to plan and implement the promotion of their albums. The key person will also coordinate the band’s gig schedules and tours. Their sustaining factor, for the moment, is the production of events and the marketing these events to corporate sponsors. At the same time, the events become a venue for their artists to promote their music.
To be an independent label is hard work. They have to contend with distribution, inventory, production, publishing, marketing, promotions etc. Plus they have to deal with the politics in the dog-eat-dog world of the Manila music industry. At the moment, they understand that they are still experiencing a lot of birth pains, but they’re positive that it’s bound to go away. They believe in the potential of their roster of bands and it’s just a matter of time for these bands to claim their share of the crowd.
What I admire most about Daybreak is that they seem to take so much pride of their humble beginnings and I truly appreciate their love for the music scene, as well as their drive to contribute to it. It gives us musicians a sense of hope and a feeling that someone’s got our backs. Indeed great things start from small beginnings (according to a milk commercial) just like a new day starts with a crack of light on the dark eastern sky. And I can’t wait to see what this new day can bring to the sound of the south side.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 22, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
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