Watanabe Lu found a three-person band performing in LIVE HOUSE as an accompanist for Ye Zhao, the three of them are the same age as Watanabe Lu, they are all veterans of playing musical instruments for nearly ten years, although they all have formal jobs, only regard music as a side business, but the performance level is also quite superb.

After all, the studio had to pay 12,000 yen per hour, and in order to save money, the five of them found an abandoned old warehouse for a two-day rehearsal before officially entering the studio. The lead guitarist is Ye Zhao, the rhythm guitarist is the lead singer of the band, a thin and tall man surnamed Tanaka, the bassist is surnamed Okazaki, and the arm is tattooed with a lifelike green dragon, the drummer's surname is Takada, and he is an old smoking gun who smokes when he plays the drums, as for Watanabe Lu, although he is a bass player, before he came into contact with bass, the first instrument he learned was the piano, so he was the keyboardist this time.

In order to accommodate the working hours of the three band members, the official entry time was set at 8 o'clock in the evening.

The Submarine Recording Studio in Yoyogi is one of the studios that has a permanent partnership with Apollo Records. The studio is small and simple, with the most striking feature being a huge poster of the Beatles' "yellowSubmarine" hanging in the lobby, which is where the studio's name comes from.

This improvised band team has accumulated a certain tacit understanding in the two-day run-in, and the cooperation in the process of recording the accompaniment tape is not bad, and some of their opinions on the arrangement of the two songs have also benefited Ye Zhao a lot. When the accompaniment tape was recorded, Ye Zhao asked Watanabe Lu about the cost of asking the band to pay the bill, Watanabe Lu waved his hand: "There is no need to talk about money, I and Tanaka and their brothers have been old friends for many years, and this favor will be over if we go to the izakaya for a few drinks together." ”

After the accompaniment tape was recorded, Ye Zhao spent another ten hours to complete the recording of the song, and the rest of the work was handed over to the recording studio, where they completed the final mixing and mastering.

Regarding the album cover, Ye Zhao has also been prepared, in the photo album of the predecessor, there is a photo taken when he was on vacation on the coast of Shonan, the sparkling sea, the waves hit the beach, and he sat on the beach, facing the vast sea. Although only his back was photographed, it was just right for the cover of the single, after all, this is a summer single, and when it comes to summer, the protagonist should of course be the sea.

I casually found a print shop on the street, copied the photo, adjusted the color slightly, changed the size, and Ye Zhao took it to Apollo Records. At this point, Ye Zhao had done everything he could.

After the mastering was completed and accepted by Ye Zhao, the contract was about to reach the final step - contact the printing plate factory for batch printing, and then send the produced single to the record store in Tokyo for sale through the distribution channel of Apollo Records. And Ye Zhao also has to make up the rest of the money, in addition to the 600,000 yen balance that should be paid, there is also a total of 18 hours of studio usage fees of 216,000 yen, adding it up, recording this single cost him as much as 1 million and 6,000 yen, not only spent the bonus, but also posted 6,000 yen. If it weren't for Arakawa and Shi giving him a discount, and Watanabe Lu sponsoring the musicians in friendship, his little capital would really not be enough to toss.

By the way, in view of RB's copyright law, royalties will be generated as long as CDs are manufactured, not after they are sold, so even if these 2,000 CDs are returned by default, 80% of the royalties must still be paid to Ye Zhao, which is 1,600 CDs...... Of course, I can't get it now.

A week later, production of the single was fully completed and it was scheduled to be released on June 22. said that it was on the 22nd, because the ORICON chart counted the sales of the previous day, so in fact, on the 21st, this single will be officially put on the shelves, and as a singer and producer, Ye Zhao also got the finished product one step ahead.

Remove the plastic film, open the CD case, there is nothing but a small 8cm CD, even the lyrics are printed on the back of the CD cover, but the 8cm single at that time, basically this simple configuration.

The 8cm disc was born at the end of the 80s, until the end of the 90s, before Hikaru Utada set off the 12cm single reform, it was the mainstream of the RB music scene, its small appearance is not only easy to carry, compared to the square 12cm CD, it is also more material-saving, greatly reducing the cost of production, if Ye Zhao prints a 12cm single this time, the cost of the printing disc will pay nearly one-third of the money.

However, although the 8cm single has many advantages, it has a big disadvantage: it has a small capacity, it can only hold four songs. Therefore, with the development of the times, various music business laws were born, and 8cm singles that could not keep up with the trend slowly withdrew from the stage of history.

Looking at this single, which is almost all done by him inside and out, Ye Zhao sighed for a while, his hard work for this single and the high hopes he placed on it are comparable to those of his parents who want their son Jackie Chan.

got a total of ten singles from the record company, and Ye Zhao didn't have any friends in Tokyo, so he just gave one to Watanabe Riku, one for each of the three people in the band who helped him accompani, and one for Natsumi Fujii by mail, and he kept the rest himself.

Among the singles released on June 22nd, the most eye-catching are TRF's "Boy Meets Girl" and DEEN's "Hitomi そらさないで" (please don't look away), the former is the right-hand man of the Komuro family, and the latter is BEING's popular fried chicken, it can be said that the focus of the week's firepower is basically focused on these two bands, and the record store without exception has placed their CDs in the most conspicuous place as soon as you enter the door, and their songs are played in the store.

As for Ye Zhao's singles, they were naturally placed in an inconspicuous corner of the record store along with the singles of a bunch of little-known singers. Although the 90s was the golden age of CD sales, a few funny artists could sell tens or millions of copies in temporary combinations, but this does not mean that anyone can get a piece of the pie in this huge market.

In 1994, not counting actors, idols, models, and funny artists, there were more than 300 groups of singers who debuted, and the well-informed record store staff would not even confirm the record names of these miscellaneous artists, but just mechanically performed their duties to put them on the shelves.

For singers who have their own record companies and studios, every time they release a new song, the company will arrange a one-stop service for them, from appearing on TV groups to conducting magazine interviews, and even arranging small live performances or street performances for them, trying to ensure their exposure during the promotion period. And if an underground singer like Ye Zhao wants to become popular, in addition to being selected by a radio program, he can only rely on the reputation of the song itself.

This is also the reason why underground singers often strive to turn to the mainstream debut after achieving a certain degree of popularity, although underground singers have greater freedom in music and a more considerable share of records, but they do not get any guarantee in terms of publicity and exposure, and once they can't come up with good works, they will soon be forgotten.