Soft People (b. 2007- d. 2008) profile picture

Soft People (b. 2007- d. 2008)

About Me

Formed in the winter of 2007,this West Philly band combines the lyrical wit and cynicism of Ray Davies, Mayo Thompson and Frank Zappa with the fluid musical versatility of Lee Hazlewood,Can, Os Mutantes, and various international reactions to the psychedelic, garageand prog rock explosion. Zach Sulat (vocals,guitar), Matt Ricchini (drums,vocals), and Michael Heinzer (bass) spent five years refining their songwriting, performance, free improvisation, and communal-living tensions as members of The Doctor & Philip and Burrs. Eric Carbonara (guitar), a solo musician with a record released recently on Locust Music’s Wooden Guitar series joined them to form Soft People.
Soft People have shared the stage with Damo Suzuki's Network, Dirty Projectors, Jennifer Gentle, Samara Lubelski, The Dodos, Birds of Maya, Begushkin, Stinking Lizaveta, Pattern is Movement, Castanets, Shapes and Sizes, Alec K Redfearn, Madagascar, Orion Rigel Domisse, Anup Pradhan, Lizz King, Whales and Cops, Public Record, Mike Tamburro, members of the Teeth and the Spinto band, and others.
please visit Live Music Journal for video of us, and other great shows around Philly!

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 07/03/2006
Band Website: http://www.softpeoplemusic.com
Band Members: Zach Sulat
Michael Heinzer
Matt Ricchini
Eric Carbonara
Influences: The Kinks, The Fugs, Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Scott Walker, Lee Hazlewood, Fairport Convention, Bobby Conn, Serge Gainsbourg, Robert Wyatt, Mothers of Invention, Sun City Girls, Franco Battiato, Can, Faust, Parson Sound, Edip Akbayram, Ali Farke Toure, the Free Design, Silver Apples, The Monks, Captain Beefheart, Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett, Gong, Red Krayola, Pere Ubu, Broadcast, This Heat, Ennio Morricone, Spacemen 3..
Sounds Like: "Psyched is definitely the correct word to describe their fluid psych-pop with a garage-twinge. Listenable, blastable, and somewhat danceable, Soft People have staying power."
-Walrus Music Blog 3/26/08

"Soft People make their proper debut with the self-released The Vapors, an aptly named swirl of influences obscure yet unimpeachable. Everyone will hear something different, but fans of Vintage Violence-era John Cale, post-Swell Maps Nikki Sudden, and early King Crimson will surely lap it up like so much acid-laced milk.

Though costume changes seem to come with every song, the band’s basic engine is a droning, jangled, cosmic psych-pop that straddles terrestrial songwriting and intergalactic bliss. There’s French singing in “The Vapors,” fluffy horns on “Sugarmama” and lurid tinges of spaghetti Western in the middle of “Concentration.”

Once The Vapors starts making the rounds, Soft People’s currency will grow exponentially. Funny how making a bravura psych masterpiece can do that."
-Doug Wallen, Philadelphia Weekly 3/5/08

"adorable pups"-Doug Wallen, Philadelphia Weekly 06.04.08

Record Label: Interested?

My Blog

Turkeys get "done", Records get "Finished"

and ours is. we're finalizing art and mastering stuff in the coming weeks. our trip with Begushkin last week was a blast. we've got a few cool shows in the works, here and there over the coming mon...
Posted by on Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:45:00 GMT

Where’d the songs go?

they've become obsolete. expect fresher, younger replacements soon.
Posted by on Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:31:00 GMT

Hey everyone, it’s October!

I don't think that's significant, though.We all took a listen to the record last week, in what we think will be its sequence, and took final notes. Hopefully we'll have an idea of what we're doing wi...
Posted by on Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:59:00 GMT

What a week! What happens next?

Well, we got through it... We hosted Jennifer Gentle, their tourmates the Dodos, and Birds of Maya at the Vacuum on Tuesday. It was an excellent night all around, a joint West Philly-Fishtown effort...
Posted by on Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:15:00 GMT

One last thing...

One or two more parts to track. Final mixing won't take long, just need some touch ups.Then you gotta wait a little longer.Keep an eye out...AND GO TO THE JENNIFER GENTLE SHOW!!!
Posted by on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:01:00 GMT

The list is getting pretty short..

shhhhhhhhhh!!! (i think we're almost done!)
Posted by on Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:32:00 GMT

Just me and my organ, alone, today

While the rest of the band was out of the house, i put a mic up to my organ, and played it all over four full songs. It sounds good.
Posted by on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:00:00 GMT

This house is like a sinking ship

and taking on more water all the time..... more rain water in the basement on Wednesday forced us to cancel more drum tracking and work on just guitars and some vocals. In the past week we put down ...
Posted by on Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:53:00 GMT

Um, it's nearer....

Dont worry, it really will be worth all this work. Right?Right?The next one will take two weeks.We've been easing into recording at our new house. We've put down the final tracks for everything, and...
Posted by on Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:33:00 GMT

The End Is Near

Even though we're in the middle of a big move, we've started recording the final 3 songs for this record. I think I may have gotten our best drum sound yet yesterday.. RE20 super close the front hea...
Posted by on Fri, 08 Jun 2007 06:42:00 GMT