Sunday, January 4, 2015

Brighten the New Year With a Little Shine!

Cloudberry has quite a track record of unearthing obscure music from the golden age of jangle pop, and the Astoria, N.Y.-based label has done it again. Did you miss Shine! the first time around? I know I did, but you might have a faint memory of seeing the Norwich-area band supporting the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Darling Buds, Inspiral Carpets, McCarthy or the Wolfhounds back in the day. You may have heard them on Peel, too. There were appearances on a couple of compilations, a flexi, a split 12" and two tapes (with only a handful of copies made), and that's more or less the entire Shine! discography. Cloudberry has just gathered the lot and released it as a 21-song CD digipak. Based on the strength of the following two songs, as well as comparisons to the classic lineup of the Wedding Present, this will be my first purchase of 2015. Here is the ordering info, as well as an
in-depth interview
Cloudberry did with the lads. Great fun.

Shine! - Bite the Apple

3 comments:

The Swede said...

Crikey! There's a name from the past. I saw Shine! in support slots at The Wilde Club a couple of times, but had never heard any recordings by them until now. Gedgetastic!

Brian said...

That's really cool, Swede. It's reissues like these that remind us how many great bands didn't make it. Since you seem to have been from the area, perhaps you know this Barry Newman fellow that seemed to organize the indie scene... shows, club, label, etc. I love characters like that. I'm sure he's a good story. Always wished I'd had the gumption to be a chap like that.

The Swede said...

I used to have a record shop in East Anglia and for a period ran coach trips to gigs in Norwich, including The Wilde Club and also sold the label's records in store. I'm certain that I met and spoke to Barry on a couple of occasions, but I didn't know him.