Burma Shade

Connected Magazine – July Issue no#17

With much of their bio focusing on the bouts of mass disrobement and headache inducing dilemmas their debut gig caused, there are no prizes for guessing what’s on my list of questions for Dublin five-piece, Burma Shade.
“Our first gig in the Sugar Club… yeah, that was interesting,” laughs the band’s bassist, Reverend Barry Black. The giggles finally subside and I’m left awaiting a little enlightenment… only nothing comes. “I’m going to leave it at that” he concludes, laughter still festering. Singer Lucy Gunning stays conspicuously quiet, and I’m having visions of being forced to fill this interview up with random talk of car chases and dream sequences.
Thankfully, a little gentle coaxing presents one last chance to elaborate. “We’re a bit manic onstage,” Barry eventually explains. “A lot of it would be down to stage performance. Myself, Tom and Lucy all studied acting, so we try to bring in a show that’ll give people more of an enjoyable night out instead of just the five of us standing there, singing songs. We do a lot of audience interaction with percussion and stuff like that too. You know, we try and bring everyone into it, rather than just having people become bystanders and pedestrians.”
With two EP’s under their belt, Burma Shade (a play on words inspired by a Tom Waits song) have already managed to fit a considerable amount in during their short time together. “Yeah, well we’re kind of still starting out,” explains Lucy. “We’re a year and three months old, so we think we’ve made good enough progress so far. We need to get back recording more stuff, but we’ve done a fair few gigs since Christmas now, we’d a good show at the JD set, and things are going well; we’re getting a good response from the web too.”
Only too aware of the good fortune that MySpace can bring to a band, the phenomenon of having an easily accessible music profile is something the band are enthusiastic about: “MySpace is brilliant,” enthuses Barry. “We only joined it four months ago and we’ve over 1,500 hits now on music downloads. A lot of people are coming to the shows just on the strength of what’s there, which is great. We’re also setting up some gig spots with London bands as well – we’re going to go over there and they’re going to come over here – so it’s great for networking.”
Burma Shade will be bringing their proclivity for on-stage dramatics, brooding vocals, and strategically precise 48-minute sets to a venue near you soon. Both ‘Only Losers Lose, But Winners Sometime Come Second’ and their current release,’Be Upstairs Ready My Angel’ – which the band reluctantly describes as “alternative rock, because we really don’t sound like anyone else” – are still available to buy. For a listen online, log onto www.burmashade.com or www.myspace.com/burmashade -

Cian Traynor

Scan of article here http://www.burmashade.com/Images/jpegs/inter.jpg - Connected Magazine

"The word on the street is that Burma Shade will be the band of this year when this time next year awards are being given out so check them out right now....." - The Hub.com