User:Jjkuhn75/sandbox

The Oklahoma City indie rock band Shiny New Realm is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Barry Woody. After playing with various musicians in and around Oklahoma City, Barry felt driven to release an album of his own. Having recorded an album with Western Residents at Bell Lab Studio, he decided Trent Bell (owner of Bell Lab and former member of Chainsaw Kittens) would be the perfect producer to help polish his ideas and he went back to the Studio. He recruited his perennial band mate and occasional songwriting assistant JJ Kuhn to play the bass and played the rest of the instruments himself. In 2018, with assistance and guidance from Trent, they released Beam To a Better Time. Rooted in the indie rock boom of the nineties, seasoned with a nod to the earlier New Wave, Woody has a voice that is timeless and completely his own.

JJ had played bass in The Half Empties Starting in 2003 with Chris McMillan, Brent Shepard and Charles Parker. After crafting a short set list the group began playing small shows in Oklahoma City mostly at the historic Blue Note. Their shows were highlighted with the songs Emily, HiFi and The Country Song. Charles left the band in 2004 to head for San Francisco. After toying as a trio for a short stint, Brent, Chris and JJ recruited their good friend Barry Woody and formed Good Morning Midnight in 2005. Chris and Barry shared vocal, guitar and songwriting duties with Brent and JJ carrying the rhythm as drums and bass respectively. Together they played extensively in Oklahoma City and the surrounding area, still anchoring their show at the Blue Note. They had a highly energetic live show with a small but loyal following.

Shepard moved to Tulsa and the band broke up, really as they were coming into their own. Eventually, in Tulsa, Brent joined up with the classic rock group, American Shadows. Back in OKC, Barry, JJ and Chris found a Drummer, Chris Bradley and set out again in 2009, in the band that would eventually become Western Residents. After playing shows and small festivals together for 4 years the group recorded Sunlit Nights in 2013. Creative differences led to another shake up and the group split.

Barry continued to play music with several different line-ups following the demise of Western Residents. Some of those lineups still included JJ, and through it Barry continued to prodigiously write new songs. After the conception of Shiny New Realm, a band without boundaries, and after the recording Beam to a Better Time in 2018, Barry and JJ reached out to Shepard and McMillan and invited them to explore music together again, more than a decade after their first venture in Good Morning Midnight. They’ve put together their own makeshift studio hidden in a warehouse near downtown Oklahoma City, and from there they released Shake Your Smile in 2020 their first single together as a quartet 15 years after their origins together.