EVENTS
Dartmouth House
SUMMER AND AUTUMN EVENTS HIGHLIGHTS
24 September
THE BOOKSHOP BAND
We ’ re called The Bookshop Band as that is what we are , it ’ s more a description than a name . In 2010 the owner of our local independent bookshop , Mr B ’ s Emporium of Reading Delights , asked me ( Ben ) if he could bring together a few musicians to play some songs at the shop ’ s author evenings , to play something relevant to the theme of the night . Beth Porter and Poppy Pitt joined Ben , and together we started to write two songs for each evening , initially based on folk tales , but quickly developing to reading the book before the event and writing two songs inspired by it . When we got round to recording our first CD , and choosing a name , what else could we be ? We were just The Bookshop Band , who only played in bookshops with songs about books .
We have a huge reading backlog of books to read for future events , so we ’ d all be tempted to take some of those . Of the books we have already read and written songs about Beth says she would take The Teleportation Accident by Ned Bowman . It ’ s a really quirky funny book with a thousand details that would come up on a second ( third , fourth …) reading . Poppy says she would take Alice in Wonderland , a bit of escapism fantasy would go well on a desert island . I would take Don ’ t Let ’ s Go To The Dog ’ s Tonight , by Alexandra Fuller , an autobiography about growing up in East Africa in the 1980 ’ s .
Each book is very different , so we end up writing in so many different styles , but the instrumentation is always acoustic , with cellos , guitars and harmoniums featuring regularly . We ’ re quite prone to picking up random other instruments when we find them , so it ’ s a fairly eclectic sound . We were trying to think up a genre name , not to define the sound , but to define the source of the inspiration behind the music , books . Booktone ? Bookcore ? Any ideas gratefully welcomed !
We love playing in tiny bookshops , it ’ s our lifeblood as a band , so we ’ ll always play in them . 2013 has been about touring for us . We ’ ve been to Ireland and Paris , and are currently touring bookshops around the UK all through the summer . Later in 2013 we ’ ll be recording our second batch of four albums , and then in 2014 we ’ re going to try for a couple of tours even further afield . We ’ d love to make it to the US , and Australia if we can .
TICKETS
The Bookshop Band will be at Dartmouth House on 24 September . You can now book tickets online at www . esu . org / tickets or call 020 75291582 .
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