Live music is the best!

We love live music at the Tree House, and we have a couple of fabulous gigs this week and next.  There is a dynamic to live music that you just can’t get from recordings or television, and it’s especially magical in an intimate setting like the bookshop.  If you haven’t been to one of our gigs yet, why not try one of these?

This Friday, 6 May, we have Sarah McQuaid.  Sarah is a well-established singer/songwriter with four recorded albums and many international tours to her name.  She has a rich, beautiful voice – something like Carole King blended with Karen Carpenter but unique to her, and with folkier overtones.  Listen for yourself and see what you think.

 

On Friday 13 May, we have Gill Sandell with two musical friends.  Gill is best known as one of the Red Clay Halo who played with Emily Barker (who wrote what became the British Wallander theme song, among much else) for a number of years; they are all now doing their own things, but Gill will be joined by fellow Halo Anna Jenks on violin, and Ted Barnes – a slightly different line-up from the one advertised on the poster, if you’ve seen that.  Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo are one of my absolute favourite bands of recent times, and I was so thrilled when Emily called in to record a Big Comfy Session in the old shop – and thrilled now to have two more Halos playing for us.  Maybe we’ll get Jo Silverston, the fourth member, one day!  Gill is a multi-instrumentalist as well as a singer, playing flute, accordion, piano and guitar.  Here she is playing solo.

 

Tickets are £11 for Sarah McQuaid and £10 for Gill Sandell, from the bookshop or online.  These are two great opportunities to hear top quality live music in Kenilworth – would be a shame to miss out!  Our gigs also make lovely gifts for music-loving friends, and are a great way to introduce people to the Tree House.

More from Emily Barker

It’s been so busy at the Tree House lately that I failed to post this video when it was published, but here it is – the second song that Vena Portae recorded at the bookshop the other week as part of the Big Comfy Sessions – a cover of Peter, Bjorn and John’s Young Folks.  (Emily Barker sang in my bookshop!!!)

The Big Comfy Bookshop opens at the new Fargo Village development in Coventry next weekend (27 September), so that session really was the last to be filmed at the Tree House – I still feel so happy and privileged and honoured that we were able to host these lovely people.

There will be lots more fabulous music at the Big Comfy Bookshop, as well as lots of books, cake, coffee and much more, and I wish Michael all the very best in his own exciting new venture.  The Tree House is doing so well these days, and I hope the Big Comfy Bookshop will be equally successful – it’s so great that new bookshops are still opening and disproving the media gloom about the apparent demise of books and bookshops.  People still love books!  And bookshops are great places for music, films and all sorts of community events.

Emily Barker sang in my bookshop!!!!!

Me with Emily Barker in my bookshop!

Thursday 28 August 2014 was a big day for me.  When I opened the bookshop and was thinking about which musicians I would love to see playing here, Emily Barker was top of my list (well, other than Nick Cave, but I have to be slightly realistic…occasionally!  I’m getting the piano tuned just in case, though…).  In case you don’t know her music, she came to prominence after one of her songs was chosen as the theme song to the British version of Wallander, and then another, which won a BAFTA, to The Shadow Line, and she has made a few fabulous albums – look her up on youtube!   I knew that she was now too famous to come and do a gig for us, but she always seems so lovely and down to earth, she does record store gigs, and I hadn’t entirely given up on the dream.  Then the guys from the Big Comfy Sessions got in touch to ask if it would be OK to do a session on 28 August…with Emily Barker.  I screamed.  I wrote back in an email that was as close to the sound of me screaming as I could muster.

Last Thursday, the day arrived, and Emily turned up with her colleagues from Vena Portae, one of the projects in which she is involved, who were on a short tour and stopping off in the Midlands on their way up to Durham.  I screamed before she came, but managed to act with relative dignity once they arrived at the shop.

They then proceeded to engage in the best Big Comfy interview we’ve had, and sang two songs, one of their own and one cover, as is always asked of guests at the sessions.  They were outstanding…it was so lovely to have them sing at my bookshop, to a handful of us, and meet the very lovely Emily as well as Dom, Ruben and Jesper, the other members of Vena Portae, all equally lovely.  They have a new record out (their debut), which is wonderful, and Emily still sings with the Red Clay Halo, and she and Dom organise something called Folk in a Box – they talk about that in the interview.

All in all a hugely exciting and wonderful day for me, still can’t quite believe it!  Great people, great music.  In my bookshop!!  Here is the evidence – the video of their cover song will be along later.  Enjoy!