A musical & spoken word performance for literary events. Booking for 2012.
The Bookshop Band write songs about books. Mel McCree sings and writes books.
Together they present a new show that meanders musically through literature, like a slow afternoon walk with a good friend. With lyrical accompaniment from the Bookshop Band, Mel reads and sings extracts by request. This part is fresh and improvised. Then the Band present a menu of songs based on books from their celebrated residency at Mr B’s Book Emporium in Bath.
The Bookshop Band have attracted national attention since forming at Mr B’s in 2010, appearing on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row. Their album ‘Travels From Your Armchair’ (mixed at Real World Studios near Bath) sells from Mr B’s while the band members Ben Please, Poppy Pitt and Beth Porter busy themselves with a host of musical and creative projects. With a background in theatre, music and voice, Mel is well suited to the role of reader and vocalist, bringing playful and adventurous possibility to the collaboration.
You’ll like this if you enjoy:
BBC R3‘s ‘Words and Music’ , acoustic singer-songwriters, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, ‘A Digested Read’ by Crace, sparse and beautiful sounds.
Note to event organisers: Specific texts can be requested by the organisers to tie in with author appearances or book launches.
A selection of book extracts can be chosen live during or preceding the event by the audience. Spoken simply with a subtle soundtrack, or evocative musical reconstructions of the text leading into song or groove. Both bring the book’s words and themes to life in new ways.
An engaging live music performance that embraces the form of book reading; ‘Words in Music’ lends variety and audience interactivity to a literary event.
‘Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.’ Victor Hugo
‘Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.’
E.Y. Harburg
‘Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words.’ Elie Wiesel
Contact: email mmccree at glos dot ac dot uk
http://www.thebookshopband.co.uk/
Some of Mel’s previous work:
Do Sunsets Cry?, live and improvised with improvising collective Meleliale
Nature Boy, live, with Matthias Strassmuller on guitar
Ninth Wave, own composition.
