We're BACK!

After a hiatus enforced by the meandering waters of life, we're back in a big way!  Bands & Books is delighted to announce its new home in the basement of Dalston's stupendous Power Lunches. 

 

Excited as we are about our new home, we are also excited with the line up - more of which later. First things first, dates: Bands & Books April is going to take place from 7:30 on Sunday 29th.  You can pre-order tickets here for £3, or it's a fiver on the door.  Or you can email me at welovebandsandbooks@gmail.com with the words

 AUSTERITY BRITAIN in the subject line, and you can come in for free, provided you promise to help out with marketing and/or miscellaneous jobs that need doing on the day.

We have, I think, our best lineup yet! 

As usual, we'll be profiling each of our acts in the lead up to the night, but in the mean time, here's a sneak peak at what you can expect:

Abigail Tarttelin

Morte Point

Molly Naylor

God's Mama

Can't wait for this one - see you in April!

Bands & Books x

Dirty Love Letters Written By Famous Authors

I think we've mentioned before how in love we our with Flavorwire, but they came up trumps last week with a real highlight for Valentine's day.  I'm talking about the dirty love letters written by James Joyce, Gustav Flaubert, Charles Bukowski, Franz Kafka, Oscar Wilde and more.  


When literary titans such as these turn their considerable talent to wooing, you better believe they come out with some great lines.  I'm sure one or two of you reading this blog will have at some stage attempted to tackle James Joyce's epic masterpiece Ulysees. I will admit not getting on with it myself, however had it contained more prose along the lines of his letter to Nora Barnacle in 1909, I suspect I might have made better progress:

I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. - James Joyce

Charles Bukowski writing to Linda King in 1972 can teach us all a little something about romance:

"...you, up against the refrigerator, you have such a wonderful refrigerator"

These and many more gems can be found over at Flavorwire, enjoy!


Meanwhile, we are gearing up for a super exciting Spring time Bands & Books announcement, so watch this space!

Bands & Books full Christmas Special Line-up!

I'm typing this entry with a growing sense of jollity as the season of goodwill is well and truly upon us! My reward for updating you on the fantastic full Bands & Books Christmas Special lineup is a warm Mince Pie from a very posh food shop dwelling in the basement of a notorious department store. Oh please let me get what I want!  I digress.
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It's happening here from 7:30PM on Friday 16th December, and it is FREE.
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Headlining the show this Friday is the Bishops who are exclusively unveiling material from their new album!
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Heralding from London, the band consist of twin brothers Mike Bishop (vocals, guitar) Pete Bishop (vocals, bass), younger brother Alex Bishop (vocals, guitar) and Scotsman Chris McConville (drums). Originally a three piece (Alex joined at the end of 2009) the band recorded their self-titled debut album 'The Bishops' at the infamous Toe Rag Studios, produced by creative analogue genius Liam Watson. This was released internationally in 2007 and followed up with their second album 'For Now' in 2009. Later that year the band celebrated their 500th gig at the historic 100 club in London. 

We're not just about Bands though. Oh no. This is Bands AND Books, and helping represent the world of literature is the wonderful Molly Naylor:
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Molly Naylor is a writer, performer, poet and theatre-maker. Her solo show,Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You debuted at the Edinburgh FestivalFringe in 2010 to critical acclaim, which proceeded an international tour. She was commissioned to write an audio adaptation of the show for BBC Radio 4, which was described by the Guardian as ‘a brave, funny, tough and beautiful piece of writing’. 

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We liked them so much first time around that we booked them for a triumphant return; Bible John are back to ensure no one goes home complaining that the bands weren't loud enough.
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Bible John formed on the day that Harold Camping predicted the world would end. Ignoring this prophecy the East London based trio spent some time exploring the darker sides of their collective musical psyche, rehearsing in a studio surrounded by rioting teenagers, they stumbled on their trademark bass drenched sound. The band is aiming for their first E.P. release in early 2012.
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A late addition to the line-up, but a VERY pleasing one, we are very pleased to present the considerable talent of Sean Mahoney. 
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A spoken word artist and comedian hailing all the way from north London, Sean Mahoney is an associate poet to the roundhouse with the Rubix collective and in the space of two years feels like he's performed in the upstairs of cellar or basement every pub in london has had a comedy or poetry night. He's writing his third biography for a gig today and feels funny talking about himself in third person but is incredibly happy to be doing it for bands and books. The night and idea excites him, his favourite performers have performed there, he's been on the blog a few times and is super happy he's been asked. Ready to go BRO!
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Reader Profile: Sean Mahoney

We are delighted to announce that this Friday's festive frolics are to be enhanced by the considerable talents of the one and only Sean Mahoney!  

A spoken word artist and comedian hailing all the way from north London, Sean Mahoney is an associate poet to the roundhouse with the Rubix collective and in the space of two years feels like he's performed in the upstairs of cellar or basement every pub in london has had a comedy or poetry night. He's writing his third biography for a gig today and feels funny talking about himself in third person but is incredibly happy to be doing it for bands and books. The night and idea excites him, his favourite performers have performed there, he's been on the blog a few times and is super happy he's been asked. Ready to go BRO!

We asked Sean for his favourite music so we can evaluate his taste in bands and judge him accordingly. Sean you have not let us down! 

Erykah Badu- Honey, Window seat

Statik Selekta- Play the game (featuring big KRIT and Freddie Gibbs)

Kendrick Lamar- A.D.H.D., Poe mans Dreams

Neil Young- Revolution blues, On the beach.

Steely Dan- Deacon blues, Aja, big black cow

Big KRIT- No Wheaties

The Roots- Make my.

Jay Electronica- Exhibit C

Fleet Foxes- Helplessness blues, Sim Sala Bim

Little Dragon- Shuffle a dream, Ritual reunion

9th Wonder- Now I'm being cool

Gillian Welch- Relevator, Wayside/back in time, Miss Ohio, Wrecking ball

Fabolous- Drugs do this to me.

Listen to Sean's playlist on Spotify here

It would be absurd for you to miss our Christmas special, we have further lineup announcements to make, so watch this space, we're also promised some mince pies courtesy of our friends over at I Want to Bake Free

See you from 7:30pm at the Victoria in Mile End!

Band Profile: The Bishops!

Like most people right now, we at Bands & Books HQ are busy decking the halls with bells of holly, but we took a few moments out to post a preview of our Christmas Special headliner, the Bishops:

Heralding from London, the band consist of twin brothers Mike Bishop (vocals, guitar) Pete Bishop (vocals, bass), younger brother Alex Bishop (vocals, guitar) and Scotsman Chris McConville (drums). Originally a three piece (Alex joined at the end of 2009) the band recorded their self-titled debut album 'The Bishops' at the infamous Toe Rag Studios, produced by creative analogue genius Liam Watson. This was released internationally in 2007 and followed up with their second album 'For Now' in 2009. Later that year the band celebrated their 500th gig at the historic 100 club in London.

Since then the band have grown from a three piece to a four piece lineup, welcoming younger brother Alex Bishop into the band. This year they released an EP 'Sojourn', their first material together. It marked a departure from the prominent garage/beat sound of their first two records into a more contemporary and alternative direction. The band are currently recording a brand new album which looks set for release next year. At the Bands & Books Xmas party the band will be playing new songs from their forthcoming album!


As is customary, we wanted to find out what's in the bishop's library, they gave us the following tidbits:

Mike: I've enjoyed recently 'The Master & Margherita' by Mikhail Bulgakov as well as 'Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck being one of my all-time favourites.
Pete: Favourite book 'Tropic of Cancer' Henry Miller. Curently reading 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Chris: Highway to Hell 'The Life and Times of Bon Scott'
Alex: Favourite fiction book: 'Ocean, Sea' by Alessandro Baricco, Favourite non fiction book: 'The Van Gogh Letters' by the man himself! 

We are thrilled about our Christmas special lineup, and have some more acts to brag about yet, so watch this space!  See you on the 16th December at the Victoria from 8pm!

Reader Profile: Molly Naylor

By now you will no doubt have the Bands & Books Christmas Special etched into your calendar and artfully annotated with hearts and quavers, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate the date, so here goes:

Bands & Books Christmas Special, Friday 16th December 2011 at the Victoria. 

Come along and be inspired by none other than the delightful Molly Naylor

Molly Naylor is a writer, performer, poet and theatre-maker. Her solo show, Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You debuted at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010 to critical acclaim, which proceeded an international tour. She was commissioned to write an audio adaptation of the show for BBC Radio 4, which was described by the Guardian as ‘a brave, funny, tough and beautiful piece of writing’.

Her adaptation of the book of Malachi was staged at The Bush as part of Sixty-Six Books, published by Oberon. She has written for The Independent and her poems have been featured on BBC Radio and in publications including Rialto, The North, The Londonist and Pen Pusher.  She frequently performs and reads at festivals and events worldwide. Her first book – an illustrated text of her live show - is available from Nasty Little Press.
Molly also delivers workshops and lectures in creative writing, solo performance and poetry in education. She is currently developing a new show commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre.

www.mollynaylor.com

As is customary, we asked Molly for her favourite bands, this is what she had to say:

Bands is hard isn't it? Fucking hell. Okay. I'll put:

Nico, The Middle Ones, Nick Cave, The Smiths, Neil Young, Sam Cooke, Wave Machines, The Mountain Goats, David Bowie, Pulp and The Slits. And the Rednex, obviously. 

Well, we have no complaints about any of that, here is a Spotify mixtape just for you Molly!

Bands & Books Christmas Special!

The greatest show on Earth returns for a Christmas spectacular, featuring fantastic live music, live books, and all the usual fun, but with a predictably tedious festive twist!  Save the date; it's happening on December 16th at the Victoria 

Watch this space for updates, we'll be blogging about our performers in the coming few days!  In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to contribute, perform, design us a better flyer, DJ, make us a book themed mixtape, or just thank us for being here, email us!