April 25, 2014


The Clap Hands Music Club is a songwriters circle that myself and fellow Coventry musician WES FINCH put on a few days ago. Wes and I have known each other for a long time and we had talked about putting on an event together for a while. After lots of emails and chatting, The Clap Hands Music Club, named after a TOM WAITS song, was born. The fantastically atmospheric BLUE BISTRO was the venue, which is a wonderfully medieval building in the heart of Coventry.

We both met up around 4pm to start setting up. There were many lovely things that happened at the Clap Hands Club, the first being that the staff from Blue helped me carry all my gear upstairs (not something that happens very often!). We set up pretty quickly and made sure everything sounded great. The next lovely thing was that Dominic from Blue brought me a pot of tea! After sorting a few more things JESS MORGAN and SUZY INDYGO arrived.


The night started around 6pm with people coming upstairs to find their seats and order some of the food on offer. Wes and I had set up a ‘Pay What You Want’ system for people who were coming. This was the first time I had done this but people responded well and contributed generously.


We started the music at around 7.20pm with me introducing the night and the artists. We all then took it in turns to play a song and chat about our influences and inspirations. During the interval Wes sold raffle tickets for the prizes that we had donated. Suzy doesn’t have any of her own music recorded yet and so she kindly have a Nick Drake vinyl!



During the second half of the evening we each played a cover. I played Robert Plant’s Addicted to Love which was fun but Jess’ version of The Boxer, which she sang acapella was simply stunning and was the highlight of the night for many people. Once the music finished people stayed around to chat and purchase music which was brilliant. Thank you to everyone who came along and shared in the first Clap Hands Music Club. We will be back soon…

Thank you to ROB REDWOOD for the fantastic photos below.