Stacks of great music

Manzanita’s Tiny Stacks Concert Series brings tunes to the bookstore

Juliet Yänko

By Jordan Wolfe

For the TODAY

A series of concerts — in a bookstore? It’s neither literary nor sonic blasphemy, it’s the premise of the Tiny Stacks Concert Series, perhaps the perfect alternative for anyone who has ever watched an NPR Tiny Desk concert and wanted to be there.

Four concerts will be held among the stacks in the new(ish) location of Manzanita’s Cloud & Leaf Bookstore on select Tuesdays from 6 to 8 pm through October. The events will be hosted by bookstore owner Holly Lorincz and presented by Bryan Churchill, owner of the fledgling North Coast Creative Forum.

First up in the series is Juliet Yänko, performing on Tuesday, May 12.

“She’s a crooner,” Churchill said. “Kind of folk-ish, kind of old-timey. She has a real old soul vibe to her voice and the kind of music she sings.”

Since taking over Cloud & Leaf in 2022, Lorincz has regularly hosted events ranging from author readings and signings to a small concert last year that looked oddly familiar to Churchill.

“Immediately, bells went off,” he said. “I’m, like, ‘This looks like we’re watching a Tiny Desk concert, this is amazing.’”

The NPR series, featuring artists of all genres performing in a small space, occasionally shows how audience members watch: casually standing near the band, which just so happens to be surrounded by packed bookshelves.

“So, you never see anything other than that tiny desk and the books all the way around,” Churchill said,” and I’m like, ‘Tiny Desk looks like a bookstore.”

Churchill proposed a concert series to Lorincz named Tiny Stacks in homage to NPR’s popular videos. It aligned with Lorincz, who said hosting intimate community events was the driving force in her decision to move Cloud & Leaf from its original location to the more spacious premises down the road on Laneda Avenue.

"I definitely want the bookstore to continue to be a bookstore, hosting book-ish events — but also a bookstore that can lean into that "third space" vibe,” Lorincz said. “A small gathering of folks tucked in between the stacks, thumbing through poetry or history books while swaying along to local musicians jamming their hearts out — I love that.”

For the acts, Churchill has selected well-known, quality musicians with ties to the Manzanita area.

“People that are in the area that we know are good, that’ll be worth showing up and selling tickets for this thing,” he said.

Deb Montgomery, who was the unwitting inspiration for Tiny Stacks, will perform July 21.

“She’s sort of a folk artist, she writes her own songs, really pretty nice voice,” Churchill said, adding Montgomery will be bringing along a band to perform with her — including Jesse Clark, a local drummer and one of the founding members of the musical group performing Aug. 18: Garden Variety.

The other founding member? Churchill.

“I started this band Garden Variety with Jesse a couple of years ago and the whole vibe of Garden Variety is in the name ‘variety,’” Churchill said, adding the intention of the act is to curate local talent and feature them, or join them onstage, depending on the need.

The final concert in the 2026 series is Lauren Sheehan on Oct. 12.

“Lauren is amazing, she is a music professor at Pacific [University] in Forest Grove, but she’s been around for a long time and she’s a blues-at-heart sort of player,” Churchill said. “It’s like showing up to a poetry reading as well as a musical experience. She’s going to tell stories; she’s going to have vintage instruments and then she’ll play a song with them — and it just feels like a special event.”

Churchill is already planning ahead to 2027, when he plans to expand the series to six concerts.

“You almost feel as if you’ve been given a gift when you leave because the music is so much more intimate, for both the artist and the witness,” he said. “They’re going to find their way around the tiny stacks for a place to see and listen — and even if you can’t see, you’re going to hear this beautiful, tiny experience.”

Tuesday's concert begins at 6 pm at Cloud & Leaf Bookstore, located at 447 Laneda Avenue in Manzanita. Tickets are $25 per show. For more information, go to tinystacksmusic.com.