Bishop Allen

Infobox musical artist
Name = Bishop Allen


Img_capt = L to R: Justin Rice, Cully Symington, Darbie Nowatka, and Christian Rudder
Background = group_or_band
Origin = Brooklyn, New York, USA
Genre = Indie rock, Garage Rock, Power pop
Years_active = 2003 - present
Label = The Champagne School Dead Oceans
URL = [http://www.bishopallen.com/ Official website]
Current_members = Justin Rice (vocals & keyboards) Christian Rudder (stringed instruments)

Bishop Allen is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York. The band's core members are Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who are supported both on stage and in the studio by a rotating cast of musical collaborators. The band was formed in 2003 and grew out of Rice and Rudder's long-standing friendship; it takes its name from Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the two lived together after attending Harvard University.

Bishop Allen has released two albums and 12 EPs; their second album, "The Broken String", was released in July 2007.

History

Pre-Bishop Allen

Rice and Rudder attended Harvard University where they were DJs on WHRB's punk/indie program, Record Hospital. The two formed a hardcore punk band called The Pissed Officers and self-released two split records with the then Boston-based Casio-core duo Gerty Farish. Rudder also played briefly in a Devo tribute band with members of Gerty Farish, Fat Day and Trollin Withdrawal. Some years later Rudder and Rice took up residence at a house in Virginia where they recorded the music for their first album as Bishop Allen.

"Charm School"

"Charm School" was Bishop Allen's first record. Recorded in fits and starts over two years, it grew song-by-song as Rice and Rudder wrote and played in their spare time. They recorded all the instruments on the album's 13 songs themselves, using drum loops to hide the fact that neither is a drummer, and almost everything on the record was recorded one track at a time in an ordinary bedroom. Backing vocals by Bonnie Schiff-Glenn and Kate Dollenmayer and supplementary drums by Coll Anderson, all added in the album's final stages, completed the songs.

After the album was finished, Ms. Schiff-Glenn and Margaret Miller were recruited to play with Bishop Allen live, and their pictures were then featured on "Charm School"'s back cover. Jack Delamitraux and Christian Owens later joined the band on the tours supporting "Charm School"'s release.

The record came out in May 2003 and received many favorable reviews, most notably from "Rolling Stone" and NPR's Weekend Edition. The album was released under the band's own Champagne School imprint.

The EP project

In 2006, Bishop Allen recorded and released an EP every month of the year. Each record was titled for the month of its release ("January", "February", and so on), and, with the exception of "August", which was a 14-song live disc, each contained four new studio songs.

The project began when Rice and Rudder, looking for new inspiration after a frustrating year of writing a follow-up to "Charm School", stumbled upon a discarded piano, dragged it into their rehearsal studio, and, refreshed by the sounds the keyboard added to their repertoire, put their old works-in-progress aside and began writing new songs. They soon began recording this new material, and by the time the "January" EP was completed on January 25, 2006, they had decided on doing one each month for the rest of the year.

All 12 EPs were self-released and sold primarily through the band's website. The uniqueness of the undertaking and the consistent quality of the songs made the project a great success. The covers of the EPs, which reflect the homespun aesthetic of the music inside, were designed by Darbie Nowatka, who also sang lead vocal on a few recordings and often joins the band on stage.

The EP's songs are markedly more sophisticated than the band's earliest material, and the arrangements feature many unusual instruments. Bishop Allen collaborated with many musicians over the year, including the above-mentioned Delamitraux and Owens, Jon Natchez, and Kelly Pratt. Cully Symington began playing with the band in September and has become their regular drummer.

"History of Excuses" from the "March" EP was used in an episode ("My Turf War") of NBC's Scrubs. "A Tiny Fold" from the "May" EP was used in the April 28, 2008 episode (MoveOn.Cartwrights) of ABC Family's Greek (TV series).

"The Broken String"

As the EP project was coming to an end, Bishop Allen decided that despite their successes as a DIY band, a true record label was necessary to properly promote and distribute their music.

In November 2006, Bishop Allen signed to Dead Oceans, a new sister label to Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar, for a modest advance. They began recording a new record that January, at Blackwatch Studios in Norman, Oklahoma, and delivered it two months later. The album, "Bishop Allen & the Broken String", is Bishop Allen's first true studio recording and was released by Dead Oceans on July 24, 2007. It includes nine re-recordings of songs from the EP project, as well as three new songs.

Other projects

Justin and Christian's roommate at the Cambridge apartment that gave the band its name was Andrew Bujalski, the film director, and they have both starred in his films.

Christian played the male lead, Alex, in Bujalski's first film, 2002's "Funny Ha Ha", and Justin starred in the well-received "Mutual Appreciation", in which his character, Allen, fronts a band called the Bumblebees and plays a Bishop Allen song on-screen. Rice also stars in the as-yet-unreleased film "Let Them Chirp Awhile", written and directed by Jonathan Blitstein.

The band is slated to appear in the 2008 film adaptation of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

In the media

* "Click, Click, Click, Click" (from "The Broken String") was featured in an episode of the short-lived CW sitcom "Aliens in America", in an episode of college drama/comedy Greek, as well as in a Sony camera ad
* "Middle Management" is part of the Major League Baseball 2K7 soundtrack. It is also featured in the trailer for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and the band is shown in the trailer and in the film.

Discography

*"Charm School" (2003)
*"12 EPs" (2006) (One for each month)
*"The Broken String" (2007)

External links

* [http://www.bishopallen.com Official Website]
* [http://www.myspace.com/bishopallen MySpace]
* [http://www.deadoceans.com/ Dead Oceans]
*
* [http://svt-psl.colo.netstar.se/default.aspx?entryID=103 Video: Bishop Allen play Click Click Click Click on PSL]
* [http://www.theyshootmusic.com/posts/4 Video: Acoustic Session with 'They Shoot Music Dont They']