Bishop Allen

Bishop Allen

Bishop Allen is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York, a musical partnership between Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who are supported both on stage and in the studio by an ever-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 college.

Bishop Allen has released one album and 12 EPs. A new full-length album will be released in July 2007.

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 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.

File:Bishop allen february ep.jpg

The February EP

The 12 records were all self-released, pressed in batches of 2,000, 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.

File:Bishop allen may ep.jpg

The May EP

The EP’s songs are markedly more sophisticated than the band’s earliest material, and the arrangements feature many usual 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.

The Broken String

As the EP project was coming to an end, the band decided that despite their successes as a DIY band, a proper 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. This album, Bishop Allen & the Broken String, is Bishop Allen’s first true studio recording and will be released by Dead Oceans on July 24, 2007.

Other Projects

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

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 onscreen. Rice also stars in the as-yet-unreleased film Let Them Chirp Awhile, written and directed by Jonathan Blitstein.

Discography

Albums

• 2003 - Charm School
• 2007 (expected July 2007) - Bishop Allen and the Broken String

EPs

• 2006 - January
• 2006 - February
• 2006 - March
• 2006 - April
• 2006 - May
• 2006 - June
• 2006 - July
• 2006 - August
• 2006 - September
• 2006 - October
• 2006 - November
• 2006 - December

External links

• Official website
• MySpace Page
• Dead Oceans