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Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen at Lee’s on Thursday
Brooklyn indie buzz band Bishop Allen play Lee’s Palace this Thursday night. Their music is infectiously catchy with great pop hooks. If you’re looking for a frame of reference, one music blogger described their sound as “a mix of the brainy lyrics of The Talking Heads and the stripped-down guitar work of the Violent Femmes.” Their records are on regular rotation on the iPods of several Torontoist staffers. We can’t get enough of them.
Their debut record, Charm School, was mostly recorded in a bedroom, self-released by the band in 2003, and on word-of-mouth alone went on to sell nearly ten-thousand copies. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album four stars. The blogosphere said some very nice things as well. Emboldened by their success, in 2006 they put out 12 four-song EPs—one for each month of the year. This July sees the release of their first proper studio album, on a proper label.
(And somehow in the midst of all this, Bishop Allen singer Justin Rice even took the time to star in one of our favourite films of 2006, Mutual Appreciation. )
Guitarist Christian Rudder sent us this amusing reminder about the show:
Well, as some of you may know, our new record comes out in about a
month and we’re about to go on a big tour. But before we do, we’re coming
out to Toronto. We haven’t been to Canada in forever, and we wanted to
road test a few things on an international scale, including my own
newly-found trumpet “skills,” so we lined up a show at Lee’s Palace for next
week. You should come; we will play with tremendous skill and elan and
hey even if you hate great music, I see from their website they have
something called the Dance Cave for to soothe your troubled mind. It’s
really a no-risk situation. Buy 10 tickets now.
Bishop Allen take the stage at 10:30. Opening act, The Teeth, start the evening at 9:30. Tickets are $10. You should go.