I am a huge Bishop Allen fan. I’ve liked them for years now, and saw one of their first shows in New York probably 6 years ago. Any chance I get, I try to see these guys play live. They are huge fun. On Saturday (four or five days ago) I flew into San Francisco to spend a week and a half in Palo Alto at work and it just happens that by chance, my faves Bishop Allen were playing a show in San Francisco last night! I finished work up a bit early and hopped on the train. Of course I went early since I wanted to catch up with Christian and Justin if they were hanging around. When I walked into the bar, I was shocked to see someone I wasn’t expecting: Michael Tapper, who I know mostly as the drummer for We Are Scientists, but maybe a year or three back they parted ways. Sounds like he’s been drumming for Bishop Allen, which is completely awesome, so I spent some time chatting with him. Later on I bumped into Justin and Christian, but I didn’t have my camera handy then so no pictures.

The first band was the Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, who were ok. Next up was the Miniature Tigers who I really enjoyed. I will try to pick up some of their music when I get a chance. They had one song, “Japanese Woman Living in my Closet”, about the incident that made the news a while back about a Japanese woman that was caught living in a man’s closet for more than a year. I thought that was kind of funny. They have a nice melodius song, a bit of humor, and are perhaps a bit sarcastic, or at least twist convention around a bit for matching lyrics and song.

I really enjoyed paying $15 and seeing three bands. That is a real bargain compared to Japan, where I usually have to pay $50 and I see only one band. Michael was saying that he thought $15 was a bit steep, and I was just super excited about how cheap it was! I guess you really get used to the local market.

Bishop Allen was really good. I hadn’t had a chance to pick up there new album, Grrr…, until the concert so I didn’t know all the songs they played, but they also had some great songs off of their debut album Charm School (a great album) and The Broken String (another good album.) I recommend going to the Bishop Allen website itself and ordering from there – you will probably get the same price but more of the money will go to the band than if you buy from other places. They also sell the one-EP-a-month albums there, which are pretty fun. I think they are all generally of very high quality.

The music was great. They had a lot of energy, and were tight. There was a nice sound system, and the crowd was great. They were really into it. The people near me were actually really into (well, one girl in particular) and was dancing around like mad. I was doing a fair bit of dancing, jumping, and screaming myself. I hadn’t seen these guys since they played my PhD thesis defense party (well, it was actually the closing show for the Tank in NYC, but that isn’t how I remember that day) three years ago, and I’ve really missed the music scene I used to be pretty connected to when I was in NYC. The girl who was next to me even tried to get me to do some swing dancing type stuff (and I was awful at that when I was trying to take a few lessons back in Dallas) and (since this is San Fran., and she was pretty butch, probably of the feminist persuasion) forced me into a few spins. It was lots of fun. Apparently Bishop Allen has gotten pretty big when I wasn’t looking because they really packed the place and people were really going nuts. I worked up a pretty good sweat myself. Two encores. The second was a spur-of-the-moment “Ghosts are Good Company” with Christian and Darby. Very nice.

After the show, I stopped by to chat with Christian and buy the latest album (gotta support the bands you love!) and then caught a cab back to the Caltrain station. I didn’t make it back to the hotel until 1:30am, but it was totally worth it. I only wish that R. would have been able to make it. I’m sure we’ll have a chance to see some of the bands that I love in the future too, but I haven’t been able to convince BA to come to Tokyo yet. Well, that isn’t true – Justin and Christian are really receptive to the idea, but they haven’t been able to get any of the touring and booking stuff to happen. I’m starting to think that I should talk to some of my friends that have connections in the industry to see if I can get someone to invite them out. I would love to see them at Summer Sonic or Fuji Rock…

So if you don’t know about Bishop Allen, you clearly haven’t been hanging around with me for too long. Go hit up their website and buy Charm School – it is a great place to start and an absolutely amazing album.