Sir Richard Bishop & His Freak of Araby Ensemble.

Huntington Park, California
Saturday, May 30, 2009

This show was originally supposed to go down at some place called Gilbert’s, which I’ve never heard of in my life. Even Google Maps couldn’t find it, and neither could I after an hour or two of driving around in circles. I’m convinced it doesn’t exist. Luckily, a gigantic carnivorous insect landed on my shoulder and whispered into my ear a rumor that the show got moved at the last minute to the Escarpment–a rad, raw office / warehouse set-up in Huntington Park. By the time I got there, a good-sized crowd of at least 200 teens and 20-somethings had gathered. Earthless had just finished, which was a bummer, because I’ve always wanted to catch one of their sets.

Wolf Eyes.

A few minutes later, Sir Richard Bishop & His Freak of Araby Ensemble took to the stage. After numerous solo acoustic guitar tours over the past several years, Richard embarked on this, his first tour with a full band after the demise of the Sun City Girls, and it’s great to see him show off his highly skilled, intricate fretwork in an all-electric setting. The band, which consisted of guitar, bass, drum kit and a hand percussionist, offered up a short but sweet set that recalled the most melodic, perky, Middle Eastern-singed Sun City Girls instrumentals.

A big-ass crowd of smokers.

The second half of the show was dedicated to a legit, non-stop noise fest for the kids. Complete with a coonskin cap, a double sax machine, snarling vocals and electronics, Wolf Eyes fed the feedback-hungry crowd a deafening, hour-long, abstract electronic tonic. Black Dice followed suit with more of the same with the addition of an electric guitar and a psychedelic film that battered every pair of eyes in the house with 6.8 billion images per moment. That’s one image for every person alive on the Earth every second.

Black Dice.

Saturday Night Fever.

The most amazing part of Black Dice’s set came near the end when a random girl behind the crowd started dancing to the tune of the electronic maelstrom, wildly flailing around and falling down in the process. The only bummer about this place was that they sold alcohol out of a back room. I would have been more stoked on a vegetarian burrito. Anyway, this show was a rousing success. P.S. I was really stoked on all of the old, rusty steel fences out back, some sections of which looked kind of like sculptures. Look for a full gallery from this concert coming later.

Text and photos ©2009 Arcane Candy.

Since 1979, Sir Richard Bishop has proven himself to be one of the hardest-working, multi-talented entertainers since Sammy Davis Jr. From 1981 to 2007, he tickled the public’s fancy with his guitar playing and singing for the Sun City Girls, an outfit that could veer from rock to jazz to free improv to hillbilly to avant-garde to performance art at the drop of a wooden nickel. Over the years, in addition to working as a seller of esoteric books, Rick has been helping his brother Alan, who played bass and sang in SCG, record and film myriad raw music performances from around the world for CD, LP and DVD releases on their Sublime Frequencies label, which was founded in 2003. Since 2005, Rick has also been touring far and wide to take his masterful solo acoustic guitar playing to the masses.

And now, as if all that weren’t enough, Richard Bishop adds filmmaking to his ever-growing pile of talent with his first solo motion picture, God Damn Religion. At the beginning of this rapid-fire collage of “demonic and divine imagery,” Rick steps inside the gaping mouth of a huge, menacing stone face, where he is quickly swallowed down into the hopeless darkness of the Gastro-Intestinal Tract of Evil. There, he encounters a dizzying array of sex and violence depicted in art throughout history and around the world. Highlights include some downright malevolent-looking women painted on a panel van, a phallic garden featuring a bunch of huge cocks festooned with scarves, endless scenes of torture, the murderous Hindu goddess Kali, the torment of Jesus Christ, some good ol’ down-home Chinese fornication, and much more. Luckily, Rick somehow manages to climb back out at the end.

One of the most memorable segments is an ancient-looking black and white Swedish movie from 1922 called Haxan, which features scenes of general chaos and devil torture ritual that unfurl at hypersonic speed. Here, and throughout God Damn Religion, Rick shows off his penchant for assembling dimly-lit electronic musicscapes, which range from jaunty Munsters-like themes to gurgling ambience to some seriously heavy slam doom of uncertain origins. In fact, some of these sounds originate from Rick’s Elektronika Demonika LP from 2006, which is included here as a bonus CD. As a whole, this two-disc set offers a fascinating glance at the scare tactics foisted upon humanity down through the ages by the powers that be. 666 thumbs up.

Label: Locust Catalog Number: L107 Format: DVD / CD Packaging: Jewel case Total Time: DVD 31:29, CD 39:33 Country: United States Released: 2008 More: Amazon, Discogs, Forced Exposure, Official, YouTube

Text ©2009 Arcane Candy

Hollywood, California
June 5, 2005

As one third of genre-ignoring aural juggernaut the Sun City Girls, six-string-slinger Sir Richard Bishop has, for the flesh-eating lion’s share of three decades, permanently stained the unsuspecting underpants of the musical world. In fact, the SCG were downright notorious for stirring up the pot, the public and their sonic soup with such disparate elements as rock, free improv, country, experimental, spoken word, folk, performance art and dozens of other styles and anti-styles known, unknown and never to be considered. After forcing a wearily counted number of platters and tours upon anyone who was hearty–and smarty–enough to accept them, the trio called it a day when their tubster, Charles Gocher, checked out of this mortal hotel on February 19, 2007.

Now, as his brother Alan Bishop (who used to play bass and sing in SCG) runs the Sublime Frequencies international music label, Rick continues to tirelessly circle the Earth solo on the gypsy trail in a seemingly never-ending tour to showcase his advanced guitar-handling skills. Aye, and what talent this knight do possess! One of his main mentors, Django Reinhardt, would be proud. At the Knitting Factory, Rick effortlessly produced a patchwork quilt chock-full of African, Indian and Middle Eastern influences, and topped it off with a shiny Sun City Girls nugget or two. If I do say so myself, there’s gold in them thar fingers!