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May 16, 2017NewsIf you’re a fan of Sir Richard Bishop, you’re probably wondering where can his albums be found and purchased. Well today I discovered that despite my earlier belief that Sir Richard doesn’t have Bandcamp presence, he does indeed have a profile there, although it’s quite limited. Buy Sir Richard Bishop albums on Bandcamp There are in total 3 albums of Sir Richards on Bandcamp, “Tangier Sessions”, “The Freak Of Araby” and Polytheistic Fragments”. All three of them are available for purchase and all three are available for some limited streaming. Polytheistic Fragments by Sir Richard Bishop What I mean by that is that you can freely stream only 1 song off of each album. To stream and download the entire album you will need to make a purchase. Each album is around 9$, not too much at all, especially considering that you’re getting some of the biggest hits from the man. It’s a shame that only a single song is available for streaming. More songs should have been made available to convince people to make the purchase. It would surely do it, once they hear the genius that are songs from Sir Richard. Have a listen yourself and make sure to purchase the songs if you like them. [...]
May 15, 2017FansRecently I posted a video of a live performance of a single song of Sir Richard. That’s not nearly enough of Sir Richard, which is why I thought today I should share a whole performance of his. Sir Richard Bishop – full live performance Following live performance was recorded in New York City and it’s provided to us by the YouTube user vacantmoon. What is there to say about this performance, except that it’s a classic Sir Richard Bishop event. Him, alone on the stage, with his guitar and pretty much nothing else. Songs that are played range from his solo work, to the music from the days of Sun City Girls. It starts off slow, with a soft instrumental piece, followed by a song where Sir Richard sings. What’s unusual for a live show of Sir Richard is that he speaks to the audience quite a bit here, and that’s why I love it. Video quality isn’t that great, it’s dark and grainy, but audio quality is decent enough. I think it was recorded on a phone or something. Anyway, great show and if you’re a fan of Sir Richard Bishop, then definitely have a look. [...]
May 10, 2017NewsIt has come to my attention through a Facebook post made by a friend of mine who is also a fan of Sir Richard that a US tour of his is currently happening. All hands on deck, I repeat, Sir Richard Bishop tour is happening. Sir Richard Bishop announces a US tour during May 2017 From what I gather this tour is a spur of the moment kind of thing, seeing how it was announced out of the blue. The image that I’m seeing circulating Facebook shows 21 dates on the tour, throughout the US. Here is a copy of the image that shows all the important info, dates, location and where to buy tickets. If you are close to any of the locations from the tour announcement, then I wholeheartedly recommend that you go to one of the gigs and see Sir Bishop playing live. You’ll love it I’m sure. Just a man and his guitar, on stage, playing music that’s captivating and unexpected. It’s difficult to find that in this day and age of digital music. I guess I’m just your typical old man, who like things the way they used to be. Never thought I’ll end up like this. I’ll be going to the May 27th event at Sunset Tavern. Hope to see you there. [...]
May 9, 2017FansLike many other fans of Sir Richard, I am amazed at how good of a guitar player he is. His skill can best be seen by watching one of his live performances. Luckily there are plenty of people who have posted video recordings of Sir Richards live performances on YouTube. Today we’re going to have a look at once of these performances. Sir Richard Bishop – Space Prophet Dogon live performance Song that we’re going to listen is called Space Prophet Dogon from the 1990 “Torch of the Mystics” album. It was actually a song that was made during the Sun City Girls days. Some people say that “Torch of the Mystics” is the best album in the rich opus that Sun City Girls have. Song itself is very hypnotic and has an out of space kind a vibe to it. Notice also the Middle East influence in the mix. However, what we’re looking here today is the guitar mastery of Sir Richard. Looking at him play is almost as memorizing has the song itself. I only recently started to learn how to play the guitar. Work always kept me from starting to learn sooner. Now that I’m close to retiring, hopefully I’ll be able to devote more time to the guitar. I know I’m pretty late, but hey, better late than never. [...]

Welcome to Sir Richard Bishop fan page

Richard Bishop, stylized as Sir Richard Bishop, is a guitarist, composer and singer from Phoenix, Arizona. He writes experimental music that changes in flavor from album to album. You've reached a fan made page that honors this great man who makes amazing music, music which leaves you wanting more. My name is Robert Dyball and I'm a huge fan of Sir Richard Bishop. I've started listening to his records in the early 2000s and haven't stopped since.

My day job is that of an electrician. In my spare time I like to play the guitar, or at least try to. I also fiddle with electrical gadgets like Nintendo Wii, underwater drones, tablets, hoverboards, etc. I'm too old to be doing it for my own pleasure entirely. My grandkids are crazy about such gizmos, so by proxy, I am too. Back to Sir Richard. Music published by him almost always centers around the acoustic guitar and that's why I love it. Experimental part of the equation comes in when he mixes in sounds from the Middle East, India, Africa, South America. Each new album is a unknown mystery because of it.

Recently I was playing with my grandson Matt and his new toy, an electric skateboard, I didn't even know that they make those. Or drones, who would expect those mechanical birds will became so popular? Everyone is flying drone today, I don't understand what's happening. Should we be happy or afraid because many new cheap drones that have camera are hitting market? Anyway I fell, hurt my back and now I must rest until I heal. Since I like to keep busy I decided to create this website for my favorite artist.

The art of living deliberately is the art of examining this vast storehouse of beliefs, dropping the out-moded ones, consciously choosing those that serve your goals, and carefully crafting new ones in greatest alignment with your desires.

 Sir Richard Bishop

Sun City Girls - the beginnings

Before his successful solo career, Sir Richard Bishop was part of a critically acclaimed group "Sun City Girls". Group was formed way back in 1979 and throughout its existence mainly consisted of Sir Richard Bishop on guitar/bass/piano, his brother Alan Bishop on bass/guitar and Charles Gocher on drums. Grouped named themselves after a retirement community in Sun City, Arizona. During their long career, they released some 50 albums, and many other recordings, some of which on cassettes. I actually have a couple of cassette recordings of their that I picked up in thrift shops during the years. Similarly to the solo projects of Sir Richard Bishop, groups music was highly experimental and is very difficult to pin down a particular music genre. They mainly played experimental rock, but with emphasis on the experimental part. They would frequently mix jazz, esoterica, oriental beats and even spoken word performances into their music. Their song lyrics mainly focused on mysticism, religion, paranormal and other spiritual topics. Live performances were frequently prone to free improvisation and audience participation. Their concerts were more similar to performance art then they were to band events. The group gathered a faithful following and produced critically acclaimed music. In 2007 Charles Gocher died after a long battle with cancer. Bishop brothers went on a farewell tour in his honor and decided to continue their their individual careers thus ending Sun City Girls after 26 year long career. One of their most famous albums is the "Torch of the Mystics".

Sun City Girls discography

Covering the entire discography of Sun City Girls would take a while since they published an exorbitant amounts of music. Like I already mentioned, the band penned and played 50 albums, plus numerous other singles, LPs, DVDs, etc. What we can do is focus on their studio albums, since large number of the albums that they released were live albums, not that there's anything wrong with that. Their first album was called "Sun City Girls" and it was released in 1984. Soon after that in 1986, the band released "Grotto of Miracles". Next year, in 1987, "Horse Cock Phepner" was released. "Torch of the Mystics", perhaps the bands most famous album was issued in 1990, and reissued in CD form in 1993.

      

Following their yearly release cycle, the band released "Dawn of the Devi" in 1991. They then took a two year break only to come back with two new albums in 1993, "Valentines From Matahari" and "Kaliflower". Next year in 1994, the band released "Jacks Creek". In 1996, they released Dante's Disneyland Inferno. Last album where all three members were together was "330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Rig Veda" in 2001. After the death Charles Gocher, the last album released by the band was a collection of material that they produced before his death named "Funeral Mariachi".

Beginnings of a solo career

With the end of Sun City Girls in sight, Sir Richard Bishop turned to a solo career. He actually started working on his own personal projects during the last years of Sun City Girls. A couple of the albums were released while the group was still together, in other words before the death of Gocher. Officially he began solo tours in 2005. While on tours, Sir Richard closely collaborated with musicians like Bill Callahan, Will Oldham, Devendra Banhart and the music group Animal Collective.

Solo music of his continued down the experimental path that the Sun City Girls were on. Guitar, mostly acoustic and sometimes electric, is still the primary focus of his songs. They are featured prominently, but with an even bigger mix of folksy sounds from southeast Asia, north Africa, west Africa and Middle East. Initial albums released by Sir Richard featured only him and his instruments. It wasn't until the "The Freak of Araby" album in 2009 that he engaged the help of a full band of musicians.

Sir Richard Bishop discography

Solo career of Sir Richard was as fruitful as the career of Sun City Girls, if not more. Total of 10 albums were released from 1998, the year of the first album release. First album was titled "Salvador Kali", a wordplay on the name of the famous painter Salvador Dali. It wasn't until 2004 that his second album "Improvika" was released. Like the album name suggests, music there was the product of on the spot improvisation. In 2006 two albums were released, "Fingering the Devil" and "Elektronika Demonika". Same thing happened in 2007 with "While My Guitar Violently Bleeds" and "Polytheistic Fragments". 2008 was another "double release" year. This time it was "Earth/Sir Richard Bishop" and "God Damn Religion" which was actually a DVD. "Freak of Araby" is a cover album that features songs written by the Egyptian guitarist/composer Omar Khorshid. Album was released in his honor. Latest albums include "Intermezzo" which was released in 2012 and "Tangier Sessions", released in 2015.

     

Each of his albums explores a different musical blend and each of them is an adventure of its own. That's the thing when listening to experimental artists, they are always straying from what you thought is the usual, but then again that's why we love them. With Sir Richard one thing is for sure, there's going to be guitar involved, you can count on that at least. My favorite album out of the bunch would be "Elektronika Demonika" which brings heavy sounding, disturbingly haunting songs with lots of bass. Themes are again mysticism and demonic possession. Second prize goes to an album released the following year after "Elektronika Demonika", the one titled "While My Guitar Violently Bleeds". This album brings medieval guitar sound, lighter songs, a complete contrast to "Demonika". Almost all songs from Sir Richard himself are instrumental only. Sun City Girls did have songs with vocals but that is not the case with Sir Richards music. All in all a very rich discography, which takes you all over the world, musically speaking of course.

Concert performances

Lastly, something that you definitely need to checkout are Sir Richard Bishops concert performances. I'm probably boring you by now with constant praise of the mans guitar playing ability. Reason for this isn't just because the songs themselves sound great. Watching the mans technique is mesmerizing to me. Then again I'm not at all good at playing the guitar, so I'm just probably easily impressed. My favorite performance of Sir Richards would be the Live at Pickathon show, which can be found on YouTube. I'll embed it down below for your viewing pleasure. I guess that's it for now. I've probably bored you enough. I'll try to fill out this website with content on a regular basis, post news from Sir Richards, new song/video discoveries, etc. If you have any kind of suggestions don't be shy and send me a message. I'll you in the good hands of Sir Richard. I hope I'll see you again sometime soon.