Tokyo Police Club

Tokyo Police Club
Tokyo Police Club at the Tiger Bar in Toronto, 2007
Background information
Origin	Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Indie rock, garage rock, post-punk revival
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Paper Bag, Memphis Industries, Saddle Creek, Dew Process
Website	tokyopoliceclub.com
Members
Dave Monks Graham Wright Josh Hook Greg Alsop

Tokyo Police Club is a Canadian indie rock band from Newmarket, Ontario, consisting of singer and bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist Graham Wright, guitarist Josh Hook, and drummer Greg Alsop.

History

Tokyo Police Club formed in 2005 while playing for fun in a basement after the four had disbanded from a previous group called Suburbia. The band started to gain attention and played some small shows throughout the Toronto area. With a buzz forming in Montreal, Tokyo Police Club was asked to play in the city's Pop Montreal festival, and soon after they signed with Toronto label Paper Bag Records. According to an interview article: "The band’s Pop Montreal performance was a pivotal moment, even if they didn’t know it. Tipped off by another of their roster, Paper Bag Records checked out TPC’s performance, but the young band didn’t know what to expect. “[We] assumed that [labels] would see you once, bring a contract and a blank cheque, and say, ‘You guys are great! Now you are stars!’” Wright says. “So when they left before we were done we thought they hated us because they didn’t sign us on the spot.” The record deal came eventually, but not before Monks and Alsop told their parents they were dropping out of school to pursue their dreams." ^[1] In an interview, Graham said, "playing Pop Montreal was the only thing that made us be a band. In all seriousness, if it wasn't for that Pop Montreal festival, we wouldn't have done anything. Ever. I cannot overstate the importance of Pop Montreal." ^[2]

Since their formation the band has appeared in numerous festivals. Notably, in 2006 they appeared at Edgefest and the inaugural Osheaga Festival. In 2007, they performed at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, at Lollapalooza in Chicago, at Bumbershoot in Seattle, at Glastonbury Festival and Reading and Leeds Festival in England, in 2008 at Roskilde Festival in Denmark and at Rock am Ring-Festival in Germany, and Street Scene in San Diego.

In the fall of 2008, the band played on the last 6 weeks of Weezer's Troublemaker Tour along with Angels and Airwaves.

In terms of writing songs while on the road, Wright said in an interview: "We're really bad at writing on the road. We've been trying to write new songs since the summer, and just because we've been touring so often and everything's been so busy, it's been a struggle to find that time and find that groove that we have to get into to successfully write songs." ^[3]

Tokyo Police Club has been nominated for a Canadian Juno award for their 2008 album, Elephant Shell.

Appearances

Jack Whitehaed/Bernie Show 2009 - Perforing Tesselate On April 19, 2007, Tokyo Police Club made their first US TV performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. They played their single "Nature of the Experiment", along with a tambourine accompaniment by the CBS Orchestra.

On April 22, 2008 Tokyo Police Club made their second appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, performing the lead single "Tessellate" off their debut LP Elephant Shell.

On November 16, 2008 they appeared on the television show "Desperate Housewives" in the episode "City on Fire" as "Cold Splash", a band competing in a battle-of-the-bands contest. They performed "In A Cave" from their album Elephant Shell.

On December 10, 2008, they played on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.

Discography

The band released its debut EP, A Lesson in Crime, in 2006 on Paper Bag Records, with Smith EP arriving the following year. During a July 20, 2007 show in Omaha, Nebraska the band announced it had signed a deal earlier in the day for Saddle Creek Records to release their debut LP.^[4] The band have also recorded two previously unheard songs for the Daytrotter Sessions, which are available online.^[5] A single, now on their album Elephant Shell, entitled "Your English Is Good" was released on July 9, 2007.^[6]

Responding to criticisms that their debut EP A Lesson in Crime is too short (16:22), Graham Wright had this to say in an interview with Ukula:

"It's very quick, quick, quick, one, two, three. Some of the songs don't have a lot of space in them and the album doesn't have a whole lot of room to breathe, but I think in the case of an EP this is a really good thing."^[7]

The band released their first LP, entitled Elephant Shell, and released the album, via their new label Saddle Creek, on April 22, 2008 in North America and May 5, 2008 in the U.K. and Continental Europe.^[8] It was pre-released via the US iTunes Music Store on March 25, 2008 ^[9].

LPs

• Elephant Shell (April 22, 2008)

EPs

• A Lesson in Crime (April 18, 2006, (UK) Feb 12, 2007)
• Smith EP (February 14, 2007)

Singles

B-sides

Tokyo Police Club have released three singles, all three of which have B-sides.

• "Cheer It On"

  Side A: "Cheer It On" − 1:59

  Side B: "Citizens of Tomorrow" (Space Ballad) − 2:55

• "Nature of the Experiment"

  Side A: "Nature of the Experiment" − 2:01

  Side B: "Box" − 2:31

• "Your English Is Good"

  Side A: "Your English Is Good" − 3:08

  Side B: "Swedes In Stockholm" − 1:47

Solo projects

In November 2008, Tokyo Police Club keyboardist Graham Wright released a solo EP called The Lakes of Alberta online only, available as a free download at 128kb/s or for $5 at higher bitrates. He has also participated in a project called "Novels" with musicians Luke Lalonde (of Born Ruffians), Will Currie (of Will Currie & The Country French), Dean Marino (of Ex~po), and Jay Sadlowski (of Jay Sad) in which these musicians wrote and recorded an entire EP in 24 hours. The CD's were not released in stores, nor on the internet, but were given out to random people or placed in random places.

Greg Alsop has posted comedy sketch videos online, Drumsters and Novelty T-Shirt College.

See also

Also "Nature of The Experiment" is featured on the sports game Rugby 08

"In a Cave" was featured on Episode 21 of Greek (TV Series) on ABC Family

Lauren Conrad "LC" mentions going to see the band in episode 14 of season 4 of The Hills

The track "Be Good" is featured in the Tokyo! film trailer. [1]

They were mentioned in an episode of the Gilmore Girls, "Lorelai? Lorelai?", Zach's new band was opening for Tokyo Police Club

The track "Your English Is Good" appears in the film "Nobody". [2]

References

External links

• Tokyo Police Club official website
• Tokyo Police Club at MySpace
• Daily Music Guide gig review
• 2008 Tokyo Police Club Interview at Bandega.com
• Tokyo Police Club interview at Soundsect
• Tokyo Police Club on Strange Glue
• Tokyo Police Club interview with www.thetapeisnotsticky.com
• The Scenestar interview
• Daytrotter article
• Straight article