Bishop Allen’s Christian Rudder Relates The Band’s South By Southwest:
“This was the first time we’d ever played SXSW as a band that actually got in. We’d spent our whole musical life as outsiders; the only other time we’d been to Austin in March, we crashed the festival and were one of those bands handing out demos on 6th Street. But this time we had a label, a showcase, and our very own Daytrotter session. Hopefully our excitement comes through
in these songs.”

This session was recorded Saturday, March 17th, the last of five grueling days of recording. We no longer liked where we slept, ate and worked. This, however, was a good day because it meant the end of our trip and Asthmatic Kitty’s Rafter and Bishop Allen started the day on cheery notes – Rafter with his hilarity and Bishop Allen with their dreamy pop. We also met up with Andy Herod again with the Allen. He was here earlier in the week with his fine outfit The Comas and he promised he’d be back. – Sean Moeller

First song
Butterfly Nets (Bishop Allen) [2.98MB] [2784 downloads]
— original version appears on May EP and will appear in a studio version on The Broken String, out on July 24
Darbie sings here, about a nice spring day, much like today in New York.

Second song
Flight 180 (Bishop Allen) [4.34MB] [2707 downloads]
– original version appears on April EP and will appear in a studio version on The Broken String, out on July 24
This song started with a simple guitar progression and grew and grew — we think into something wonderful.

Third song
The Monitor (Bishop Allen) [3.24MB] [2678 downloads]
— original version appears on March EP and will appear in a studio version on The Broken String, out on July 24
This is the song about the battleship. The last verse’s lyrics gave us our album title and the words as a whole sum up so much about the band and our approach to music.

Fourth song
The Same Fire (Bishop Allen) [3.81MB] [2884 downloads]
– original version appears on June EP
In March last year, we wrote a song about an Ironworks in Brooklyn, where they built an old battleship. A few months later that Ironworks burnt down and we wrote this. It’s gone through many arrangements, but this is our favorite.