Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

Toronto's quirky, high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club feature vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop. The band formed in the wake of the breakup of the foursome's previous project; after taking a break for several months, the musicians regrouped as Tokyo Police Club in 2005. They began performing live that summer, and that fall they played the Montreal Pop Festival, where the audience's rousing reception convinced the group to make Tokyo Police Club a full-time venture. Monks quit school, and early in 2006 the band signed with local label Paper Bag Records and began recording their debut EP, A Lesson in Crime, which was released that spring.

Buoyed by blog and MySpace buzz, Tokyo Police Club embarked on their largest tour yet that fall. Around the same time, A Lesson in Crime was reissued with wider distribution, and 2008 saw the release of the band's full-length debut, Elephant Shell. By the end of the year, Tokyo Police Club had toured in support of the album and already begun working on a follow-up record, Champ, which they ultimately released in 2010. After touring the album heavily they began writing songs in 2011; that year, they also embarked on the Ten Days, Ten Covers, Ten Years project, which found them cranking out covers of songs from the 2000s from artists ranging from Kelly Clarkson to Queens of the Stone Age in just ten days. The band supported Foster the People on tour in 2012, and amidst all this activity, Monks relocated to New York and Alsop to Boston. In 2013 they returned to the studio with co-producer Doug Boehm. Late that year, the first taste of their third album surfaced with "Argentina (Parts I, II, III)," which was more ambitious and polished than much of their previous music. Early in 2014, the summery single "It's Hot Tonight" arrived just before Forcefield's March release.