David Geoffrey Allen (born 23 December 1955, in Kendal,

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

) is an English musician, formerly the bass guitarist for the

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

band Gang of Four. In 1981, he left Gang of Four to form

Shriekback Shriekback are an English rock band formed in 1981 in Kentish Town by Barry Andrews, formerly of XTC and the League of Gentlemen (keyboards/synthesizers/vocals), and Dave Allen, formerly of Gang of Four (bass), with Carl Marsh, formerly of ...

. He later founded

World Domination Recordings World Domination Recordings was an indie rock record label founded by bass player and music entrepreneur Dave Allen in Los Angeles. From roughly 1989 to 1996 it released records by artists including Low Pop Suicide, The Elastic Purejoy, Stanfo ...

and participated in two bands who recorded for the label. Allen was the vocalist and primary songwriter for The Elastic Purejoy, and played bass guitar in Low Pop Suicide which was fronted by Rick Boston. He appeared on several LPs and EPs with each of these bands, though his ambitious plan to release a work of 20 volumes produced only three releases, '' The Harvest'' and the Elastic Purejoy's ''The Clutter of Pop'' and ''Talk Radio''. After leaving Shriekback in 1988, Allen founded

King Swamp King Swamp was a British rock band, consisting of Walter Wray (vocals), Dave Allen (bass), Steve Halliwell (keyboards), Dominic Miller (guitar), and Martyn Barker (drums). The band was formed in 1988 in London, after Allen and Barker had part ...

with other former bandmates. According to Pitchfork.com, in 2006, Allen formed a "super-group" under the name Faux Hoax (supposedly pronounced 'Folks') with Danny Seim of

Menomena Menomena is an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States, made up of Justin Harris and Danny Seim. Both members of the band share singing duties and frequently swap instruments while recording. In concert, Seim plays drums, while Ha ...

, John Askew of Tracker, and

Pioneers Press Pioneers Press was an independent publishing house founded in 2012 by Jessie Duke, the former owner and manager of Portland-based publisher Microcosm Publishing. Pioneers Press was based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with its distribution center on a fa ...

author

Adam Gnade Adam Gnade ( ) is a San Diego, California-born American musician and author currently living on a farm in rural Kansas. In his bio he defines his music as "talking-songs", which he describes as mixing the spoken vocals of talking blues songs w ...

. A 7" single, "Your Friends Will Carry You Home," featuring Gnade on vocals, was released by

Polyvinyl In polymer chemistry, vinyl polymers are a group of polymers derived from substituted vinyl () monomers. Their backbone is an extended alkane chain . In popular usage, "vinyl" refers only to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples Vinyl polymers are ...

records in 2008. Subsequently, he was director of Consumer Digital Audio Services at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. Then he went on to be the president of the entertainment division of the Overland Agency, an advertising firm based in Portland. He is now co-founder of digital strategy firm Fight, and runs the independent record label, Pampelmoose. In 2014, he joined

Beats Music Beats Music was a subscription-based online music streaming service owned by the Beats Electronics division of Apple Inc. The service combined algorithm-based personalization with expert music suggestions from a variety of sources. Developmen ...

as Director, Artist & Music Industry Advocacy. After

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

acquired Beats, he stayed on in Apple Music Artist Relations.

References

1955 births Living people English rock bass guitarists Male bass guitarists People from Kendal British post-punk musicians English record producers Gang of Four (band) members English new wave musicians {{UK-bass-guitarist-stub