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. ...

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

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of 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 sensibilities and non-r ...

band

Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The ...

. 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 ...

. He later founded World Domination Recordings 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 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'' and the Elastic Purejoy's ''The Clutter of Pop'' and ''Talk Radio''. After leaving Shriekback in 1988, Allen founded King Swamp 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, John Askew of Tracker, and Pioneers Press author Adam Gnade. A 7" single, "Your Friends Will Carry You Home," featuring Gnade on vocals, was released by Polyvinyl 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, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

. 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 An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

, Pampelmoose. In 2014, he joined Beats Music as Director, Artist & Music Industry Advocacy. After Apple Inc. 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