Alan Bishop is an American musician, known for being bassist and vocalist of the band Sun City Girls, along with his brother Richard Bishop and Charles Gocher (who passed away in 2007).

Alan Bishop also released solo material under the aliases Alvarius B. and Uncle Jim and is now a member of the Cairo-based band, The Invisible Hands, as well as the trio The Dwarfs of East Agouza. Along with Hisham Mayet, Alan is the co-founder of Sublime Frequencies, a record label focused on collating esoteric music and imagery from all over the world, most notably Southeast Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

In 1983, Bishop was traveling through Morocco when he became obsessed with all of the unusual and "exotic" sounds coming from his transistor radio. He recorded hours of broadcasts and later collaged them into "Radio Morocco," a very strange and compelling CD that was the birth of Bishop's Sublime Frequencies record label. Since then, he's released many recordings and videos of psych rock, traditional folk, ritual, and combinations of those from Indonesia, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Syria, and dozens of other locations.

Here are his thoughts on the concept of failure.