The Bishop owner creates home for local music

The Bishop is empty.

Music on an old radio plays from the back room and is drowned out as “Sanford and Son” manage their junkyard on a TV set. A few album covers hang above booths with black vinyl seats.

Ray Charles, silent and unmoving, smiles and gazes out at Red Foxx from the “Greatest Hits” album cover, which is hung above one of the booths.

On the other side of the booth sat Steven Westrich, a stocky, “prematurely cranky and curmudgeonly” barman. He has messy black hair and wears a hockey jersey.

Westrich, a 2004 graduate of IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, opened the Bishop in 2009 and guided it through its first year in Bloomington.

“Steve is the most mellow, even-tempered man I think I’ve ever met in my entire life,” said Dan Coleman, founder of Spirit of ’68 Promotions. “He’s super jovial, and nothing seems to phase this dude. He came to town in September, and he’s endeared himself so quickly just because he’s such a nice guy. He’s just Steve.”

Coleman’s company helps the Bishop organize shows and works closely with Westrich.

“When I was a student here, the only bar I really went to was the Vid,” Westrich says. “Other than that, I used to go to shows at the Bluebird occasionally, the Second Story a lot. My biggest inspiration is probably Second Story in terms of what I strive to be as a venue. That was the place. And that’s what I’d like to be.”

Westrich didn’t know after graduation he would own a bar; he intended to work in the music industry when he graduated.

“I was actually a SPEA student, which is odd in that I never used it,” Westrich said. “I did the natural step of graduating from SPEA and then going into the music industry. It just kind of fell on me.”

Although he no longer works in the recording industry, he still works with it because he schedules all of the Bishop’s shows.

“Sometimes it’s tough to book a 30-day calendar in a small town like this,” he said, shrugging again.

Despite the challenge, he wanted to offer an “atmosphere that didn’t exist before.”
For Westrich, the Bishop hasn’t had much trouble.

“When I think of crazy things in a bar, it’s usually bad,” Westrich said. “We’ve been fortunate to never have a shoving match, let alone a fight. You know, in a bar, it’s hard to have something that’s both crazy and good.”

While the atmosphere is contemporary, some things about the Bishop aren’t new.
In 2009, one of Bloomington’s spaces for local music died. The Cinemat, a video store and live music space, closed its doors. The next time the doors opened was in September, and it was Westrich who opened them.

“The Cinemat was a very temporary atmosphere,” Westrich said. “Beer in a fridge. The Cinemat was a room where bands played. This is a venue, and I feel there is a difference.”
Westrich said the Bishop brings in many bands that the Cinemat couldn’t due to its lack of equipment. Westrich wants the Bishop to become the “home for local music,” by having the capacity for shows the Cinemat never had.

“There’s lots of house shows. Russian Recording and the Vid do some shows, even Greek’s Pizza,” he said. “But I feel like we really strive to be the home of local music. If you’re a band, I’d hope you want to play here.”