John Andrew Fredrick of the Black Watch. (Credit: Bren Holmes)
Name John Andrew Fredrick
Best known for No musical hiatus—best-kept indie secret since 1988.
Current City Los Angeles, California.
Really want to be in London, UK—Hampstead, to be more specific—reading in one of the few quiet pubs left after scoring some new vintage Penguin Classics in the used book shops where the clerks start salivating seeing me come through.
Excited about This The Fuzzy End of the Lollipop LP we’ve just released, plus a second one–even more cavity-inducing–to come.
My current music collection has a lot of Beatles, Kinks, Pink Floyd CDs and LPs I’m too lazy now to reach for as it’s all on YouTube.
And a little bit of Jimi Hendrix in a beautiful purple box.
Preferred format Vinyl when convenient, yet of course convenience is killing us.
5 Albums I Can’t Live Without:
1
Revolver, The Beatles
It is my everything. It is the nonpareil of poppy-psych perfection. I don’t go a day (well, maybe once in moon blue) without auditioning the Fabs, and here they’re at their peak, I daresay. Until the next peak, and the next. Abbey Road‘s initial title was Everest, after all.
2
Blue Sunshine, The Glove
Of course, the Deluxe Edition with Smith’s vocals replacing (Jeanette) Landray’s. It’s a (great big) mushroom trip of a record—and music’s the only psycho-tropic experience I’m likely to have nowadays. The kind of record one spins immediately again.
3
Brotherhood, New Order
Much maligned at the time—all the more reason to champion it. In his autobiography Hooky (Peter Hook) slagged it off as having too many guitars. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? One can never have too many guitars, Peter. Every song kills me.
4
Axis: Bold As Love, Jimi Hendrix
A sacred relic, as priceless as any archeological discovery in history. In my history. In yours as well and you can’t deny it. Some of us suburban ‘60s kids had to pass our new LPs round to the other music-mad kids in the neighborhood. After I had saved up enough to buy it, I waited for quite some time before I let anybody take this one down the street. “Um, maybe you can borrow it next week, Brad or Cathy!”
5
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd
Now I’ve picked this impossibly incomparable LP instead of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, I’m going to be in Dutch with the ghost of St Nick. The mono version, please. Played it so much in college that my roommates hid it from me. Bastards! I got them back by whacking on Ummagumma… on repeat!