| Origin | Buffalo, New York, United States |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Record producer, audio engineer, musician |
| Instruments | Bass, keyboards, guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1989 to present |
| Associated acts | Mercury Rev The Flaming Lips MGMT |
| Website | www.davefridmann.com/ |
Manchester united 2011 12. David Lawrence Fridmann is an American record producer and musician.
Career[edit]
The discography of the Flaming Lips, an American rock band formed in 1983, consists of 17 studio albums, 18 extended plays, 15 singles, 10 compilation albums, four video albums and an array of various other appearances. The Flaming Lips (Discography 1985-2014) Rock Discography. Unsubscribe from Rock Discography? Cancel Unsubscribe. Subscribe Subscribed Unsubscribe 199.
From 1990 onwards he co-produced most releases by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. Other bands he has worked with include Weezer, Saxon Shore, Neon Indian, Wolf Gang, Ammonia, Ed Harcourt, Sparklehorse, Creeper Lagoon, Café Tacuba, Creaming Jesus, Elf Power, Mogwai, Thursday, Longwave, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, The Delgados, Low, Phantom Planet, Gemma Hayes, Goldrush, Tapes 'n Tapes,[1]Hopewell, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Number Girl, Jed Davis, Zazen Boys, Sleater-Kinney and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. He has recently worked on new recordings with MGMT, Neil Finn, The Cribs, OK Go, Tame Impala, Lord Huron, Baroness, Spoon, and Interpol.
As a musician, Fridmann was the bassist and a founding member of Mercury Rev. He gave up his role as a touring member of the band in 1993 to concentrate on producing other artists.[2] In 2001, Fridmann was included on MOJO's100 Sonic Visionaries list and was described as 'the Phil Spector of the Alt-Rock era'.[3] In 2007, he received a Grammy for The Flaming Lips' At War With The Mystics at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical).[4] In 2010, three Fridmann-produced albums were listed on the Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums of The Decade: MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, and Sleater-Kinney's The Woods.[5]
- The new Flaming Lips studio album, The Terror, was released on April 1 in the UK and April 16 in the US. The album was debuted live in its entirety on March 15 at South By Southwest. The Lips performed most of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots at South by Southwest on March 14. Check out complete show video here.
- Check out The Flaming Lips on Amazon Music. Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon.
Fridmann often brings a distinctive, expansive, open sound to the albums he produces, which has much in common with that used by Mercury Rev.
Fridmann is an occasional faculty member of SUNY Fredonia, teaching sound recording techniques in the Fredonia School of Music.
In 2017, Fridmann became the director for the Western New York Alumni Drum and Bugle Corps, where he plays the bass drum.
Discography[edit]
As producer[edit]
| Release year[6] | Album | Artist |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | In a Priest Driven Ambulance | The Flaming Lips |
| 1991 | Yerself Is Steam | Mercury Rev |
| 1992 | Hit To Death In The Future Head | The Flaming Lips |
| 1993 | Boces | Mercury Rev |
| 1994 | Syrup Macrame | Radial Spangle |
| 1994 | Chaos For The Converted | Creaming Jesus |
| 1995 | See You on the Other Side | Mercury Rev |
| 1995 | Clouds Taste Metallic | The Flaming Lips |
| 1997 | Zaireeka | The Flaming Lips |
| 1997 | Souls For Sale | Verbena |
| 1998 | Deserter's Songs | Mercury Rev |
| 1998 | Eleventh Avenue | Ammonia |
| 1999 | XIV | Home |
| 1999 | The Soft Bulletin | The Flaming Lips |
| 1999 | Hope and Adams | Wheat |
| 1999 | School Girl Distortional Addict | Number Girl |
| 1999 | A Dream in Sound | Elf Power |
| 1999 | Come on Die Young | Mogwai |
| 2000 | The Great Eastern | The Delgados |
| 2000 | Sappukei | Number Girl |
| 2001 | Rock Action | Mogwai |
| 2001 | It's a Wonderful Life | Sparklehorse |
| 2001 | All Is Dream | Mercury Rev |
| 2001 | Without a Plan | Bodega |
| 2002 | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | The Flaming Lips |
| 2002 | Num-Heavymetallic | Number Girl |
| 2002 | Romantica | Luna |
| 2002 | Hate | The Delgados |
| 2003 | The Strangest Things | Longwave |
| 2003 | Songs for Dustmites | Steve Burns |
| 2003 | Per Second, Per Second, Per Second.. Every Second | Wheat |
| 2003 | Night on My Side | Gemma Hayes |
| 2003 | Drveće i rijeke [Trees and Rivers] | Pips, Chips & Videoclips |
| 2003 | Cuatro Caminos | Café Tacuba |
| 2003 | Bad Timing | Grand Mal |
| 2004 | Phantom Planet | Phantom Planet |
| 2005 | The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore | Saxon Shore |
| 2005 | The Woods | Sleater-Kinney |
| 2005 | The Secret Migration | Mercury Rev |
| 2005 | The Great Destroyer | Low |
| 2006 | The Philosophy of Velocity | Brazil |
| 2006 | Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain | Sparklehorse |
| 2006 | A City by the Light Divided | Thursday |
| 2006 | At War With The Mystics | The Flaming Lips |
| 2007 | Some Loud Thunder | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah |
| 2007 | Drums and Guns | Low |
| 2007 | Oracular Spectacular | MGMT |
| 2008 | Zazen Boys 4 | Zazen Boys |
| 2008 | Walk It Off | Tapes 'N Tapes |
| 2008 | Snowflake Midnight | Mercury Rev |
| 2008 | Christmas on Mars | The Flaming Lips |
| 2009 | Embryonic | The Flaming Lips |
| 2009 | Eating Us | Black Moth Super Rainbow |
| 2009 | Common Existence | Thursday |
| 2010 | Innerspeaker (mixed the album) | Tame Impala |
| 2010 | The Wild Trapeze | Brandon Boyd |
| 2010 | Of the Blue Colour of the Sky | OK Go |
| 2011 | Era Extraña | Neon Indian |
| 2011 | 180/365 | OK Go |
| 2011 | Suego Faults | Wolf Gang |
| 2011 | Flux Outside | Royal Bangs |
| 2011 | No Devolución | Thursday |
| 2012 | Lonerism (mixed the album) | Tame Impala |
| 2012 | Hello Hum | Wintersleep |
| 2012 | In the Belly of the Brazen Bull | The Cribs |
| 2013 | MGMT | MGMT |
| 2013 | The Terror | The Flaming Lips |
| 2014 | They Want My Soul | Spoon |
| 2014 | Only Run | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah |
| 2014 | Hungry Ghosts | OK Go |
| 2014 | Dizzy Heights | Neil Finn |
| 2015 | English Graffiti | The Vaccines |
| 2015 | Permanence | No Devotion |
| 2015 | Purple | Baroness |
| 2017 | Oczy Mlody | The Flaming Lips |
| 2017 | Hot Thoughts | Spoon |
| 2017 | The Tourist | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah |
| 2017 | Every Country's Sun | Mogwai |
| 2017 | Mismo Sitio, Distinto Lugar | Vetusta Morla |
| 2018 | Little Dark Age | MGMT[7] |
| 2018 | Human Music | Solomon Grey |
| 2018 | Marauder | Interpol[8] |
| 2018 | This Is Eggland | The Lovely Eggs |
| 2019 | Gold & Grey | Baroness |
| 2019 | How To Work A Room | Superet[9] |
| 2020 | I Am Moron | The Lovely Eggs |
| 2020 | Love Is An Art | Vanessa Carlton |
References[edit]
- ^'News: New Record'. TapesNTapes.com. 2007-10-25. Archived from the original on 2008-04-20. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ^'Sound On Sound: Mercury Rising'.
- ^'MOJO: 100 Sonic Visionaries'(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-07-08.
- ^Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
- ^'Rolling Stone News Story: 100 Best Albums of the Decade'.
- ^'Dave Fridmann: Discography'.
- ^Murphy, Sarah (January 16, 2018). 'MGMT Detail 'Little Dark Age' Album'. Exclaim!. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
- ^Gil Green (June 7, 2018). 'Interpol – 'The Rover' (Prod. Dave Fridmann)'. Stereogum. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
- ^https://open.spotify.com/artist/3e5snAyVao8Jsu9kxumEUs/about
External links[edit]
Flaming Lips Discography Allmusic
Telepathic Surgery (1989) reached a demented level of stylistic collage, particularly with the monumental piece Hell's Angel's Cracker Factory. The streamlined sound of In A Priest Driven Ambulance (1990) and Hit To Death In The Future HeadThe Flaming Lips Songs
(1992) relied on catchy melodies and sound effects in the tradition of early Pink Floyd. Dreamy litanies and surreal ditties became typical of less and less adventurous albums: Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993), Clouds Taste Metallic (1995) and The Soft Bulletin (1999). The notable exception was Zaireeka (1997), a set of four discs to be played simultaneously on four different players. Reviews. (Translation from the Italian by Nicole Zimmerman)The music of the Flaming Lips (Wayne Coyne on guitar and vocals, Mike Ivins on bass, Richard English on drums) has been compared to the art of animated cartoons: easily recognizable, rounded forms, a plethora of stereotypes, a collection of spoofs, and a narration that proceeds towards simplification but ends in the implausible. All of which the Flaming Lips have applied to psychedelic rock according to a practice that was not that far off from the creative genius, Frank Zappa.
Fusing ideas from sources as diverse as Miles Davis, Butthole Surfers, Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Beach Boys, their sound became a repository of 'signs' of the pop music culture that transcended the original neo-psychedelic thesis.
In their first discs, Coyne showed a melodramatic personality that expressed itself by borrowing the talking-blues 'curse' of Lou Reed and the possessed recitation of Jim Morrison. Nvidia geforce fx 5500 agp 128mb driver. The stellar drumming by English, a worthy successor of Keith Moon and John Bonham, was the ideal accompaniment for the vain strumming of the leader.
The debut EP (LSD, 1984), contained the disruptive and distorted My Own Planet, which made it epic, the 'voodoobilly' twist in Bag Full Of Thoughts pulled by the inebriated dancing of medieval poets, and the long 'trip' of Scratching The Door, which paid homage the to the first Pink Floyd; one immediately understood the anti-conformist genius and anarchy that connected their music.
The album Hear It Is (Pink Dust, 1986) contained the group's entire stylistic repertoire. She Is Death was the new and preeminent psychedelic piece in the style of the first incarnation Pink Floyd. With You introduced a genre that would be perfected and profitable ad nauseum: a form of ballad in crescendo that was a derivative of the most morbid song by the Velvet Underground and borrowed from the sleepy soliloquies of Syd Barrett. Unplugged was cleverly placed between country, rockabilly, and punk-rock forms with a tamed ferocity that, as in Just Like Before, injected abrasive rock and roll like that of the Stooges (with a riff that echoed You Really Got Me by the Kinks) and that, as in Man From Pakistan, transformed the music into a captivating and warped rebellious garage-rock. A more traditional type of style, that would soon be dropped, was used for minor but catchy tunes like Trains Brains & Rain, a drinking song that reminds listeners of the Mekons. The climax of the disc came in the long (7 minutes), melodramatic Jesus Shootin' Heroin, a sort of nightmare that borrowed from Lou Reed the pace of his agile boogie, from Neil Young the neurotic guitar and, from Jim Morrison the melodramatic recitation.
The direction of Oh My Gawd (Restless, 1987), with alternations between hard and soft moments, followed that of the previous Hear It Is. Among the beginning tracks included was the burning anthem Everything's Exploding, which united the violent noise of the Stooges with the colossal anxiety of the Animals. Then came Prescription Love, with a long instrumental introduction that sounds like the Pink Floyd of Syd Barrett at double time, and then with a refrain in the feverish rhythm of rockabilly, followed with the distorted guitar of the Cramps. In Can't Stop The Spring, a hypnotic guitar riff is obsessively repeated supporting a circus-like melody reminiscent of the Kinks. Among the latter parts of the album, however, were the first demonstrations of melodic talent by the vocalist and guitarist. There was Thanks To You, with feverish guitar reminiscent of the Who in Tommy, Can't Exist, a tender, psychedelic lullaby, and the long piano ballad of Love Yer Brain, that disintegrated near the end in deaf beats and noises. The Flaming Lips tempted fate for the first time with an extended jam, but more than just a jam, One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond, (9 minutes) was a psychodrama that crossed More by Pink Floyd and Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf. All things considered, it was the weak point of the disc, which otherwise would have been a masterpiece. The more hallucinogenic tracks (uneven, inflated, and filled with sound effects) were Maximum Dream, and above all the LCD-induced grand finale The Ceiling Is Bending. The disc was pleasing, especially to the dogmatic listeners that had turned up their noses to the silliness of Hear It Is and wanted the group to be more serious.
Telepathic Surgery (Restless, 1989), conversely, was the disc on which the personality of the group was clearly identified, a personality that until now remained floating in limbo around the sounds of the 60's. Above all, Coyne perked up and accentuated his sarcastic humor, irreverent disposition, and the animated cartoon approach (the jests of Hari-Krishna Stomp Wagon and Redneck School Of Technology, worthy of Bonzo Band). Then the arsenal of gimmicks was excessively applied and the truly infinite fragments came together in the studio. Finally, the dark side of their music triumphed, that side which joined crude space-rock and savagery like that of Hawkwind and epic underground-rock (rather than pretentious rock by the Who), and precision like that of Pink Floyd. While representing their technical and compositional apex, this disc was also the most authentic expression of the outcast/rebel spirit of the band. Their creed was noticeable from the beginning in Drug Machine In Heaven, but even more so in Frying' Up, which was propelled by the riff of Born To Be Wild. The quotations took on the importance of post-modern discourses in: Right Now, which attempted to amalgamate the pulsations and screams of Interstellar Overdrive and the pulses of My Generation, and Chrome Plated Suicide, on which the skillful singer mixed 2 famous arias from Blowing In The Wind and Tommy into one refrain. The monumental Hell's Angel's Cracker Factory (only on the CD version of the disc) was one of the tracks that aspired to the title 'masterpiece of the 80's'. Hell's was a mosaic piece in the spirit of the 60's, of those more offensive tracks by the Fugs in Virgin Forest and early Frank Zappa.
In A Priest Driven Ambulance (Restless, 1990) assisted the group in its first changes: to the craziest trio of the decade was added the guitarist John Donahue (also in Mercury Rev), who, from the first chords played, seemed to understand the folly of his companions. English in the meantime abandoned music, tired of concerts and recording studios; his successor was Nathan Roberts. It was this disc in which the psychedelic rock of the Flaming Lips began to mature into something else, less eccentric and disorganized, more linear and compact. The beginning, Shine On Sweet Jesus, was 'by the book', with furious distortions like Chrome, a hammering martial pulse and a refrain with a psychedelic beat worthy of Syd Barrett, topped off with a chorus of humorous singing both low and high like the vocal groups of the 50's. Along the lines of style of Barrett-Hitchcock, which was largely the soul of this work, Unconsciously Screamin' was the most hallucinatory track, since the spatial refrain by Coyne left room for the torrential acid discharges from the guitar. Here, as elsewhere, it was evident they were indebted to the catastrophic instrumentals by the Who. The style of Barrett was more vivid in the surreal and fairytale type ballad Rainin' Babies, marred by feedback in a celestial sound. More characteristic was the alternation between styles (the musical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) - acoustic and electric. In the first style Coyne displayed intimacy on Five Stop Mother Superior Rain, lightly touching upon Bob Dylan, the folksinger that debuted with the depressed lament of Stand In Line. Mr. Hyde comes out in God Walks Among Us, which picked up where Shine On Sweet Jesus left off with another set of tribal rhythms and maniacal injections, psychedelic refrains of filtered singing, and electric guitar charges. The characteristic effects were often head-spinning, while one must also merit the producer Dave Fridmann, who played bass for Mercury Rev. Fridmann showed off as director in the studio - unleashing a dream that few get to realize while his work of manipulation left a decisive imprint on the disc, not giving rest to the listener. Mountain Side was their instrumental enlightenment. It was less like an encyclopedia than the previous album (in the sense that the quotations were less numerous and less obvious), less conditioned by punk of 2 chords and by the junky sound of garage-rock, and always in line with the philosophy of B movie soundtracks (science fiction and horror). In A Priest Driven Ambulance suffered only due to the lack of fundamental tracks. Even if the disc was worth less than Hear It Is and Telepathic Surgery (the CD), 2 'songs about Jesus' at least, God Walks Among Us and Shine On Sweet Jesus, as well as Unconsciously Screamin' entered into the repertoire.
With the disc Hit To Death In The Future Head (Warner Brothers, 1992), which was both confused and unresolved, the group tried more than anything to be heard by a wider audience, as reflected in the more pop style tracks such as Everyone Wants To Live Forever, which was agile and aggressive like their best rock and roll tracks. However, stealing the show was the refrain, one of the catchiest of their career; Halloween On The Barbary Coast, was their counterpoint on the other side, with a more pressing guitar riff and a performance that was a bit raga. Other memorable melodies emerge in the folk-rock march of Hit It, and in the melodic sketch similar to that of the Kinks (with the surreal style of Pink Floyd) of Gingerale Afternoon. The culmination of the mannerisms of this disc was Frogs, which transformed the dazed and off-key chiming rhythm into demented chaos. The tracks were full, as usual, with humorous findings, but in general the recording was more serious and determined than in the past: these were professional songs, certainly not amateur garage-rock. A disorder prevails that was almost too composed. Just about all of the melodious tracks repeated the same pattern: they were psychedelic rhymes conducted in dry tones and fuzz grinding on the guitar, strengthened by spatial chorus' in falsetto with Baroque trumpets, and above all, spoiled by a chronic infantilism.
Complementary to those naive refrains, were the more hallucinogenic tracks, that immersed themselves in soft and languid sounds, in which one can hear the influence of the vocal harmonies by CSN&Y and in the bucolic folk of White Album (The Sun). And so the atmospheric summit of the disc was the feeble prayer embellished by dissonance that concluded the track Hold Your Head. In the Baroque style of Oh My Gawd, and far from their antagonistic sound, the creative and iconoclastic style of the other disks, Hit To Death signaled the technical (if not artistic) maturation of the group. The guitar, in particular, had never been so clear and balanced. For his part Coyne improved as a song-writer as well as a singer: as a writer who put together serious and polished text, and as a singer who resurrected the prophetic and desperate feelings of the many teenagers during the 80's by way of Westerberg. Frogs, Everyone Wants To Love Forever, and Gingerale Afternoon became instant classics.
Coyne's philosophy was that of a modern poet: alienation of the rural uneducated class, and verses of an older poet who writes of alienation of the urban educated. The group's intellectual level was well represented by the lyrics 'You're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't', akin to a mid-western truck driver and certainly not like the intellectual snob who enjoys the photographic style of Andy Warhol. Coyne did not have much to say: life, death, love. His universe ended there. His universe wasn't a grim and sinister 'nothing', but simply a deformed 'circus of the absurd'.
The rough times had not ended however: Roberts (recently married) was replaced by multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, and Donahue (who launched a solo career) was replaced by Ronald Jones. Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (Warner Brothers, 1993) confirmed the talent of Ivins and Coyne for composing catchy refrains and submerging them in a sea of sound effects; but this time the psychedelic was no longer a reason to put together animated cartoons, no longer a personification for surreal documentaries, but was reduced to a minimum, to a simple sound in the tradition of late Pink Floyd and also Sgt. Pepper. Frequently, Coyne took refuge in a lullaby that was dreamy and sad; such was the case in Turn It On, Superhumans, and Chewin' On The Apple Of Your Eye, with arrangements that varied from acoustic to classical. There was a pair of psychedelic demonstrations (lousy arrangements, amateur rhythms, and cascading effects) in Pilot At The Can Of God and Be My Head, which did not deviate, more or less, from the middle tone. The notable surreal jest of She Don't Use Jelly was the manual of how the Flaming Lips composed memorable songs: a rhyme, a chime, and a march (a borrowed theme, in this case specifically from the Rolling Stones You Can't Always Get What You Want). Coyne found that his dull and narcotic song book had the same power of suggestion as did Roger Waters, and that he could 'sell' his trance ballads in lounges. To their fans, the boys from Oklahoma, gave 3 more gems: Moth In The Incubator, during which the chaos of the sound effects took over and unleashed a psychedelic 'ride' in crescendo; the faint march of Oh My Pregnant Head, flooded with reverbs and fuzz; and the finale of Vegetable, in which Coyne plunged into another one of his catastrophic crises, but this time everything (the pace of march drums, languid wails of the acoustic guitar, fragile chimes of the xylophone, and martial distortions of the electric guitar) was truly demented.
The Flaming Lips triumphed by the painstaking care in which they arranged these tracks. This was, in effect, the Dark Side Of The Moon for the Flaming Lips, in which the group transformed a sound they forged for years by experimentation (layered quotes and noises) into a trademark.
The group had to wait months to release their next album because the classical composition of Transmissions penetrated the nervous systems of the masses, but in the end they took satisfaction in hearing their songs on popular radio. Clouds Taste Metallic (Warner Brothers, 1995) was along the same line: convoluted ballads, whispered between the dreamy and vulnerable laments by Coyne, and an extravagant array of sound effects. This was how the solemn tracks, The Abandoned Hospital Ship and They Punctured My Yolk, were created, but they had already been heard many times in the preceding discs. Every now and then (Psychiatric Explorations Of The Fetus With Needles) the group returned to the epic chord progression of the first Pink Floyd, and every now and then a rhyme with a more lively rhythm (Kim's Watermelon Gun) ushered forth from the general dullness, but the march of Bad Days (that borrowed the refrain of the 1963 hit I Will Follow Him) was given the most unlikely arrangement - only sobs. The 'She Don't Use Jelly' of the disc was Brainville, a whispered country-vaudeville style chorus. The only surreal lyrics (among the protagonists there were brains, giraffes, molecules, and rifles in the form of watermelons) to be heard paid homage to the myth, but the psychedelic chaos that made them famous was gone. the Flaming Lips compensated with their ability to produce and to refine in the studio; to blend the classes. The somewhat forced burlesque style of This Here Giraffe, Christmas At The Zoo, and Guy Who Got A Headache And Accidentally Saves The World however, had arias that were a little too distorted which denoted a very tired group.
The Flaming Lips Discography
The story of the Flaming Lips could be summarized as: the first period (the first album and Hear It Is) still in limbo with garage-rock; the explosion of a (still Baroque) psychedelic verve in Oh My Gawd; the rationalization of their ideology in post-modern songs on Surgery; Ambulance which signaled the apex of the schizophrenic crisis of the group's soul torn between the garage-rock of their beginning and the convoluted harmonies of their maturity; Hit To Death used that same schizophrenia to experiment with form; Transmissions adapted that form as dogma within the ballad style of Neil Young.