For almost 25 years, John Andrew Fredrick and a revolving cast of characters have been issuing records as the Black Watch. The California-based indie-rock institution is back with 11th album Led Zeppelin Five (Powertool), and it’s the first LP to feature the rock-solid lineup of Fredrick, guitarist Steven Schayer (ex-Chills), bassist Chris Rackford and drummer Rick Woodard. When Fredrick isn’t busy writing and recording songs, he’s teaching English at the University of California, so we thought he’d a be a natural choice to guest edit the MAGNET website. Fredrick, with some assistance from Schayer, will be doing exactly that all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Fredrick.
Fredrick: Lolita is my favorite book, but the one N. did two books later is the one I have read and puzzled over more than 20 times. I don’t know how he did it; I think he “saw” it in a lightning flash and photographed it in his vast mind. Nabokov is such a beyond genius, and Pale Fire is one big poem made out of the one big “poem” by old John Shade. It’s what the French call a mise en abyme. I have read everything Shelley, Samuel Johnson, Virginia Woolf and Vladimir Nabokov ever wrote. Pale Fire was the inspiration for my own quite humble novella, a kindred literary joke-hoax, The Knucklehead Chronicles, that came out in 2008. The joke’s on the reader here. Can you take one? Jokes are tests of sorts. Pass, reader.
Video after the jump.
