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: Friendship is U.S. film’s most sorely neglected theme. It’s all rom-coms (egregious term, isn’t it?) and buddy pics (and a buddy is not a friend). It helps, of course, that the leads in Bottle Rocket are brothers, and here are Owen and Luke in all their prime suburban splendor: dressed for the country club they’ll only get in, per Bob Maplethorpe, through the back door, as it were; masterminding in the most bungling fashion not just a heist but a life, together and apart. Anthony (note the saintly name) has his life sorted after coming back from being, as Dignam crows, “on the run from Johnny Law.” And yet he returns to a “gang,” a “team” whose leader foolishly opines that “crime does pay” (Dignan again) because Anthony doesn’t want to let his good chum down. It’s not just the prospect of Dignan getting Anthony a “cool”/ridiculous orange jumpsuit. You notice Anthony agrees to re-team up just after Futureman cuts Dignan heartlessly, mocking his mini-bike (a metaphor, surely, for he’s not ready for a man’s hog), as well as the dream job as a lawn wrangler that Dignan up and lost. I love not just Wes Anderson’s eye but heart, as it were, for detail; it’s surely something he learned from his hero, Jean Renoir. Like when Anthony takes time out during the “practice” robbery to straighten one of his Napoleonic toy soldiers. I teach this film and Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums in order to get my college students to, in the words of another very teachable flick, American Beauty, “look closer.” Plus I’m a Virgo, so friendship is my own most important theme; though half of my songs seem to present much ado about love and loss, they’re really less-than-cleverly disguised friendship ditties. I love that a Centurian, writing home to his wife in Rome, would address his letters thusly: “Dear Friend.” I have the coolest friends in the world. Everyone remarks on it. And I have five best friends without whom … I can’t imagine. Another thing I can’t imagine: Wes Anderson making another good film. The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited were ship-/train-wrecks, respectively, if you ask me. And Fantastic Mr. Fox was simply “less than,” if you ask hyper-opinionated me. One can but hope. I may write a book on the early films of Anderson. I have been taking notes on and teaching them for yonks.
Video after the jump.
