The Black Watch have never been fans of music videos. “We don’t enjoy making them or watching them much, either,” says John Andrew Fredrick matter-of-factly. “And we’ve been badly burned by a couple of megalomaniac directors.”
Fredrick is the sole constant in a California-based indie-rock institution that’s been remarkably prolific on its own terms for almost four decades—though rarely at the expense of quality. Out today, For All The World (Atom) is the group’s 25th release and (surprisingly) its first double album. To mark the occasion, they went the DIY route and made the video for “Lord Marchpane” themselves.
“I wrote a little script that illustrates the animus of the song’s narrator toward the titular character, Lord Marchpane, a prissy, whining, fussy, snob of a writer I just might know in real life,” says Fredrick, who’s also a novelist, visual artist and college professor. “I went shopping at Michael’s for a few colorful props, and producer/bandmate Andy Creighton shot it at his house here in Los Angeles. He surprised us all by really inhabiting the part of Marchpane. Nereida Andrade—who’s played cello live from time to time in TBW—was kind enough to come play the third side of a not-exactly-love triangle.”
We’re proud to premiere the Black Watch’s “Lord Marchpane” video.
—Hobart Rowland
