Dave Fridmann

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Dave Fridmann · David Lawrence Fridmann is an American producer and musician. He was the bassist and a co-founder of the band Mercury Rev, in which he played from 1989 to 2001, although he had stopped touring with the group in 1993. From 1990 he co-produced most of the records by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. He gave up his role as a touring member to concentrate on producing other artists.

Music and breakthrough

His best-known productions are The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips from 1999 and their Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots from 2002, The Woods by Sleater-Kinney from 2005 and Oracular Spectacular by MGMT from 2007. He also worked with Weezer, Sparklehorse, Mogwai, Low, OK Go, Tame Impala, The Delgados and Café Tacuba. In 2007 he received a Grammy for The Flaming Lips' At War With The Mystics, in the category Best Engineered Album. In 2010 three albums he had produced appeared in Rolling Stone's list of the hundred best records of the decade.

Influence

MOJO magazine called him the Phil Spector of the alt-rock era in 2001, and included him in its list of a hundred Sonic Visionaries. Fridmann occasionally teaches sound recording at the SUNY Fredonia school of music. In 2017 he became director of the Western New York Alumni Drum and Bugle Corps, where he played the bass drum. He shows how much influence a producer can have on the sound of an era.

Listening

Mentioned in other articles

• Oracular Spectacular AlbumMGMT became a duo of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, who in March and April 2007 were in the studio with producer Dave Fridmann for their major-label debut.