The Black Watch is an American independent rock band from

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, United States, whose only constant member has been singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter, John Andrew Fredrick. Through their thirty years in the recording industry, the group has affiliated with at least ten different record labels. Fredrick formed the band in 1987 after earning his Ph.D. in English from

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. After recording ''St. Valentine'' and releasing it on eskimo, Fredrick's own label,

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist J'Anna Jacoby joined the group and the two of them formed the nucleus of the band until she left the group in 2003. The Black Watch has recorded and toured consistently throughout its history except for a brief period in 1997 when the band broke up. During this hiatus, Fredrick wrote ''The King of Good Intentions'', a semi-autobiographical

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

about an

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band. The band recorded a CD of the same title intended as a companion piece to the novel, although the planned publication of the novel was cancelled when the publisher folded. In 2008, guitarist and singer Steven Schayer (formerly of the Los Angeles band Clay Idols, and New Zealand band

The Chills The Chills are a New Zealand rock band that formed in Dunedin in 1980. The band is essentially the continuing project of singer/songwriter Martin Phillipps, who is the group's sole constant member. For a time in the 1990s, the act was billed a ...

) joined, and Fredrick wrote and published a book of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

, ''The Knucklehead Chronicles''. In 2013, The band released ''The End of When'' on Pop Culture Press Records. Fredrick's novel ''The King of Good Intentions'' was finally published, and soon after, its sequel, and the band issued ''Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy'' (largely recorded by Fredrick without the band) and ''Highs and Lows'' in 2015. The band signed with Atom Records to release ''Witches!'', and the digital EP ''Paper Boats.'' In 2019, the band issued a compilation of their early vinyl-only releases, ''The Vinyl Years,'' a career-spanning best-of ''31 Years of Obscurity: the Best of the black watch 1988-2019,'' as well as another studio recording, ''Magic Johnson.''

Critical reception

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' has noted that, despite so many great reviews, it is "astonishing" that The Black Watch has only garnered a following "the size of a kitchen sponge."

Discography

* ''St. Valentine'' (1988) * ''Short Stories'' ( EP, 1989) * ''Flowering'' (1991) * ''Amphetamines'' (1994) * ''Seven Rollercoasters'' (EP, 1997) * ''The King of Good Intentions'' (1999) * ''Lime Green Girl'' (2000) * ''The Christopher Smart EP'' (EP, 2001) * ''Jiggery-Pokery'' (2002) * ''Very Mary Beth'' (2003) * ''The Innercity Garden'' (EP, 2005) * ''The Hypnotizing Sea'' (2005) * ''Tatterdemalion'' (2006) * ''Icing the Snow Queen'' (2008) * ''After the Gold Room'' (EP, 2008) * ''Led Zeppelin Five'' (2011) * ''The End Of When'' (2013) * ''Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy'' (2015) * ''Highs and Lows'' (2016) * ''Gospel According to John'' (2017) * ''Witches!'' (2018) * ''Paper Boats'' (EP, 2018) * ''Magic Johnson'' (2019) * ''The Vinyl Years: 1988-1993'' (2019) * ''31 Years of Obscurity: The Best of the black watch 1988-2019'' (2019) *Brilliant Failures (2020)

References

External links

The Black Watch
at MySpace
The Black Watch
official

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channel
The Black Watch
in the

Record Guide {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Watch Indie rock musical groups from California Musical groups established in 1987 American shoegaze musical groups Zero Hour Records artists