Album Notes

Fred Weaver is a Baton Rouge, Louisiana based band consisting of patriarch Fred Weaver (guitar, vocals), John Wygle (guitar), John Sullivan (bass) and Matt Heroman (drums).

Their forthcoming first full band record, Five Digit Land, is a return to the noisy rock music of Weaver’s past, though perhaps with a subtlety and better grasp of dynamics brought about by years of playing solo. Guitarists Weaver and Wygle neglect traditional rhythm/lead roles in favor of trading off with Weaver’s hyperactive skittering chordal leads (often on 12 string guitar, not often used for such aggressive playing) and Wygle’s more ambience oriented effected approach. Sullivan and Heroman keep it all together with a mighty, thunderous, heavy rhythm section. Lyrical themes follow Weaver’s tradition of imagistic, almost cinematic, musings on suburbia, alienation, desperation, love lost, and love gained.

Fred Weaver, 32, has previously issued 2 albums (Present Dusk and Those Ancient Skies) of largely solo acoustic material, along with having played over 130 shows around the nation between 1999 and 2003. He was also a member of pioneering early 90’s NYC prog-noise-math rock band, Vineland, with whom he matched guitar wits (and largely lost) with ex-Bitch Magnet guitarist and future BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine. In between those projects, he has also played on many other records: drums for the semi-improv noise band Worf, acoustic guitar for the surreal Ceramic Torment, bass for the girl led indie rock band Cotillion. He has also contributed writing to Chunklet Magazine (who keep threatening to issue in book form his diary of an ill-fated fall 2000 tour opening for Don Caballero), Gambit Weekly along with several online zines. Throughout his career, Weaver’s Apocalypse the Apocalypse recording studio has recorded albums by hundreds of artists and in 2004 launched their own label, on which he’s issued releases by himself, Otasco, Slobot, Justinbailey, Reception Is Suspected.

John Wygle, now 22, was, at 12 years old, the leader of post-hardcore bedroom legends Third World War. 10 years later, he splits time between pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering and playing with Fred Weaver and his improv-noise/rock band, Black Falcon Destructor.

John Sullivan, 24, also plays bass in the shoegazery 2CV.

Matt Heroman, 21, is pursuing a degree in Psychology and plays drums with Wygle in Black Falcon Destructor.