Dave Fridmann is an American record producer and musician. From 1990 onwards he co-produced all releases by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips (with the exception of Transmissions from the Satellite Heart by the latter). Other bands he has worked with include: Weezer, Saxon Shore, Neon Indian, Ammonia, Ed Harcourt, Sparklehorse, Café Tacuba, Elf Power, Mogwai, Thursday, The Delgados, Low, Phantom Planet, Gemma Hayes, Goldrush, Tapes 'n Tapes, Hopewell, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Number Girl, Jed Davis, Zazen Boys, Sleater-Kinney and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. He has recently worked on new recordings with MGMT, The Cribs, OK Go and Tame Impala.
As a musician, Dave was the bassist and a founding member of Mercury Rev. He gave up his role as a touring member of the band in 1993 to concentrate on producing other artists. In 2001, Dave was included on MOJO's 100 Sonic Visionaries list and was described as "the Phil Spector of the Alt-Rock era". In 2007, he received a Grammy for The Flaming Lips' At War With The Mystics at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical). In 2010, three Fridmann-produced albums were listed on the Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums of The Decade: MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, and Sleater-Kinney's The Woods.
Fridmann often brings a distinctive, expansive, open sound to the albums he produces, which has much in common with that used by Mercury Rev.
Fridmann is an occasional faculty member of SUNY Fredonia, teaching sound recording techniques in the Fredonia School of Music.