Frank Andrick is a Sacramento resident whose life and career has intersected with West Coast counterculture and rock and roll history at every turn. His wild stories as a “poet-writer-psychonaut-runaway” are being animated (for adults) one anecdote at a time by the filmmaking team behind Millennium Deathcult.
Andrick grew up near Sunnyvale, and his teenage job at an exotic pet store is a source of several amazing tales. He eventually landed a career in radio at KSJO working with legendary music director Tawn Mastrey, who helped introduce New Wave and punk to Bay Area airwaves. In his career, Andrick met rock and roll luminaries such as David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Robert Smith of The Cure. (Frank and Robert bonded over a mutual love and appreciation for French poet Charles Baudelaire, and they remain friends to this day.) He moved to Sacramento to be closer to family, and he quickly integrated himself into the poetry and art scene.
Around 2011, Sacramento musician Sam Eliot met Andrick at an open mic at Luna’s Cafe & Juice Bar. After hearing some of Andrick's stories, Eliot knew he had to introduce him to his friends Geoffrey Knecht and Alexandra Steele, the duo behind SUNMONKS. After years of experimenting with film and animation as Millennium Deathcult, Knecht and Steele earned a reputation for creating trippy visuals for their own music videos and friends in the Sacramento music scene.
The trio of Knecht, Steele and Eliot decided to interview Frank Andrick at length and animate his wild stories. They dressed a set with Andrick’s personal ephemera (and teddy bear Benjamin) styled after his living room and interviewed him for more than 60 hours. The result is the locally-produced, crowd-funded show “Drop In With Frank.”
Millennium Deathcult will debut the second episode at the Sacramento Poetry Center on Saturday, Sept. 28 starting at 6 p.m. The event will feature multiple screenings of the first two episodes on a big screen, Q&A sessions with Andrick between each screening, plus food and drink and a gallery of behind the scenes art from the show.
You can follow “Drop In With Frank” on their YouTube channel, and Patreon supporters are given early access to upcoming episodes.
Millennium Deathcult’s work will also be featured on the Fall 2019 tour of Hobo Johnson & The LoveMakers. They animated a short for the song “You & The Cockroach.”
