CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

David Lovering

American musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ739636 ↗
Source-derived summary

David Sullivan Lovering (born December 6, 1961) is an American musician and magician. He is best known as the drummer for the alternative rock band Pixies, which he joined in 1986. After the band's breakup in 1993, Lovering drummed with several other acts, including The Martinis, Cracker, Nitzer Ebb and Tanya Donelly. He also pursued a magic career as the Scientific Phenomenalist, performing scientific and physics-based experiments on stage. When the Pixies reunited in 2004, Lovering returned as the band's drummer.

As a drummer Lovering was inspired by bands from a variety of genres, including Rush and Steely Dan.

Biography

Youth and college

David Lovering was born in Winchester, Massachusetts and grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts. He learned to play drums during his teenage years and joined his high school's marching band. According to his friend John Murphy, Lovering was always very "drum oriented" in his musical taste. In his high school yearbook entry, Lovering stated his three main ambitions: to be in a rock band, to be an electrical engineer, and to tour with Rush, his favorite band.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “David Lovering” is american musician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through David, Lovering and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 1986, 1993, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-12-06. For this dossier, David, Lovering and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american musician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q739636. VIAF identifies the subject as 85884651. The Library of Congress control number is no2011145101. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1986, 1993 and 2004.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “David Lovering”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow David Lovering primary sources, David Lovering archive and David research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “David Lovering”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “David Lovering” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.