Come on baby, DIG it!
Get ready for a massive concussion of rock ‘n roll…DIG!
Courtney Taylor (Dandies) & Anton Newcombe (BJM)
One of the best documentaries…ever!
Ondi Timoner went on a seven-year odyssey as she travelled, filmed and experienced the friendship and rivalry of two promising underground bands from west coast USA. The adventures of The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre took Ms. Timoner across numerous cities in the US, Europe and Japan as both bands wrote and recorded several rocking albums, performed countless wild and unpredictable concerts and fought about everything!
It’s an absorbing movie filled with mayhem and chaos as the two bands bands try to make it big in their respective ways. Their intentions are to collaborate within the underground scene and revolutionize the music scene. However, the Dandies and the B.J.M. are polar opposites when it comes to handling the pressures of the industry, the upper management and the executives. The Dandies try to walk a tight rope by conforming to some industry standards and agree to certain demands made by executives but still try and retain artistic freedom and independence from mainstream music. And the B.J.M., well, they are just indifferent to everything and everybody.
My favorite parts of the movie are when the BJM work in various studios and create their albums. It’s fascinating to watch the process of creating music where various instrumental sounds, vocal sounds, electronically engineered sounds are recorded and placed one on top of the other. A music track is layered like an onion, and creating a soung is like un-peeling (or placing) the onion layers one by one. In the end, musicians produce a full, round and highly fragrant musical onion. The music created by the BJM are not just song tracks but a musical experience. This is especially true if the listener devotes their time, mind and soul by listening a full BJM album - the experience is heavenly.
The Dandies also produce some engrossing music, but lately, I feel they’ve lacked the rawness their earlier albums have. The latest two Dandies’ albums contain less rock and more electronic. I feel the songs lose organic feeling when one uses more electronically created sound.
Still, I am a fan of both bands but I prefer the music of BJM over the Dandies, especially after watching DIG!. The BJM are generating a growing following because of this documentary and personally speaking, I too joined the bandwagon after watching this movie.
The leader of BJM, Anton Newcombe, has denounced the movie for the way he has been portrayed and he feels the filmmaker has conveniently edited and showed chaos and destruction on the BJM side to create a more entertaining movie, whilst the Dandies are shown has having a happy-go-lucky time. Newcombe comes off as being a difficult, inconsiderate and an extremem person, but musically, he is a genius!
Although I can sympathize with Newcombe’s concerns about the movie, I thik that an impartial and non-judgmental viewer would see the movie as a way of discovering two great bands. Also, if you are a fan of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club then you should definitely listen to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. By the way, Anton Newcombe is a big fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - the greatest Pakistani qawalli musician.
I know my entry is very biased towards the BJM but I just love this band so much. The Dandies are good too, but you gotta check out the B.J.M. !!!!! Their music is easily accessible and freely available on their official website, and Anton Newcombe explains his reasons, “The Beatles were for sale. I’m not for sale, I give it for free.” Click here to access their MUSIC site and download their music for free and listen away! They are one of my favorite bands and definitely good food for the ears.
This is a trailer of the documentary, DIG!:
Anton Newcombe quote: The artist is going to create a sound for his concise purpose, using a modular synthesizing apparatus… from Radio Shack.
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