DIG!

Finally, finally got round to seeing Ondi Timoner's film DIG! documenting the turbulent comradeship/rivalry between The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols.

Hugely recommended if you haven't seen it. True fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed over several years by a close friend(!) of both bands, it charts not only the Dandy's rise and the narcissism of band leader Courtney Taylor but the parallel struggles of BJM and their self-destructive leader Anton Newcombe. Veering from moments of sheer 'Spinal Tap' lunacy ("he broke my sitar!" or the BJM playing for ten hours to an audience of ten people in Cleveland) to heartbreaking pathos - as BJM try to tread a line between credibility and success on a diet of booze and drugs, with fist fights between band members never far away.

As the film suggests it will be interesting to see in ten years time which band is remembered - the 'cartoon' Dandys or the "Velvet Underground of the 90s" 'keeping-it-real' BJM.

This was my first introduction to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Quickly acquired these two tracks from their 2CD retrospective and keen to hear and buy more.


THE BALLAD OF JIM JONES

NOT IF YOU WERE THE LAST DANDY ON EARTH
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Tepid Peppermint Wonderland - A Retrospective [buy]

DIG! [buy]
2005 DVD release