Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Saturday, October 03, 2009
The BJM (REVISED)

It's 5:45am. I just woke up from being asleep on the couch and, on my way to my bed, decided that it would be a reasonable time to sit down and watch DIG!, the documentary by Ondi Timoner about The Brian Jonestown Massacre and--incidentally, really--The Dandy Warhols. It's screening this week as part of Pitchfork's more or less rad One Week Only series, and I implore you absolutely to check it out.

I've known about this doc for many years but had never gotten around to watching it because I'd always been disinterested in the Dandy Warhols and knew little about The BJM (other than that they played vaguely psychedelic garage rock). Now though, after watching it, holy lord am I a believer (though I'm still entirely disinterested in the Dandy Warhols). Which is a testament not just to the immense talent of band and Anton Newcombe as a songwriter, but to the excellent work by Timoner in fashioning this once-in-a-lifetime story into a gripping and concise treatise on music, art, and making or breaking it in an art world not run by artists.

The thing I'll say about the film and the band is that--while perhaps this opinion is strictly the gift of hindsight--I'm a little bit bewildered by how convinced so many people seemed to be about the "certainty" over the fact that The BJM were destined for some kind of stardom.

A point is made by Anton and others later on in the film that by the early 2000s, many bands achieving popularity like the White Stripes were just traveling a road the BJM had traveled since the early 90s. The point is entirely true and hints at perhaps the real reason the band never took off. Beyond any of the craziness and unpredictability of its members (especially Anton, obviously), I am struck mostly by the thought that in the mid to late 90s (96-2000), there was almost no popular*** music being made that sounded anything like the raucous throwback sound of the BJM. That period in mainstream music coincides precisely a stretch some of the tamest and poppiest mainstream tunes dominating the charts, and there appeared at the time to be little room for any kind of band that wasn't warm, clean and/or completely straight. Most pop offerings were either rap or the boy band variety, and the harder rock offerings were of the blandest, faceless arena rock variety (Creed, POD, etc) or the most soul-crushing uberclean rap-rock (Limp Bizkit, Korn, etc). I just basically don't get how ANYONE heard the BJM's loose, wild, uber-retro 60s sounds and thought, "These guys are awesome and are gonna be a sure hit". By 2001 or so the landscape had changed entirely, but by then the crazy combustible commune of BJM had broken apart and, just as importantly, were no longer pumping out two to three records a year. And now Anton is mostly just footnote made popular by a not-widely seen documentary depicting him as a crazed, drug-addicted madman.

Last thoughts:

In the last six hours I've downloaded three of their records: Take It From The Man$, Give It Back, and Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request, and I'm completely blown away by their total awesomeness (and equally stunned by the fact I've made it to 2009 without giving these guys a real listen). Watch the film and, most importantly, pick up the records.

NOTES:

*** -- By "popular" I mean record-selling success, not "of the popular form".

$$$$ -- One aside on this record: the track "Monkey Puzzle" sounds exactly like the blue-print for Greg Cartwright's alcohol-soaked 60s southern soul blues. Like, EXACTLY.

LISTEN/WATCH:

Brian Jonestown Massacre - "(David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six", from Take It From The Man

Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth", from Give It Back

Brian Jonestown Massacre - "All Around You", Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request

Click the "embedded clip" screenshot below to view from the Pitchfork site directly: