The Brian Jonestown Massacre once seemed destined to become a footnote in rock history. Sure, the West Coast psych-rock collective was beloved by record buffs and bowl-cut aficionados in the 1990s, but their attempts to break into the mainstream have typically been marked by frontman Anton Newcombe’s self-indulgence. thwarted multiple times by sabotage, leaving Stoner behind. By the dawn of the new millennium, the national anthem was falling into obscurity.
Then came dig!. In 2004, this cult documentary catapulted the band into notoriety around the world. This film depicts the band’s rivalry with his label’s adversaries, The Dandy and the Warhols, in the late 1990s, including a missed opportunity, a heroin habit, and onstage fistfights, and the band wins. Did. A new legion of fans were charmed by the now infamous Newcombe. Described as an extraordinary man with a prolific and unrefined songwriting talent, determined to disrupt the burgeoning music industry and “destroy this fucked up system,” Newcombe is a man of his own. He had ambitions that were repeatedly undermined by his self-destructive tendencies. There was an arrest, a breakup, a broken sitar, and more, and after the end credits rolled, viewers were left wondering what happened to the flawed genius.
Today, 20 years later, dig! ” won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the band’s music has successfully permeated every corner of pop culture. Amid record reissues, new album releases, and countless international tours, “Straight Up and Down” was chosen as the title theme for an HBO blockbuster. boardwalk empire In 2010, his opiumized calling card “Anemone” was streamed 70 million times on Spotify, making it perhaps his biggest hit.
Until last year, it seemed like everything was finally going well.Newly restored and expanded dig! XX – featuring new narration by band member Joel Guion – was scheduled to premiere at Sundance, and BJM was embarking on an international tour. Then things fell apart again. In November 2023, during a show in Melbourne, Newcombe grabbed guitarist Ryan Van Creed’s instrument and hit him over the head with it. Eventually, the two fell to the floor and began punching each other before security separated them. The brawl made international headlines. The remaining tour dates were also suddenly cancelled.
It wasn’t always like this, insists Guion, the band’s talismanic tambourine player. In the jingle jangle jungle Get through all this noise and arrive. In the beginning, “I was completely obsessed with Anton,” he tells me. Guion joined the band in the mid-1990s after failing an audition to be a guitarist, and he soon became a calming influence in The BJM’s ever-swirling tornado. After his fun-loving antics, dig! He earned a central spot on movie release posters and became a kind of psych-rock pin-up.
Back then, Guion continues, Newcombe was simply a funnier and more interesting person than the “super-outspoken” guy he is today. “He was really the Rock of Gibraltar, which sparked a lot of curiosity,” he says. “The ‘Crazy Guy’ version didn’t show up on my radar until the Viper Room show.”
Guion mentions the 1996 LA industry showcase that later became a viral calling card. dig!“An embarrassing party video that will never go away for everyone involved,” he says dig! XX. The band was hoping to get a record deal that night when A&Rs met. All at once. Instead, the show descended into chaos, with a brawl breaking out between Newcombe and his bandmates, instruments destroyed, and the group ejected from the venue. “A few hours ago, we were singing ‘I Am Love’ in the backyard,” Guion recalls. “And suddenly I had no idea what was going on. For example, why does my hero act like this?
Still, Guion stuck with Newcombe and remains the band’s second-longest-serving member after the bandleader himself. In 2019, he was struck by “a bolt of creative lightning” that prompted him to commit to 2,500 words a week via Patreon to share the stories that had previously been grandly told to the band’s revolving door of new recruits. Became. “There couldn’t be a better conversation,” he told me. A bold statement, considering that in subsequent hardcovers he has made extensive references to LSD, ecstasy, and heroin. “If I write a scene that I’m really happy with, I’m ready for the day. I was high.”
In the jingle jangle jungle The work primarily covers the period from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and provides a new perspective on legendary events witnessed around the world. dig! In addition, it is full of debauchery stories from Gion’s personal life. From life under surveillance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in an acid tab printing factory, to the near breakup of young Oasis on their first U.S. tour, to meeting Joey Ramone, Harmony Korine, and Robert Downey Jr. Until now, Gion has been a place of springs. Vibrant storytelling based on groovy colloquialisms and rampant fourth wall breaking.
Meanwhile, references to British shoegaze like Ride and The Verve, house parties with soundtracks from Blur and Pulp, and bootlegging from The Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream are part 10. It is a welcome trail post for Britons who have little understanding of the prosperous West of the past. Coastal music scene.
But it’s Guion’s passion and excitement for his band that provides the most endearing moments in Guion’s book. Nevertheless, my book review is conspicuously missing the promised “Foreword by Anton Newcombe.”
“I was worried about going back in time and putting all my bad behavior back into the public eye,” Guion says. “But then something happened in Melbourne.”
Melbourne, the culmination of a long tour in 2023, was the latest bizarre incident to be added to the band’s long list of mishaps. The chorus of boos and the unseemly lowering of the curtains echoed the events at the Viper Room in 1996. .sans benny hill Routines and wrestling matches, Guion says, was the prevailing atmosphere throughout the tour and rehearsals.
“We’d be hanging out all day, and the atmosphere would have been good,” he says, reliving the long haul across the US and Australia. “But the moment we got on stage, the curtain went up and the atmosphere went down. By the fourth song, people were screaming their heads off. I was able to steal the moment – we played “That Girl Suicide” and I was able to fall into that pool of positive energy. But in the end, I ended up getting angry and leaving the stage at all but two or three performances of the entire tour. ”
He wasn’t the only one. Reddit forums are filled with reports of Newcombe slamming new drummer Dan Lyons (formerly of British villains Fat White Family) on the mic, with one fan calling the tour a “psychedelic Jerry Springer Show”. I called it.
For Guion, the breaking point for percussion came on October 4 in Seattle, when the band was banned from the venue that night. He laughed as he recalled having mud thrown at him that night. “Joel wrote a book. I’m not going to read it,” Newcombe told the audience. “This is really commendable, because we could have let the AI do it.”
In response, Guion “cracked his maracas, slammed them into the ground in front of his feet…and just walked away,” he now recalls.
He was persuaded to return, but personal family matters forced him to abandon ship until mid-November. After three shows, the fate of the tour was sealed in Melbourne. “Everything is strange right now,” Guion admits, but he hasn’t spoken to Newcombe since. “I know he’s frustrated about that.” dig!will appear again. He’s annoyed that I’m narrating it. And he’ll be annoyed if he reads this. But I have to tell you the truth. Even though he is a memoirist, he cannot help but tell the truth about his life. ”
Chaos has always been the form and function of BJM, but incidents like this never stop Newcombe. “It’s Anton. When you light a fire in him and give him something to fight for, that’s when his A-game gets intense,” Guion says. “He’s probably going to hit the best record of his career right now.”
As for his own involvement, “Four months later he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I just went through the Super Guru experience…would you like to go on tour and play some music with me?’ If you say, ‘I’d be out the door in that moment.’ But it’s going to take a big revelation for him…and if this is the time to end, I’m not going to hold on to it. Nothing lasts forever. ”
In the jingle jangle jungle Published by White Rabbit Books on February 29th, priced at £22