On the top of their failure, each day was Altamont for the Brian Jonestown Bloodbath, the San Francisco outfit based in 1990 by Anton Newcombe, the Klaus Kinski of psychedelic rock. Simply in time for this 20th anniversary overhaul of Ondi Timoner’s breakthrough documentary, the BJM have been again within the information as just lately as November 2023, when the primary evening of an Australian tour led to a riot. That the riot was confined to the stage, and performed out in entrance of a dumbfounded viewers, is DIG! XX in a nutshell, a welcome return for a movie that no much less an authority than Dave Grohl calls, in a specifically filmed new intro, “the best rock’n’roll documentary of all time”.
It helps to have a working information of the 2 bands it options — the BJM and Portland alt-rockers The Dandy Warhols — however DIG! XX works on a meta degree too, as a textual interrogation of rock’n’roll itself. Second time spherical, it turns into all of the extra obvious that Timoner’s movie had its roots in one other mission; known as The Lower, it was alleged to observe ten unsigned bands as they navigated the music business. There are traces of that film that carry over — DIG! XX might now be seen as a headstone for the ’90s, charting in actual time what we now know to have been the demise of company rock — however with an additional 40 minutes, this anniversary version is extra of what it at all times was: a personality research.
That character is Newcombe, a troubled poet and would-be messiah. Mockingly, Newcombe was born in 1967, the summer season of affection, a 12 months of chemical extra that, had he been born in 1940, would very have possible initiated the 27 membership (because the movie reveals, he likes to be forward of the curve). Thought-about a visionary by some, notably the Dandy Warhols ‘Courtney Taylor, who narrates, Newcombe can also be 40 miles of dangerous highway, a tough terrain that may be seen extra clearly now, within the rear-view mirror of 20 years.
Added to the combination for the reissue is Joel Gion, the BJM’s court docket jester, who refers to himself, fairly precisely, as “Anton’s tambourine-wielding sidekick”. Gion is to the BJM what the ravens are to London’s Tower of London, though his precise position within the band is rarely actually defined, even in any case this time. Gion guarantees us the within scoop, however his commentary is far more delicate than sensational, recalling the band’s early days with a way of melancholy (“We had one thing going for some time, and it was thrilling”).
Returning to the movie, at a time when DVD commentaries have by some means gone the way in which of the dodo, Timoner has augmented moderately than prolonged, conserving the tough construction of the unique however including extra depth to it. Newcombe turns into extra of a yardstick on this respect; we all know what the Dandy Warhols need — success and cash — and even they appear shocked once they lastly get it. Newcombe, although, is a thriller, a prolific songwriter who, in a key early scene, blows the band’s complete tour price range on sitars. “I’m not on the market,” he says. “The Beatles have been on the market. I give it away.”
As per the unique minimize, DIG! XX tells the 2 band’s parallel tales. Within the early days, the DWs are seen to be unmarketable — as Taylor explains, the music business of outdated claimed to be extra considering careers than hits, however would pull the plug if no hits have been forthcoming. The BJM, against this, are identified to be unmanageable. Like, actually. However by some means, everybody on this film, and within the viewers, begins to root for the brooding, charismatic Newcombe, even forgiving a few of his extra severe transgressions — like sending shotgun shells to the Dandy Warhols — on the beneficiant understanding that he’s attempting to foster a rivalry just like the Britpop conflict between Blur and Oasis (the one reference that dates this film). “He mentioned, ‘If I wished to kill you guys, I woulda already did it,” studies the Dandy Warhols’ very tolerant Zia McCabe.
The brilliance of Dig! within the first place is that its was about one thing apart from music. The Dandy Warhols coveted the BJM’s druggy car-crash cool, and the BJM had inexperienced eyes for the Dandy Warhols’ free-market license, if not their onerous money. This excellent reinterpretation displays that theme of artwork and commerce far more broadly, being an arguably extra truthful doc than Peter Jackson’s revisionist account of The Beatles’ break-up in his 2021 collection Get Again. What unites everybody on this still-engrossing film is that they do what they do as a result of, a) it’s all they can do, and b) it’s all they need to do. As one of many BJM’s many, illustrious fallen places it, “I used to be in it for the historical past.”
Title: DIG! XX
Part: Sundance (fortieth Version Celebration)
Director: Ondi Timoner
Working time: 2 hr 26 min
