Every once in awhile a documentary comes along and says SAM I'M GONNA MAKE LOVE TO YOUR EYE AND EAR CAVITIES. It happened with Monterey Pop, Storefront Hitchcock, Instrument. It happened with Stop Making Sense, and now it's happened again with DiG!
Directed and funded by Ondi Timoner, the movie follows The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre over a period of 7 years; the bands started out as friends and gradually became less so. I knew nothing about either of them before watching it. Now I think they would make one hell of a Celebrity Deathmatch--pretty boy Courtney Taylor-Taylor vs. the mad genius of Anton Newcombe.
What we have here is a clashing of two artists' ideals: I deserve to make money off my records--You are a hipster sellout. I am not for sale--You are out of your goddamn mind, and you're a junkie. Personally I think the problem with the Dandys is they have their heads in the right place but ain't got no soul, and BJM are complete fucking idiots about 50% of the time (which kind of validates everything that's brilliant and cool about them).
FiGHT!
"And people say I'M crazy."
--Anton, inexplicably wielding a gun
Deleted scene: Joel Gion being... well, Joel Gion
Sorry to leave out the Dandys but I couldn't find any good clips.
If you haven't seen it, and you can't afford Netflix cuz you're a broke-ass mother fucker like me, then I have good news: you can watch it for free.
If you have seen it and you're all, fuck the Dandys, fuck BJM, Anton Newcombe is full of shit and I'm not buying, then I have two things to say to you: that's only fair, and way to not support the revolution.
I can't say there ISN'T a revolution when music is being shared as freely as it is now and bands as big as Radiohead are allowing their fans to name the price for their albums. The business is no longer in the grasp of the industry--so Anton might be self-obsessed and ego-maniacal, but that doesn't make him wrong. He's got something driving him, something to express, a desire to provoke change in this topsy-turvy world. I think that's dandy. And I think that's important. However, I'm still not sure what he considers to be THE revolution, as downloading music for free is harming artists like Anton who are self-funding their records, and he's most definitely against it. He encourages all to buy music from your local record store and support musicians; they need help "now more than ever."
I found DiG! to be an amazingly personal, well-crafted film. Like many documentaries, it's criticized for "misrepresenting the truth", mostly by Anton. While I'll admit that most non-fiction films are guilty of dramatizing reality--squeezing every last drop of cinema out of moments real people are actually living through--I can't help but think that's more of a kneejerk reaction to the mirror, if you know what I'm saying.
You: That's all well and good but I want MORE!
Me: OK.
Nice interview with Joel Gion from 2008
Anton's Youtube channel (rarities, new videos, weird shit)
The Committee to Keep Music Evil
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