Dig!

I've been obsessed with this documentary since I saw it at Circle Cinema last December after finals were over. It came out on DVD yesterday, and I bought it with the hopes I could watch some of it after I got home from school; I feel asleep with the TV on and didn't finish it.

The doc concerns the differing fortunes of two mid-nineties "next big thing" underground bands: The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. I was never a huge fan of either band, mostly because I don't have a kazillion dollars to buy every CD I'd like to, nor do any of the crappy record stores in Tulsa carry catalog titles by these bands (not that I didn't know the Dandys' "Last Junkie on Earth" and "Bohemian Like You.") However, I'd read plenty about them and was curious enough to go see the doc.

At the outset of the film, both bands are bursting with ego. Anton Newcombe, leader of the BJM, stares into the camera several times throughout the film, and, with the straightest face, proclaims how he's leading a new rock revolution with the Dandys that will completely change the face of music. This complete and total arrogance is so affronting that one can't help but be strangely nonchalant about it, especially as the filmmakers and Anton's crew seem unphased by his statements.

Of course, the band is hardly as revolutionary as they would like to be (who is?), but they don't suck either. Both bands are mesmerized by the 60s to the point of being as creatively pigeonholed as they are apparently liberated. The band names, of course, are the first hint to this epedimic and give clues to what each band sounds like. The Dandy Warhols are overly self-referential and poppy with a weird, savantistic alchemy which allows them to subconsciously rip off twenty songs at once and resynthesize them into an unsubstantive song that's all hook and no meat. The BJM, on the other hand, are a little darker and a lot weirder, but, as good a songwriter as Anton is, there's nothing inherently new or unique that would justify him constantly peering into the camera and berating his viewer into believing his brilliance, as if those watching were just more of his shambling entourage.

On second viewing of these scenes on DVD, I finally realized that the reason Anton looked the way he looked when he said these ridiculous things was not due to some charming affectation (like a little kid who hasn't yet developed humility), but due to the fact that he was completely out-of-his-mind stoned. Indeed, I imagine not many scenes go by where the members of either band are not on some form of intoxicant. And, duh, this is one of the big themes of the movie. So, forgive me for not having been around drugs enough to process when someone is on them. I should have known by the way that the musicians lacked profundity and laughed at whatever stupid thing came out of anyone's mouth at any given point. I was apparently too distracted by the brilliant cacophony of the story (as I imagine the filmmakers were) the first time to notice how inane everyone is.

I think there's this weird tendency of bands to feel that every gesture of "bandliness" they have when they're together somehow creates art. It's in the way that Courtney Taylor (leader of the Dandys) sashays as he drinks vodka backstage at a tiny, middle of nowhere club gig. Or when the BJM, at a Love's truck stop in the middle of the night in Middle America, feel compelled to do a rountine about all the useless knickknacks they can't afford. It's like all bands, however big or small, watched the Beatles, Monkees, and any other band one too many times on TV and just subconsciously has to put on an act. Just go to see some local, crappy band play, and marvel at how "clever" they think their jokes and between song banter are, or be amused by how they strut around the club after the show, cock-of-the-walk among the indifferent club goers. Rock'n'roll is strange, and it does this to people. A band organism conflates several fairly normal, perhaps insecure, musicians, and then it sublimates their normal personalities, and makes them victims of groupthink, groupspeak, and, what's worse, groupcliché. I've noticed this behavior myself in my limited band experience. I don't know what it is. Maybe the adrenaline of performing. Maybe the camaraderie of like-minded souls. Or, maybe it's the sheer ecstasy of getting just close enough to fulfilling a lifelong dream, and, what seems to be, in the moment, your single reason for being - playing music. So, maybe it's excusable. But it sure as hell can be annoying from a third-party perspective. Despite what I may have thought about their music, this is one thing I always like about Hootie and the Blowfish: they were regular guys. They didn't act like a band.

The "bandliness" in Dig! is exacerbated by the aforementioned drugs to the point that the BJM constantly teeter on the brink of oblivion. Courtney may be too good to deal with the label schmucks at Capitol Records as they jerk around with his singles and videos, but Anton is too good to deal with any label, on any level, period. In an attempt to secure BJM a deal with TVT Records, the manager (the second of three or four seen in the course of the doc) sends "Spokesman for the Revolution" Joel Gion in lieu of Anton. And Joel wows TVT and gets the deal.

Joel makes the film for me. He is so good, I can't believe it. Bands should have more members like this. Though he obstensibly "just" plays tambourine and macaras, Joel provides so much more: the heart, soul, and aesthetic guidepost of the band. So, take heart all you "unschooled" musicians. You don't necessarily have to be virtuosic to be good. Joel, bug eye glasses and wild hair, proves that one good idea is worth more than twenty techniques to implement it (how's that for an awkward attempt at an axiom!)

So, ultimately, what makes the film fascinating to me is the same thing that makes all behind the scenes art docs/books/mags fascinating to me: a glimpse into the creative process and working life of the musician/artist. My heart stopped at the concert scenes of early BJM - three guitars in full BöC glory, shambolic and rhapsodic as any rock'n'roll animal has a right to be. And, in the theater, it was LOUD. The 10-hour sets, barely provoked fist-fights, etc. reminded me of what Zappa's Mothers were, by designed image, supposed to be: a loose collection of freaks who showed up, plugged in, and, in the immortal words of Andy Warhol, left 'em wanting less. (In actuality of course, the Mothers were a highly disciplined ensemble. If they'd done anything like the BJM, they would've been fired on the spot). In the Louie Louie, Surfin' Bird, Wooly Bully, Sister Ray sense-of-the-word, they are true, unadulterated rock'n'roll. And the Dandys are OK, too.

Anton Newcombe complains on his website (which I read back in December) that the film in no way represents him as an individual. Sounding much like every unfairly-maligned reality TV personality, he says the doc is sensationalstic, taken out of context drivel. Even so, I still found it to contain some interesting truths, like the Mozart-Salieri dynamic that occurs between two friends when they both believe one is more talented than the other. On the other hand, though I enjoy it no less, I decry the stereotypes it perpetuates. We are continually made to think that "true" creativity and madness/social retardation go hand-in-hand. This is why people like Anton are given the ropes to hang themselves by those around them. This notion doesn't speak the truth to people, and it does the artist the greatest disservice of all. Would Anton's music have been any less great had he been able to keep a regular nine-to-five job, pay taxes, and be a "productive" member of society? Why the continued myth that certain people "can't" function like the rest of us. I used to think I'd want to be one of those who didn't have to relate to reality, but that's just some pipe dream I had when I was depressed; the idea is abhorrent to me now.

Thankfully, Anton, in recent years, seems to have come out of this bad behavior and is now more productive and social. On the BJM site, he takes umbrage that this "conclusion" to his story was left out of the movie. It isn't really, it's just that it's told only in voiceover and goes by so fast you don't notice unless you pay attention. That's another strange thing about docs, too, or any bios for that matter. People's lives don't fit into convenient three-act structures; Anton is not just Icarus, who got too close to the sun. F. Scott was wrong: there are second acts in American lives.