Starring: Anton Newcombe, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, Joel Gion, Matt Hollywood, Peter Holmstrom Directed By: Ondi Timoner Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Special Edition, NTSC Label: Palm Pictures / Umvd Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 12, 2005 Running Time: 107 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 2003
Description: Seven years in the making and culled from over 1500 hours of footage, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock ‘n’ roll, unearthing an incredible true story of success and self-destruction. Anton A. Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols are star-crossed friends and bitter rivals – DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce.
Amazon.com:
Italian fabulist Italo Calvino observed that there are two kinds of artists--those who are prolific and successful, and the tortured geniuses, each gazing at the other in deep jealousy and admiration. The two rock bands chronicled in the documentary DiG! fall easily into this equation. On the side of the tortured geniuses is the Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by the psychedelic and volatile Anton Newcombe. Portland's the Dandy Warhols, fronted by Courtney Taylor, fulfill the role of the artists who, while unable to plumb the artistic depths of their friendly rivals, achieve a fair degree of popular acclaim (in Europe, anyway). Shot over seven years and containing some astonishingly intimate footage, the film represents a labor of love for director Ondi Timoner, who befriended, lived, and traveled with the bands. DiG! will likely be most remembered for a remarkable scene of rock and roll implosion--a show in LA's Viper Room after which the Brian Jonestown Massacre were expected to ink a record deal. Instead, the band erupted in a fist fight onstage. Among themselves.
Does it go uphill or downhill from here? Depends on your definition of the terms. While dooming their careers, the Brian Jonestown Massacre manage to crank out an insane number of self-distributed albums--including three records in a single year. Courtney Taylor and the Dandies regard the musical output of their peers worshipfully and find themselves virtually ignored stateside but huge stars across the pond. While tens of thousands of fans in Germany and the UK sing along to every word at sold-out festivals headlined by the Dandies, Newscombe leads his crew in a nine-hour set in a dingy club for an audience of ten. Throughout the film there are controlled substances imbibed, clothing shed, sitars broken, punches thrown, arrests made. Taylor performs double duty as narrator of the film, begging the question of whether to accept his assertion that he fronts "the most well-adjusted band in America" at face value. The destined-for-greater-things Joel Gion, BJM's tambourine player, is the thief of every scene in which he appears, playing Flavor Flav to Newscombe's Chuck D. For those who want even more immersion, the DVD includes the option to "zoom," or expand, various scenes--a very cool feature. Those responsible for the hilarious excesses of DiG! have made a movie worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as This Is Spinal Tap, as mixed an honor as that might be.
DVD Features
The second of this set's two discs is practically its own sequel. Director Ondi Timoner had 1500 hours of footage to work with, so there was plenty of good material left on the cutting-room floor that found its way onto this supplemental disc. The deleted scenes include an unintentionally haunting pre-9/11 interview on a New York rooftop with BJM's Anton Newcombe; the twin towers loom behind the singer as he attempts to justify singing about love yet engaging in violence, drawing tenuous parallels between himself and militant prophets throughout history. This, and Newcombe's delight in listening to Charles Manson's musical recordings, is about as heavy as it gets, though. Other extras include various videos by the bands, with the conspicuous absence of the Dandy Warhol's David LaChapelle-directed "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth." (The omission is understandable in light of the Dandies' sour grapes over the $400,000 video.) The Where Are They Now features find various members of the bands a little older and reflective, with new families and new gigs, reminiscing fondly on the seven years spent under Timoner's watchful spycam. As is the case with the film proper, the mood picks up whenever Joel Gion appears. When is this guy going to get his own talk show? For fans of Timoner's commentary on disc 1 there is--get this--footage of the director and her partners recording that commentary. Why there's no footage of Timoner watching and commenting on the footage of herself recording the commentary is anyone's guess. --Ryan Boudinot
Dig These Discs by the Brian Jonestown Massacre
Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective
Strung Out in Heaven
Bravery Repetition & Noise
And This Is Our Music
Thank God for Mental Illness
Bringing It All Back Home Again
Dig These Discs by the Dandy Warhols
Welcome to the Monkey House
Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia
The Dandy Warhols Come Down
Dig These Documentaries (and One Classic Mockumentary) on DVD
Best indie-rock documentary ever Let me state upfront that I am a huge Brian Jonestown Massacre fan, and not very knowledgeable about the Dandy Warholes. That cleared up, I don't know what it's taken me so long to see this movie, but I finally did, and it frankly blew my mind. This release comes with 2 DVD's.
DVD 1 (120 min.) brings the original film (107 min.), tracing the origins of both bands, and their respective band leaders/singer-song-writers, Aton Newcombe for BMJ and Courtney Taylor for the Warholes. The movie was filmed over a 7 year period (1996-2003) and showcases the struggles of both bands to make it 'big'. The main focus of the film is on Anton Newcombe, a brilliant musician, but a very troubled human being (and I'm being kind). Clearly having the talent to make it big, Anton simply self-implodes time and again. Whether this is by choice or not is probably a medical issue, frankly. Watch the LA Viper Room scene, when they all know there are a number of record executives in the room, wanting to sign the band, and the gig ends up incredibly in an all-out fight among the band members on stage. Unbelievable, but real. The movie comes with a number of "linkouts" (about 15 min. in total) that lead you to additional scenes (such as when the Dandy Warholes' drummer leaves the band, which then gives a interview with the guy after the facts, reflecting on it).
DVD 2 ( 65 min.) brings deleted scenes, videos from the Dandy Warholes, and several live clips from BJM, as well as a jam session between Anton and Courtney. But most interesting for me was the "Where Are They Now" sequence, as well as an extended interview with the film's director.
I had never seen Brian Jonestown Massacre live until last year at the Monolith Music Festival (at the Red Rocks near Denver) and their 60 min. tension-filled set was fascinating. Anton Newcombe berated both the audience and his own band members, walking out several times, only to return. Unforgettable. Earlier this year, both bands have released a new album (BMJ's "My Bloody Underground" is quite good actually). Meanwhile, "Dig!" is indispensable for any indie-music fan.
Excelent documental for the underated brian jonestown massacre. I would preffer that spanish subtitles were included in the dvd I have bought. Maybe that information whas included in the description of the item and I've missed it, maybe the information was omited. Anyway, and despite of the fact that the product is used, IT LOOKS LIKE NEW. Great Buy, and great service from Amazon.
You HAVE to listen to this MUSIC I agree. Need more video. You have to hear The Brian Jonestown Massacre! This band should be THE most popular American band this century. It's an odd, messed up phenomenon....And, whatever it is, it's the same thing that kept The Charlatans UK from being the best British band ever. It's so WRONG!
Great documentary!! Awesomely edited, funny, insightful, chockful o' waaayyy interesting characters, I dug DIG! One of the more interesting aspects of the film is its theme of Art vs. Commerce...both real and imagined by various people in the film. Up there with "The Last Waltz" as far as rock documentaries go.
I wanted more videos! First time I learned about "Dandy Warhols" music group was when I saw (not so good) "9 Songs" movie. They were one of the featured bands and their video was in Special edition portion of the DVD. And then, I thought they were British only to learn (after this documentary) that they are from Potland, Oregon. What I definitely did not know is all the rivalry between them and the other band "Brian Jonestown Massacre" that turns out to be a really fine band too. Both bands are very talented but also very different too. I wanted to see more videos and performances from both groups. It is definitely not a "Ramones" movie - which of course is a let down. Skip the movie, get the CD music. You will miss watching the beautiful Courtney Taylor and handsome Anton Newcombe, but you will at least enjoy music that both bands - in their own way - are good at. There - I said it.
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