Gamble Of The Week: Brian Jonestown Massacre

Coming up this Monday and Tuesday, notorious local troublemaker Anton Newcombe will be bringing his ever rotating cast of musical characters to the Independent for a two night stand. It seems inevitable that every discussion of BJM these days is accompanied by a mention of the 2005 documentary Dig! The film is a totally fantastic and bizarre look into the musical competition of BJM and the Dandy Warhols over the course of the 90's. Following the film's release, Newcombe insisted that his drug use and many outbursts were taken out of context, and that the film misrepresented him. Now, I don't know him, so in some cases that may be true. However, in the show I saw two summers ago at Old Ironsides in Sacramento, he was firmly "in character" from the film. Songs stopped and started haphazardly, he yelled at other band members, and everyone looked pretty upset in general. Now, that being said, when they hit their groove the tunes were sublime, and the performances awesome. Point being: this isn't a guaranteed smooth and polished rock show that you might expect from your average band. My recommendation for this coming Monday and Tuesday? Go check them out - I think the good firmly outweighs the bad here, and I always see BJM as a worthwhile risk when they come to town.

Dimmer opens, Monday night is already sold out.

mp3: BJM - Vacuum Boots
mp3: BJM - Super-Sonic
Bonus: Most of the BJM back catalog is available for free on their website in the open source ogg format.