Set controls for auto-destruct

It’s a good thing that HBO’s Boardwalk Empire features music by The Brian Jonestown Massacre in its opening credits, because anyone who’s watched the 2004 Sundance award-winning documentary Dig! probably figures the band could use the money.

Dig! is well worth checking out, if only as a too-true depiction of the ups and downs of rock ‘n’ roll. The movie documents seven years in the parallel careers of two bands — The BJM from San Francisco, and The Dandy Warhols of Portland, Oregon — two similarly retro bands who became friends, and often rivals, along the long, potholed road of rock ‘n’ roll.

From the start, Brian Jonestown Massacre channeled The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones, shot through with liberal doses of psychedelia, but they did so with such panache that nobody could call it a straight rip-off. The guitar-jangly rock theme Straight Up and Down sounds as fresh now on the credits to Boardwalk Empire as it did when Anton Newcombe’s band released it in 1996 on the album “Take it From the Man!” That was a year when main BJM songwriter Newcombe churned out three albums in a row and was raved about, not only in the indie rock press, but by Dandy Warhol singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor, as the two bands’ rock lives overlapped for a while. Yet success eluded them, just as it has a thousand great bands scattered across rock’s history.

Dig! is one of those hilarious documentaries that seems like a mockumentary: This Is Spinal Tap! for the indie rock/shoegaze crowd. Anybody in a band should see it. (Marcus Adoro of the E-heads recently gave an AVI copy to my sister-in-law Marie to watch; I couldn’t help wondering if the movie rang any personal bells for him.) Everything that can possibly go wrong for a band — drug addiction, arrests, riots during gigs, fights with fans, fights with bandmates, perverse anti-commercialism — happens to The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Lead aviator Newcombe comes off as a manic guru, not to mention a bit of an a-hole, driven by his own musical vision at the expense of his bandmates, his music label and his own health. Newcombe always seems to set the controls for “auto-destruct.”

Stoned and stoneder: Anton Newcombe and Joel Gion of The Brian Jonestown Massacre in more harmonious times.

Watching Dig!, you come to feel it’s because of his crazed ego — everything he writes, claims Newcombe, is genius, pure gold. “I’m gonna be making you guys a sh*tload of money,” he brags to A&R men at the record label he’s just managed to cut a deal with. Instead, while the music is often brilliant and visionary, The BJM stumble along, dabble deeper in heroin, break up, come together, and mess up every opportunity along the way. “It’s heart-wrenching,” rues one former manager. “Anton’s not just a jerk. He’s like one of those people who stumbles out of the desert and says he’s seen God.”

The Dandys, in comparison, are depicted as the squeaky-clean poster band of druggy shoegaze rock. Leader Taylor (he and Newcombe look somewhat alike, which is kind of weird when you think about it) brags “We’re the most well-adjusted rock band in America,” and he’s probably right. While the Dandy Warhols score a major label deal and get Dave LaChapelle to direct their video, the Massacre are shown falling apart onstage, getting pulled over by Georgia police during a US tour and arrested (after Newcombe stupidly invites the cop to search their vehicle), and breaking up again and again.

Yet the band plays on. While Dig! is narrated by Taylor (who feels the director did a hatchet job on Newcombe), it’s clear the Dandys singer has a lot of sincere admiration for BJM’s take-no-prisoners rock approach. He’s like a younger brother, full of idol worship for his older rebel sibling.

Both BJM and the Dandy Warhols emerged from the British retro and shoegaze sound of the ‘90s, and it’s no secret that drugs were a big part of that scene. It’s one thing to capture the vibe of early ‘70s Rolling Stones or the sleaze of the Velvets at Max’s Kansas City; it’s another thing to imbibe the lifestyle. “I’ve never seen them eat,” marvels Taylor at one point. “All they do is drink liquor and snort drugs… that’s all they do!”

As the bands’ paths diverge, it becomes clear that what was once an innocent rivalry has escalated into bitter rock warfare. In one amusing scene, Newcombe stalks The Dandys at a show, but he’s refused entry at the door; instead he passes the band autographed vinyl singles of BJM’s new song, Not If You Were the Last Dandy on Earth, which they handle with suspicion. In another funny bit, he sends the band a gift-wrapped package containing shotgun shells bearing their names. But, as Dandys keyboardist Zia McCabe later muses in a car ride, “Anton told me, ‘If I wanted to kill you guys, I would’ve already did it...’”

Shady characters: Courtney Taylor and Anton Newcombe are sometime-rivals in Dig!

The Dandys have their own problems with US record labels (which keep expecting them to cough up a hit), but Brian Jonestown Massacre can barely scrape together enough money for a photo shoot, never mind cut a new record and release it. Even making it through a gig without melting down seems like a challenge. As the ‘90s fade into the ‘00s, a picture emerges of a band crashing in slow motion. As sometime BJM member Miranda Lee Richards puts it, “All those ‘60s bands (Anton loves) got into drugs, but they got famous first.”

On the other side of the looking glass, The Dandy Warhols struggle with record company constraints, stupid videos and less-than-stellar indie success. But they become big in Europe, and end in triumph playing for 100,000 people at the Reading Festival. And The BJM? They bumble along, their merits championed by the Dandys and others, seemingly on the verge of perpetual breakup.

But since that documentary came out, the band — or more accurately, Newcombe and whoever is still along for the ride — has actually released several excellent albums in the past half-decade. Mixing his Velvets/My Bloody Valentine/Jesus and Mary Chain influences with a more beat-heavy style, he’s recaptured the ears of rock critics who had written the band off during its four-year hiatus. (It also helps when someone at the forefront of hip like Anthony Bourdain declares them his favorite band, as he told my wife during his Manila visit.)

The documentary Dig!, despite its slant on the band, also gave The BJM much-needed international attention. Now they’re known as the band of “that guy who freaks out when someone breaks his sitar.” So you could say they’ve had the last artistic laugh. And if nobody in the band is actually laughing yet, well, at least they have those monthly royalty checks from HBO to look forward to.