Ondi Timoner, director
I wished to make a documentary about 10 bands on the verge of getting signed by file corporations, to see what would occur to them. After I first heard the Brian Jonestown Bloodbath, I believed they had been some misplaced band from the Sixties. However a good friend advised me they had been alive and effectively – and that each label wished to signal them. I filmed them soundchecking for an business showcase gig on the Viper Room in Los Angeles, then they came visiting to my home, which is the yard scene in Dig!
They had been on the verge of getting signed, however had spent all their cash on sitars and had been taking the file corporations off the visitor record as a result of they didn’t need to “give away” tickets. The gig itself ended up with fights on stage. It was essentially the most unbelievable factor I’d ever filmed, however I ended up crying on Sundown Boulevard as a result of the bouncer took the tapes, which took me years to get again. Outdoors the membership, singer Anton Newcombe advised me he was coated in “blood from folks’s faces”.
The following day he advised me: “Neglect these different bands. Go meet the Dandy Warhols. Collectively we’re going to vary the file enterprise for ever and you may movie us.” Inside 10 minutes of assembly Dandy Warhols singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor, he advised me: “I sneeze and hits come out.”
Dig! appears at artwork versus commerce, friendship, collaboration and insanity by the eyes of two lead singers who every possess what the opposite has not. Anton can reside on the sting and make data for the value of a six-pack of beer. Courtney wants stability. I filmed the Jonestowns in Tremendous 8 and the Dandys in 16mm and 35mm as a result of they made it commercially. It made for a distinction: I wished the footage to mirror the diverging fortunes of what Courtney calls the “most well-adjusted band in America” – the Dandys – and the least well-adjusted.
After I began filming I used to be 23 and had no concept if it could see the sunshine of day. Between 1996 and 2003, I shot 2,500 hours of footage. My little one’s start prompted me to complete modifying, so after I gained the Sundance grand jury prize in 2004, I thanked him for the deadline.
Dig! is Romeo and Juliet, or the real-life Spinal Faucet. The brand new lower – Dig! XX – brings the story updated. Them turning into mates once more and enjoying collectively is the very last thing you’d think about occurring on the finish of the unique movie. I not too long ago misplaced my home within the California fires, however the uncooked footage was at my workplace and so survived. I discovered my Sundance award within the rubble.
Joel Gion, tambourine, the Brian Jonestown Bloodbath
If Ondi and Anton had mentioned filming, the remainder of us weren’t aware of it. Out of the blue we had been outdoors the membership, pissed off, with cameras in our faces. The gig had blown up however being in a movie was a comfort prize. I believed: “We’ll blow all these different bands within the documentary away.” At first I used to be hamming it up for the digicam, however later, when the whole lot began sinking, the digicam grew to become a coping mechanism, or confessional good friend.
Dig! was supposed to be a celebration of scrappy artists socking it to the person, however changed into a movie concerning the Dandys turning into a pop band and residing the MTV life whereas the whole lot fucked up across the Brian Jonestown Bloodbath. We had much more fights than are proven within the movie however they had been nonetheless comparatively uncommon they usually weren’t all began by Anton. Within the early days Anton had been a super-driven songwriter, however we had been all a bunch of fuck-ups by then, on the finish of the filming. I’d wink on the digicam as if to say: “Don’t fear people, all people’s tremendous, although there’s chaos reigning.” However I’d hate to be typecast because the get together man or court docket jester.
I lucked out on the finish of the film after I stop earlier than issues went full-metal blotto [he rejoined the band in 2006]. However after I see the unique movie now, I’ve no regrets. We had a lot perception in ourselves, which wasn’t blind phantasm. Twenty years on, we’re a lot mellower – more often than not. There haven’t been any fights on the present tour, and we’ve received the place in popular culture we all the time imagined. In a method, it took the whole lot we went by in Dig! to get to the place we’re.
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