đ„
IMO this is one of the finest rock-docs ever made. Not sure how close to reality it really is (maybe more "film" than "documentary"), but filmmaker Ondi Timoner followed the bands in question (Portland's Dandy Warhols and SF's Brian Jonestown Massacre) for seven years, amassing something like 2500 hours of footage, to craft a narrative that basically portrays a love/hate relationship between the bands (at one point, BJM frontman Anton Newcombe sends each member of Dandy Warhols a bullet with his/her name on it). I had the advantage of knowing both bands on their own terms -- the Dandys' Courtney Taylor-Taylor is a longtime friend, and I've been a fan of BJM for years, as my reviews/interviews would show -- so I can pick around a bit between what seems real (the music itself, life on the road, dealing with labels and the biz) and what seems contrived (the friction between the bands, Anton's seemingly over-the-top persona). The Dandys are THE most fun hang of all time -- their rehearsal space-cum-party cabin/clubhouse, the Odditorium in Portland, took up a full city block and hosted absolute ragers over the years (including an amazing night with David Bowie and band). The film is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and Timoner has added scenes and additional narration from BJM tambourine player (!!) Joel Gion to bring the movie up to date and balance out some of the overblown-ness of the original version. Compulsive viewing, dead ahead: "Choose your own adventure" with the cameras rolling.
Mar 12, 2024
Related Recs
wild story of friends turned into rivals and the two vastly different directions a band can go under the influence of drugs and ego. the footage takes place over the course of a decade and is often pretty raw - overall an incredible doc
May 7, 2024
đ„
Itâs a documentary on the rivalry between The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols and truly nothing cheers me up more than the pretentious hipster assholes in these bands
Aug 5, 2024
â
âMaybe Iâll make enough money to buy my privacy backâ
Sort of like being trapped on a train car with the worlds most insufferable man. Pretty incredible document of one of the last moments in which there were guys playing guitar who women in faraway cities pawed at and cried over. The kind of âindie famous,â as Bradford Cox once described it, where you walk unmolested through your own countries metropolitan hubs, but are subjected to âIâll die for youâ levels of adoration once you enter Zurich or Bologna. Sorry but I donât see mj lenderman eliciting this kind of feral sexual response from an audience. Alex G maybe, but he wouldnât entertain it. Mac Demarco had some of this appeal in his time I guess. Idk itâs just kind of crazy to see a documentary about an indie rock star in early 2010s who freely uses the word faggot and ends every show by flinging a girl from the audience over his shoulder before disappearing into the dressing room. Pretty obvious why this has been burried. Unbelievably fun time.
Jan 28, 2024
Top Recs from @coreydubrowa
Hey tyler hopefully this doesnât violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s.
Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha).
For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I canât wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! â€ïž
Mar 27, 2024
âSongs Of a Lost Worldâ coming to a goth listening station near you Nov 1 đ€
The fr FW Me Friday the 13th the world was looking for
Sep 14, 2024
I will fail to explain just how much this band meant to me in the 90s.
So I will borrow from AV Club who did a fine job of distilling it:
âUnwound is the best band of the â90s. Not just because of how prolific, consistent, and uncompromising it was, but because of how perfectly Unwound nested in a unique space between some of the most vital forms of music that decade: punk, post-rock, indie rock, post-hardcore, slow-core, and experimental noise. That jumble of subgenres doesnât say much; in fact, it falls far short of what Unwound truly synthesized and stood for. Unwound stood for Unwound. But in a decade where most bands were either stridently earnest or stridently ironic, Unwound wasnât stridently anything. It was only itself. In one sense Unwound was the quietest band of the â90s, skulking around like a nerdy terror cell. In another sense it was the loudest, sculpting raw noise into contorted visions of inner turmoil and frustration.â
R.I.P. Vern Rumsey.
This is their finest song, from their finest album.
I really canât say enough about the sheer bloody minded genius of this group. đ€
Mar 23, 2024