Graded on a Curve:
The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Brian Jonestown Massacre

Celebrating Anton Newcombe, born on this day in 1967.Ed.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe may produce great music, but his true vocation is self-sabotage. Not a good strategy for career advancement, mind, but as anyone who’s watched Dig! will tell you, career advancement is hardly at the top of the list of his priorities.

Over the course of his long career he’s preferred to abuse drugs, start on-stage brawls with his own bandmates, kick hecklers at his live shows in the face, and say awful things about his elders. (“What has he ever done,” he said about Eric Clapton, “except throw his baby off a fuckin’ ledge and write a song about it?”) And talk about alienating the very people who can make him a star; I saw him at a SXSW showcase a long way back and he opened the show with the announcement, “If there are any record label reps out there, fuck off!”

As those who love Newcombe the musician as opposed to Newcombe the suicide bomber will tell you, it’s a crying shame. Because the Brian Jonestown Massacre have no equal when it comes to making neo-psychedelic music. There are those who will tell you the Brian Jonestown Massacre are a one-trick pony. It’s not true. While they are best known for their retro-psychedelia—“Going to Hell” may well be the greatest Monkees song ever written—they do plenty more.

And even if they were a one-trick pony, the trick’s a great one. How many bands with dozens of tricks up their sleeves have written songs equaling “Straight Up and Down,” “Anemone,” and “Sailor”? Not many. And the sad irony is that it’s these bands you’ll find headlining rock festivals.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 2019 eponymous LP lacks such BJM legends as Joel Gion and Matt Hollywood, although such long-time BJM members as Joel Gion still tour with the band. On The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Newcombe surrounds himself with little knowns (to many of us, anyway) like Heike Marie Radeker on bass and Hakon Adalsteinsson on guitar.

But regardless of who Newcombe turns to, The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s sound remains the same—the melodies on The Brian Jonestown Massacre are as captivating as ever, the drones just as mesmerizing. The biggest difference between this one and most of its elders is the music’s heavier; “hard rock” are words few would use to describe BJM’s sound, but it’s there on “Too Sad to Tell You” and “A Word,” just to name two.

It’s there on opener “Drained,” although the familiar elements are there as well. Acoustic guitar strum, check. Rattlesnake tambourine, ditto. The melody, as is the case with many of Newcombe’s songs, sounds intimately familiar, but you’ll search in vain for its doppelganger—it’s as one of a kind as an acid trip. The general tenor of “Tombes Oubliées” (and the vocals of Rike Bienert) bring the Velvet Underground and Nico’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties” to mind, but it rocks harder—dream pop this isn’t.

The organ in instrumental “My Mind Is Full of Stuff” is pure Procol Harum and will put you in a trance; the bass-heavy “Cannot Be Saved” features Newcombe’s trademark vocal hush and turns swirling lysergic circles in your mind. “A Word” is Stooges metal; LP topper slow drone “We Never Had a Chance” has a Loaded vibe and chipper lyrics along the lines of “Don’t be surprised if you wake up and they tell you you’re dead,” Happens to me every day.

“Remember Me This” is Neil Diamond on mind-altering drugs backed by the 13th Floor Elevators, and the elevator’s going up. “What Can I Say” is as dandy a Warhol as his frenemies in Dig! have ever come up with, and Newcombe throws in some great guitar reverb to prove that every day’s a holiday.

At the risk of glorifying a guy who’s behaved like an asshole for most of his life, Anton Newcombe is as close—Jerry Lee Lewis being his only competition—as any human being has ever come to personifying the sex, drugs and rock and roll ethos. Keith Richards, Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, all contenders.

But unlike them Newcombe has never given an inch when it comes to his principles—he can’t be bought, he can’t be sold; he’s never been a commodity and gone out of his way to make sure he never is. Some musicians never catch a break—Newcombe prefers to break every opportunity tossed his way. He’s mad and he’s bad and I’m glad he’s around. That said, I wouldn’t want to be in his presence—I’m not fond of being kicked in the face.

GRADED ON A CURVE:
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