Aint It Cool News' Dig! Review
Aintitcoolnews.com
at Seattle International Film Festival
unknown author

I had the pleasure of watching Dig! this evening at the Seattle Film Festival. 7 years of footage that tell the tale of indie music bands The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Both bands admire each other's music and have charismatic singers as leaders of the band. For those of us who have heard the Dandy Warhols we know to some extent what will happen. The Warhols have achieved some degree of success around the world and well I doubt most of us have heard of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The movie starts out showing footage of the bands on and behind the stage. Both bands party and aren't too afraid to let you know they do. The shot of a table with about 20 lines of coke on it attests to that point. It is around this point where lead singer of BJM (and for all intents and purposes THE band himself) Anton Newcombe makes some pronouncements about his abilities that you quickly come to understand this guy thinks he really is the second coming.

The movie goes on to show footage of both bands individually and together. They have an odd admiration, like, respect, and competitive hatred of the other. As you see The Dandy Warhols increasingly gather their commercial steam worldwide the Brian Jonestown Massacre goes 180 degrees the other direction. Anton is a hand grenade set to go off whenever a lucky break is looking over his shoulder. Scenes showing both bands getting caught by the police with drugs while on tour tell you almost everything you need to know about the directions the bands head and the levels of self destruction we witness.

There are some fascinating scenes of arguments and physical fights between the band, the band and the audience, the band and their manager... you get the picture. Also is some damn good music. I already own some Dandy Warhols and music and I will be buying some BJM after this. Anton may be the most miserable son of a bitch on the face of this earth, but the man knows how to make music.

This movie won the Grand Jury Price for documentary at Sundance and it was well deserved. Director Ondi Timoner was on hand for a Q&A afterwards with the audience, unfortunately I had other places to be. If you like rock music at all and have ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall with THE quintessential indie band run to go see this one.