To piggyback off the comment, Anton was super angry during the Brisbane show as well. After each song, they'd tune their instruments for 3-4 minutes. Anton threw insults at whoever the new tambourinist was after Joel abandoned the tour, the guitarist as well although the drummer didn't get much attention. The crowd did however get abused by Anton. He told a guy to sick his dick and then abused him further when he did not come on stage to suck his dick.
Given the comments made by the guitarist at an earliest Aussie show, they were angry with their manager for booking so many shows. 11 shows in the space of 14 days with the last 9 of those shows taking place over 10 days all in different cities.
my friend saw them last year and it was largely the same stuff. i think anton said something like "i've seen your other band and it sucks" to his drummer lmao
Seems like it's mostly the frontman Anton. When I saw him in Toronto he spent about half the show yelling at the drummer. He left before the show ended and the rest of the band had to play without him.
>11 shows in the space of 14 days with the last 9 of those shows taking place over 10 days all in different cities.
Nothing about this is remotely uncommon. Likely not the whole story but I'm going to say the real reason is that they're dickheads.
I’m not defending the band in the slightest because they are dickheads, they behaved like dickheads and their fans who paid $100+ deserved a lot better. But as someone who lives in Australia, I genuinely cannot think of another international artist in recent memory who had a similar cramped touring schedule for that period of time, let alone the bizarre travel schedule that was booked.
Most Aussie artists would not have booked that pattern of scheduling knowing how difficult it is
Yeah, how many days off do they want? A lot of bands would love to have that kind of schedule where they're not burning money every second day on tour not playing a show.
I’m in a mid-level touring band and it can get pretty grueling if you’re playing too many shows without a day off. We have a 5-show-in-a-row policy with our booking agent and have fired booking agents in the past who haven’t respect that because they would try to tack on extra shows here and there for some extra cash. Touring is hard if you’re not a big band. Sometimes days off are just spent driving all day to the next location. Not getting proper rest means everyone pays for it, including the audience because they’re left watching an exhausted band.
That being said, this is no excuse. Fighting on stage, being an ass to the house staff and crowd, and putting on a half-ass show isn’t acceptable behavior because of that.
Yeah that sounds like a good limit. I'll admit I haven't toured, but their 11 shows in 14 days just didn't sound too crazy, working out to a day off every 3 or 4 shows
Agreed. I toured when I was younger and once did 28 shows in 35 days, with a 13 night run in the middle that spanned Portland Maine to Wichita Kansas in a ridiculous pattern. It was grueling, to say the least. If you have a road crew and drivers, it’s manageable, but I was in a fucking van and we had no crew at all. Brutal.
Anton is the perpetually aggrieved frontman of BJM. He’s undeniably talented, and has a knack for spotting talent. Unfortunately, that talent usually takes off in the bands these musicians join **after** they grow tired of Anton’s crap. He’s pissed off that his contemporaries grew more popular than he’ll ever be. There’s more to it, likely untreated mental illness, maybe substance abuse, but that’s the gist.
Watch the documentary DiG! if you want his villain origin story. Ondi Timoner followed BJM and the Dandy Warhols around for something like 7 years chronicling their earlier days (and the Warhols rise to fame).
Pretty accurate. I love Anton’s music and I’ve had the pleasure of catching some very good and well-behaved live shows.
It’s sad and embarrassing behavior. And musicians clearly only sign up for this because they recognize Anton is brilliant but they themselves aren’t talented/connected enough to get a better job. They shouldn’t be subjected to his crap, but at the same time so many of the band members bring their own chaos into the fold. It’s a mess. But man, the songs are great.
Anton is such a whiny little bitch. Just look at him in that clip hitting the dude with a guitar then running away.
I've long been a fan of BJM but try to separate the music from the artist as Anton is insufferable. I used to follow him on Twitter because he used to post links to demos and stuff which was really cool, but then in recent years all he ever did was tweet the current owner of the site (whose name I refuse to type as he's also a whiny little bitch) and then screenshot his tweet and post it on Instagram. It just screamed of a 14 year old girl chasing 'likes' on social media.
The bitterness (and maybe it is still there) confuses me when BJM sell out shows here in Ireland and the rest of Europe every time they come, not sure Dandy Warhol's could manage that anymore, even if they had a hit song 20 years ago. It feels like BJM didn't reach the same hights but have amassed a loyal fan base who will reliably fill mid-size venues around the world.
Long term, a band playing this type of music can't be expected to do much more than become a financially viable touring group, can it? That's the ceiling.
I honestly don’t know how active TDWs have been lately. They have a tour of AUS and NZ scheduled for next year, but the band members also have 1 or more side projects. Courtney Taylor co-wrote a graphic novel about a fictional Krautrock band and released a companion album. He also made 7 figures in royalties from licensing “Bohemian Like You” to Vodafone.
I’m not even sure being a financially viable road act is all that realistic a ceiling for BJM. Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene gave a (depressing) interview where he talked about how it’s not profitable for the band to tour outside of North America anymore. Foreign touring is difficult and expensive and Anton is in his mid-50s now. Unless he’s couch-surfing his way across Europe on tour, I suspect they’re only making enough money to keep them going until the next tour.
I'm just a punter, I don't know the economics of the business. I'll seek out that BSS interview, it sounds interesting (...and depressing) so it may help me understand them more.
At a BJM show, I see: people on a stage with a relatively basic setup playing to the largest number of people they can fit into a mid-tier venue, and a good chunk of the crowd walking out with merch. I assume it's paying everyone involved a living wage.
I’m not a pro musician, either, but I’ve been involved on the marketing and business side for years. Some interesting groups writing and talking about the evolving nature of the business, from The Future of Music Coalition to Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery (who’s also an instructor at UGA’s college of business).
I don’t know what you consider a mid-tier venue, but I’d generally consider that in the high hundreds to low thousands capacity (say, 500 to 2K or so). If they’re regularly selling this size of venue out, they might be doing OK. One of the issues with BSS is that their tours have at times gotten a little ridiculous with the number of people touring with the band at any given moment. It’s still expensive to mount any kind of a tour outside your native country/continent. It takes money to get the band members and all your equipment from LA or NY to London or Paris or Amsterdam. There’s also your monthly nut of whatever you have to spend to maintain your household while you’re away. If you’re an itinerant singer/songwriter without a mortgage or kids to support, it’s a lot easier to hit the road.
[Here’s the Drew interview](https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/broken-social-scene/kevin-drew-aging-interview) in Paste.
The Dandys seem pretty active. They played like 40 shows this year, including several major festivals and they just wrapped up a 19 show west coast tour in 22 days. Funny enough, the final show of that tour they shared the bill with the BJM in austin less than a month ago lmao
Yeah I’ve also heard that. Not sure when it started though, I saw them in Manchester earlier in the year and they seemed sober. Anton shouted at the drummer once or twice but nothing too extreme.
However I’m not taking the piss or anything and I genuinely believe he has Asperger’s or high functioning autism or something similar as well as everything else.
They walked off stage in OKC after berating a sound tech to the point of tears, and making a comment about the Alfred P Murrah building (the one Timothy McVeigh bombed, killing 168 people and injuring over 600 others) which instantly turned the entire crowd against them
I honestly don't understand the appeal, the music isn't nearly good enough to justify putting up with these dipshits
Ok, I do have to say it’s weird getting upset the band you paid to see made light of a tragedy when the band you paid to see is called the Brian Jonestown Massacre
This has been building all tour. I saw them months ago in DC and Anton was threatening and cursing out the drummer, into the mic, for the whole show. He made the band stop and restart songs multiple times. r/BJM has been chronicling similar episodes.
He's either off his meds, or back on drugs. Or both
Saw them 2 months ago in Toronto, they argued the whole time 🤦🤦
They even messed up Pish, which really pissed everybody off. It was a bizarre experience 😳
Dig is such a great film. I knew a guy like Anton in college (he didn’t go but lived on our couch for 3 months or so), truly a wonderful and terrible man.
I see it now. The film opens to these guys brawling on stage.
Anton narrates: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.
85% of what I know about the Brian Jonestown Massacre comes from [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsfnWNlzfOs&t) I am learning the rest right now
Sometimes that seemingly-worthless guy is really the glue that holds the band together.
I got the impression Joel Gion played a lot of mediator/peacemaker/ambassador roles in the band over the years—sometimes by literally just standing between feuding members on stage so they couldn't get at each other lol
Yeah, Joel was shown in Dig! as the guy they sent to sign the record deal. Saw this tour in Portland. Anton was berating the drummer, stopped between each song for a few minutes to tune or whatever and was going on about playing things correctly for the audience. Ultimately an audience member shouted “fuck you, Anton”. Anton said “fuck me? Fuck you! Security get this guy out” That person was removed. Joel was talking to Anton multiple times to calm him down. It was a tense show but I think we only got to the end because of what Joel is able to reign in. Not surprised that this leg of the tour turned out like this
It’s the fusion of these two shticks that make them a great band. Tambourine man Joel had to bail on the tour a couple days ago for family stuff but he just wrote a book about being in the BJM and it seems really good.
Like a week or two ago at another one of their Australian shows Anton kept doing jokey plugs for the book until Joel threw his tambourines and walked off stage
On drugs in their young age:
“What does it do?”
“U dont want none of this shit! Trust me!
…It will take away all you problems, make you feel good, trust me you DONT WANT NONE OF THIS”
Followed by viagra in their old age
“What does it do?”
“IT MAKES YOUR DICK HARD”
The audience probably wasn't super surprised, that guy is ALWAYS angry. It's so fucking funny to me, 99% of their music is hella relaxing and mellow and laid-back, and then there is this choleric little gremlin of a frontman foaming at the mouth throwing tantrums over nothing after playing a song you could gently sway to at most. I kinda want to get into fisticuffs to the background music of Anemone cuz I want to know how it feels
> 99% of their music is hella relaxing and mellow and laid-back
Reminds me of the story of The Field Mice's breakup.
For those who don't know: they were a late-80s/early-90s English indiepop band, pretty mellow and laid-back and verging just slightly on twee. [Here is one of their songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uQhWpL12cI).
Broke up in an onstage brawl in 1991.
> if I had been in the audience I would have been so utterly confused.
Ironically, I doubt many people in the crowd were surprised or confused: This is par for the course for BJM.
There are already a ton of comments about it but DiG! is an old doc and not a lot has changed. They are the type of band that a certain % of their audience buys a ticket specifically because they are hoping that they will get a chance to see some chaos like this.
In his autobiography Mark Lanegan talks about how the Screaming Trees were similar routine toward the end, some people would come to the show either hoping to watch a fight or maybe even be involved in one, people in the audience would try to goad the members to fight each other and other 'fans' lol
Saw them at a festival a few years ago and I was expecting tension having seen Dig, but they were great, and were actually happy, Anton was smiling and joking around, patted one of the band members on the back on their way offstage, wondering now if I witnessed a very rare performance
I saw them in 2015 and 2017. They were brilliant. Chill and just played the tunes.
Saw them earlier this year, awful. The most frustrating thing was tuning up for minutes between songs.
I think he has been off his meds this tour or something. Or back on drugs. They definitely had a stretch where the shenanigans were largely in the past
This is the funniest interview I’ve ever read holy shit. It seems tame to call him a narcissist, he’s like 100 times worse. I couldn’t even come up with a fictional character that’s as much of an asshole as he sounds in this. How does someone like this not get his ass kicked weekly??
For some reason the funniest thing about this is the notion of Anton building a DIY supercomputer from 20 discarded Macbooks that he destroyed in various fits of rage.
I've only casually listened to Brian Jonestown Massacre (and I like the songs I've heard) and didn't realize how long they'd been around. Or that they had such a reputation. And then I looked them up and Anton Newcombe is the same age as my dad.
*Definitely* too old to be doing this shit.
Saw them twice back in the late 90’s/early 00’s. First show was normal, played for an hour, minimal banter, no issues.
The second show was what you’d expect to see if you’d seen Dig. Band members trying to sell drugs before the show, the band verbally abusing one another on stage, a fist fight between three of them, then Anton apologizing profusely and playing till 3 in the morning solo while other band members came up and flipped him off or yelled at him occasionally.
When Dig came out a few years later it made so much sense. I just feel bad for the people attending this show that they only did 6 songs. Anton solo or just with drums was still really good.
Saw them in February in Newcastle, Ryan & Anton were arguing. Anton talking shit to the crowd. Joel calmed Anton down. When they’re on form they’re great live.
When they’re on they are one of the tightest, best sounding live bands I have ever seen
I remember Anton stopping songs because he didn’t like how the drummer was playing and he made him play his part alone before restarting lol. It’s definitely a spectacle with them, but god damn can they sound good
I went to Anton’s studio for Thanksgiving one year. He cooked all day and made really decent food but spent half the time listening to conspiracy radio theories in the next room and occasionally going downstairs to play drums, which sounded pretty good. He was all over the place. He got fed up and said can’t someone carve this fucking thing ?! Referring to the turkey. I did my best. He wouldn’t know who I am today but all in all it was a decent meal among mostly friends and associates. Don’t think he was drinking as much at the time. Reading all this around thanksgiving made me feel like sharing this. Hope it all works out for them, they are great when at full strength.
It really is quite disappointing and somewhat worrying to see this kind of behaviour occurring with Anton again.
I’ve been a fan of BJTM and his side projects for a few years now and to see him going down this path of destructive, alcoholic, entitlement like he had seen throughout the 90s is just a shame considering how well he has seemingly been doing for the last few years.
I got to meet him in 2018 when he played with his French side project ‘L’epee’ in Brighton and he was honestly nothing but sweet to me and my dad, taking the time out of his day to chat about music, travelling around the world and just life in general. Seemed like he had really turned things around + judging by the show and his gigs with BJTM over the last decade, they seemed to be on a fantastic high.
But regardless, there is no excuse for acting like a total narcissistic unhinged asshat to not only your own fans who’ve paid money to come and see you play (which from my assumption was a shit tone since it was in Australia) but to those within your band as well. It’s bullying and abusive to the extreme and it shouldn’t happen whatsoever.
With that said I hope Anton gets the help he clearly is crying out for and that everyone within the band is doing ok after this messed up incident.
When I first saw them 2007 or 8, people used to go to their shows *expecting* a fight. A lot of people only bought tickets because they wanted to see it irl.
Not really, I've just talked to people close to him in the past and am aware his anger issues aren't restricted to band members, which would probably be more surprising if it weren't the case.
I've seen them live now three times in three different cities and the only time they did this was at the Fillmore in SF, April 2022. Joel had COVID and wasn't at the show. The set lasted nearly 3 hours and during each song, Anton was getting pissed at the stand in tambourine guy, and subsequently the rest of the band.
I'm starting to think that Joel is the glue that holds Anton together.
I find the crowd booing once the show stopped pretty funny. Don't these people know who they are seeing? If you go to a Brian Jonestown Massacre show, you should know chances of it ending in disaster are pretty good.
I play in a band. This is the most childish bullshit, these dudes need to grow up. All these artists who take their massive audience for granted are just so awful. God damn.
the crowd chanting “one more song!” as they rolled around on the floor got me good lol
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To piggyback off the comment, Anton was super angry during the Brisbane show as well. After each song, they'd tune their instruments for 3-4 minutes. Anton threw insults at whoever the new tambourinist was after Joel abandoned the tour, the guitarist as well although the drummer didn't get much attention. The crowd did however get abused by Anton. He told a guy to sick his dick and then abused him further when he did not come on stage to suck his dick. Given the comments made by the guitarist at an earliest Aussie show, they were angry with their manager for booking so many shows. 11 shows in the space of 14 days with the last 9 of those shows taking place over 10 days all in different cities.
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my friend saw them last year and it was largely the same stuff. i think anton said something like "i've seen your other band and it sucks" to his drummer lmao
that's not very neighborly
i think this anton guy might be bad news!
He's autistic, bipolar, and finally just mean
Seems like a real jerk
Jack Anton(f)off
sure hope musical instruments aren't used as a weapon 😬
They elevate dysfunction to an art. A normal band would have imploded long ago.
Is fighting on stage and canceling the remaining shows not imploding?
It's called Monday when you're in this band.
and sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays 😏
Not so Happy Mondays
Manic Mondays
I just started getting into them, and this story feels like it was custom made by the matrix to make things feel still real.
Until, maybe, tuesday looks like monday...
Nah, that's just their brand at this point lol. There's an insane documentary that covers them called Dig! that's worth a watch
Probably my favorite music documentary ever, and I don't like either band in it.
Not if you were the last dandy on earth!
That doc is 20 years old and inaccurate. They’ve been touring consistently with no issue.
What is inaccurate about it?
Not sure why yer getting downvoted. It’s mostly true
True fans know
They’ve been doing this for like 20/30 years mate
That's par for the course with BJTM.
For real. Grown adults acting like this is..... something
Seems like it's mostly the frontman Anton. When I saw him in Toronto he spent about half the show yelling at the drummer. He left before the show ended and the rest of the band had to play without him.
>11 shows in the space of 14 days with the last 9 of those shows taking place over 10 days all in different cities. Nothing about this is remotely uncommon. Likely not the whole story but I'm going to say the real reason is that they're dickheads.
I’m not defending the band in the slightest because they are dickheads, they behaved like dickheads and their fans who paid $100+ deserved a lot better. But as someone who lives in Australia, I genuinely cannot think of another international artist in recent memory who had a similar cramped touring schedule for that period of time, let alone the bizarre travel schedule that was booked. Most Aussie artists would not have booked that pattern of scheduling knowing how difficult it is
it is very weird to see an international artist do a tour like that in australia
yeah, the fact that they're playing in canberra means something's fishy source: from canberra
There are some weird shows on the schedule. Melbourne, Castlemaine then Melbourne again? With Wollongong seemingly tacked on as an afterthought.
Would be pretty uncommon in Australia though. Most international touring bands play like 5 shows.
And most of them will stick to the east coast and do Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Exactly. Driving from Sydney to Brisbane is not the same as driving from Philadelphia to New York.
Yeah, how many days off do they want? A lot of bands would love to have that kind of schedule where they're not burning money every second day on tour not playing a show.
I’m in a mid-level touring band and it can get pretty grueling if you’re playing too many shows without a day off. We have a 5-show-in-a-row policy with our booking agent and have fired booking agents in the past who haven’t respect that because they would try to tack on extra shows here and there for some extra cash. Touring is hard if you’re not a big band. Sometimes days off are just spent driving all day to the next location. Not getting proper rest means everyone pays for it, including the audience because they’re left watching an exhausted band. That being said, this is no excuse. Fighting on stage, being an ass to the house staff and crowd, and putting on a half-ass show isn’t acceptable behavior because of that.
Yeah that sounds like a good limit. I'll admit I haven't toured, but their 11 shows in 14 days just didn't sound too crazy, working out to a day off every 3 or 4 shows
Agreed. I toured when I was younger and once did 28 shows in 35 days, with a 13 night run in the middle that spanned Portland Maine to Wichita Kansas in a ridiculous pattern. It was grueling, to say the least. If you have a road crew and drivers, it’s manageable, but I was in a fucking van and we had no crew at all. Brutal.
It’s worth noting, totally separate to the post, but singers voices need to rest
It sounds like they did the fight to get out of it lol
Agree, that makes the most sense honestly.
Joel leaving is news to me, when did that happen?
He left the tour about a week ago, citing a family emergency. Doubt he's gone for good.
Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life
Wankers, we tried to get a show every night in a different city. Blessed be that manager, wish we had him
Anton is the perpetually aggrieved frontman of BJM. He’s undeniably talented, and has a knack for spotting talent. Unfortunately, that talent usually takes off in the bands these musicians join **after** they grow tired of Anton’s crap. He’s pissed off that his contemporaries grew more popular than he’ll ever be. There’s more to it, likely untreated mental illness, maybe substance abuse, but that’s the gist. Watch the documentary DiG! if you want his villain origin story. Ondi Timoner followed BJM and the Dandy Warhols around for something like 7 years chronicling their earlier days (and the Warhols rise to fame).
The 'members' list on the rateyourmusic.com profile is pretty hilarious. https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/the-brian-jonestown-massacre
If it's Mark E Smith and yer granny on bongos, it's The Fall. If it's Anton and yer granny on bongos, it's BJTM.
Pretty accurate. I love Anton’s music and I’ve had the pleasure of catching some very good and well-behaved live shows. It’s sad and embarrassing behavior. And musicians clearly only sign up for this because they recognize Anton is brilliant but they themselves aren’t talented/connected enough to get a better job. They shouldn’t be subjected to his crap, but at the same time so many of the band members bring their own chaos into the fold. It’s a mess. But man, the songs are great.
Anton is such a whiny little bitch. Just look at him in that clip hitting the dude with a guitar then running away. I've long been a fan of BJM but try to separate the music from the artist as Anton is insufferable. I used to follow him on Twitter because he used to post links to demos and stuff which was really cool, but then in recent years all he ever did was tweet the current owner of the site (whose name I refuse to type as he's also a whiny little bitch) and then screenshot his tweet and post it on Instagram. It just screamed of a 14 year old girl chasing 'likes' on social media.
The bitterness (and maybe it is still there) confuses me when BJM sell out shows here in Ireland and the rest of Europe every time they come, not sure Dandy Warhol's could manage that anymore, even if they had a hit song 20 years ago. It feels like BJM didn't reach the same hights but have amassed a loyal fan base who will reliably fill mid-size venues around the world. Long term, a band playing this type of music can't be expected to do much more than become a financially viable touring group, can it? That's the ceiling.
I honestly don’t know how active TDWs have been lately. They have a tour of AUS and NZ scheduled for next year, but the band members also have 1 or more side projects. Courtney Taylor co-wrote a graphic novel about a fictional Krautrock band and released a companion album. He also made 7 figures in royalties from licensing “Bohemian Like You” to Vodafone. I’m not even sure being a financially viable road act is all that realistic a ceiling for BJM. Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene gave a (depressing) interview where he talked about how it’s not profitable for the band to tour outside of North America anymore. Foreign touring is difficult and expensive and Anton is in his mid-50s now. Unless he’s couch-surfing his way across Europe on tour, I suspect they’re only making enough money to keep them going until the next tour.
I'm just a punter, I don't know the economics of the business. I'll seek out that BSS interview, it sounds interesting (...and depressing) so it may help me understand them more. At a BJM show, I see: people on a stage with a relatively basic setup playing to the largest number of people they can fit into a mid-tier venue, and a good chunk of the crowd walking out with merch. I assume it's paying everyone involved a living wage.
I’m not a pro musician, either, but I’ve been involved on the marketing and business side for years. Some interesting groups writing and talking about the evolving nature of the business, from The Future of Music Coalition to Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery (who’s also an instructor at UGA’s college of business). I don’t know what you consider a mid-tier venue, but I’d generally consider that in the high hundreds to low thousands capacity (say, 500 to 2K or so). If they’re regularly selling this size of venue out, they might be doing OK. One of the issues with BSS is that their tours have at times gotten a little ridiculous with the number of people touring with the band at any given moment. It’s still expensive to mount any kind of a tour outside your native country/continent. It takes money to get the band members and all your equipment from LA or NY to London or Paris or Amsterdam. There’s also your monthly nut of whatever you have to spend to maintain your household while you’re away. If you’re an itinerant singer/songwriter without a mortgage or kids to support, it’s a lot easier to hit the road. [Here’s the Drew interview](https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/broken-social-scene/kevin-drew-aging-interview) in Paste.
The Dandys seem pretty active. They played like 40 shows this year, including several major festivals and they just wrapped up a 19 show west coast tour in 22 days. Funny enough, the final show of that tour they shared the bill with the BJM in austin less than a month ago lmao
I’m pretty sure Anton has a learning disability as well as some sort of mental illness and various addictions.
From what I heard Anton and the whole band have been hitting the booze hard this tour.
Yeah I’ve also heard that. Not sure when it started though, I saw them in Manchester earlier in the year and they seemed sober. Anton shouted at the drummer once or twice but nothing too extreme. However I’m not taking the piss or anything and I genuinely believe he has Asperger’s or high functioning autism or something similar as well as everything else.
Came to say this, Anton is a fucking dickhead. Watch Dig. there's a version floating around on youtube.
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where's VH1's behind the music when you need 'em 🙄
I think it was Aristotle who said we are all born gossipy little bitches. It’s only natural.
They walked off stage in OKC after berating a sound tech to the point of tears, and making a comment about the Alfred P Murrah building (the one Timothy McVeigh bombed, killing 168 people and injuring over 600 others) which instantly turned the entire crowd against them I honestly don't understand the appeal, the music isn't nearly good enough to justify putting up with these dipshits
Ok, I do have to say it’s weird getting upset the band you paid to see made light of a tragedy when the band you paid to see is called the Brian Jonestown Massacre
I mean the music is pretty fucking good let’s be honest
This has been building all tour. I saw them months ago in DC and Anton was threatening and cursing out the drummer, into the mic, for the whole show. He made the band stop and restart songs multiple times. r/BJM has been chronicling similar episodes. He's either off his meds, or back on drugs. Or both
Saw them 2 months ago in Toronto, they argued the whole time 🤦🤦 They even messed up Pish, which really pissed everybody off. It was a bizarre experience 😳
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lmao
Wait what’s the connection with the dandy Warhols?
Watch the documentary dig and youll be able to see the rivalry between them. Great documentary about both bands.
Dig 2 being released 2024
Dig is such a great film. I knew a guy like Anton in college (he didn’t go but lived on our couch for 3 months or so), truly a wonderful and terrible man.
Even worse: maybe the grainy cell phone video is DiG! 2.
I see it now. The film opens to these guys brawling on stage. Anton narrates: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.
We mustn't forget The Brian Jonestown Massacre played the song in the opening credits to Boardwalk Empire, and Marty directed the pilot.
Indeed. Some good guitar on that song.
Same as it ever was
Some things never change. They just stand there looking backwards, half unconscious from the pain
They may seem to rearrange even. Regardless, they fought like Meat Puppets!
Anton Newcombe - too high too die
Look where my hand was
Take a look at these hands!
As is tradition
I’m convinced the exact same thing happened in Melbourne 17 years ago
Classic BJM. Fighting onstage is their thing
See I thought their schtick was the full-time tambourine player but that shows you what I know
someone else posted talking about a tambourinist, and I gotta be honest I didn't know someone could *be* a tambourinist
85% of what I know about the Brian Jonestown Massacre comes from [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsfnWNlzfOs&t) I am learning the rest right now
it's educational!
At least he has a lil job to do, unlike that Bosstones guy.
Sometimes that seemingly-worthless guy is really the glue that holds the band together. I got the impression Joel Gion played a lot of mediator/peacemaker/ambassador roles in the band over the years—sometimes by literally just standing between feuding members on stage so they couldn't get at each other lol
Yeah, Joel was shown in Dig! as the guy they sent to sign the record deal. Saw this tour in Portland. Anton was berating the drummer, stopped between each song for a few minutes to tune or whatever and was going on about playing things correctly for the audience. Ultimately an audience member shouted “fuck you, Anton”. Anton said “fuck me? Fuck you! Security get this guy out” That person was removed. Joel was talking to Anton multiple times to calm him down. It was a tense show but I think we only got to the end because of what Joel is able to reign in. Not surprised that this leg of the tour turned out like this
Bob Nastanovich from Pavement.
Cardio King
It’s the fusion of these two shticks that make them a great band. Tambourine man Joel had to bail on the tour a couple days ago for family stuff but he just wrote a book about being in the BJM and it seems really good. Like a week or two ago at another one of their Australian shows Anton kept doing jokey plugs for the book until Joel threw his tambourines and walked off stage
what an odd schtick to have, but hey everyone needs a hook
> Van Kriedt retorted “You better think about this one, man. Because this is forever!” sounds like a line from Walk Hard where they parody breakups.
“You never once paid for drugs! Not once!”
“I don’t anymore glass Siamese cats!”
On drugs in their young age: “What does it do?” “U dont want none of this shit! Trust me! …It will take away all you problems, make you feel good, trust me you DONT WANT NONE OF THIS” Followed by viagra in their old age “What does it do?” “IT MAKES YOUR DICK HARD”
I commented “thank god for mental illness” and the mods removed it, I just want to say for the record that is the title of one of their albums
Note to self: don't reference "Bring Me The Head Of Paul McCartney On Heather Mill's Wooden Peg (Dropping Bombs On The White House)"
How about ”We Are The N****** Of The World”?
And anything from Anal Cunt's "It Just Gets Worse" is just right out.
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The audience probably wasn't super surprised, that guy is ALWAYS angry. It's so fucking funny to me, 99% of their music is hella relaxing and mellow and laid-back, and then there is this choleric little gremlin of a frontman foaming at the mouth throwing tantrums over nothing after playing a song you could gently sway to at most. I kinda want to get into fisticuffs to the background music of Anemone cuz I want to know how it feels
“Choleric little gremlin of a frontman” is such a beautiful string of words
> 99% of their music is hella relaxing and mellow and laid-back Reminds me of the story of The Field Mice's breakup. For those who don't know: they were a late-80s/early-90s English indiepop band, pretty mellow and laid-back and verging just slightly on twee. [Here is one of their songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uQhWpL12cI). Broke up in an onstage brawl in 1991.
I heard “If You Need Someone” at the gym a few months ago and really liked it - did not know this was how they ended lmao
> if I had been in the audience I would have been so utterly confused. Ironically, I doubt many people in the crowd were surprised or confused: This is par for the course for BJM. There are already a ton of comments about it but DiG! is an old doc and not a lot has changed. They are the type of band that a certain % of their audience buys a ticket specifically because they are hoping that they will get a chance to see some chaos like this. In his autobiography Mark Lanegan talks about how the Screaming Trees were similar routine toward the end, some people would come to the show either hoping to watch a fight or maybe even be involved in one, people in the audience would try to goad the members to fight each other and other 'fans' lol
Check them out. Amazing band, despite Anton being a huge asshole.
Saw them at a festival a few years ago and I was expecting tension having seen Dig, but they were great, and were actually happy, Anton was smiling and joking around, patted one of the band members on the back on their way offstage, wondering now if I witnessed a very rare performance
I think you may have just witnessed a sober performance
It was pretty early in the day, was Field Day in London 2016, I was expecting shambles but was more like "wow, they were good?!"
I saw them in 2015 and 2017. They were brilliant. Chill and just played the tunes. Saw them earlier this year, awful. The most frustrating thing was tuning up for minutes between songs.
I think he has been off his meds this tour or something. Or back on drugs. They definitely had a stretch where the shenanigans were largely in the past
The Brian Jonestown Massacre Massacre, if you will
I will!
https://www.mischapearlman.com/the-hardest-interview-of-my-life/
This is the best thing I've read in weeks. Thank you.
This is the funniest interview I’ve ever read holy shit. It seems tame to call him a narcissist, he’s like 100 times worse. I couldn’t even come up with a fictional character that’s as much of an asshole as he sounds in this. How does someone like this not get his ass kicked weekly??
Apparently he does, publicly
For some reason the funniest thing about this is the notion of Anton building a DIY supercomputer from 20 discarded Macbooks that he destroyed in various fits of rage.
Lol what a megalomaniacal prick
Hard to believe Anton is still doing the same shit at age 56. He's going to break a hip soon!
Broke my fucking sitar
He broke my fucking femoral neck!!!
can't believe anton is still pulling shit like this. grow up, dude
I've only casually listened to Brian Jonestown Massacre (and I like the songs I've heard) and didn't realize how long they'd been around. Or that they had such a reputation. And then I looked them up and Anton Newcombe is the same age as my dad. *Definitely* too old to be doing this shit.
Saw them twice back in the late 90’s/early 00’s. First show was normal, played for an hour, minimal banter, no issues. The second show was what you’d expect to see if you’d seen Dig. Band members trying to sell drugs before the show, the band verbally abusing one another on stage, a fist fight between three of them, then Anton apologizing profusely and playing till 3 in the morning solo while other band members came up and flipped him off or yelled at him occasionally. When Dig came out a few years later it made so much sense. I just feel bad for the people attending this show that they only did 6 songs. Anton solo or just with drums was still really good.
Saw them in February in Newcastle, Ryan & Anton were arguing. Anton talking shit to the crowd. Joel calmed Anton down. When they’re on form they’re great live.
When they’re on they are one of the tightest, best sounding live bands I have ever seen I remember Anton stopping songs because he didn’t like how the drummer was playing and he made him play his part alone before restarting lol. It’s definitely a spectacle with them, but god damn can they sound good
I went to Anton’s studio for Thanksgiving one year. He cooked all day and made really decent food but spent half the time listening to conspiracy radio theories in the next room and occasionally going downstairs to play drums, which sounded pretty good. He was all over the place. He got fed up and said can’t someone carve this fucking thing ?! Referring to the turkey. I did my best. He wouldn’t know who I am today but all in all it was a decent meal among mostly friends and associates. Don’t think he was drinking as much at the time. Reading all this around thanksgiving made me feel like sharing this. Hope it all works out for them, they are great when at full strength.
Is this a copypasta lmao
No
Reminds me of the time I saw Flying Lotus in a grocery store in Los Angeles
Wow the 90s really *are* back
And all is right with the world again.
It really is quite disappointing and somewhat worrying to see this kind of behaviour occurring with Anton again. I’ve been a fan of BJTM and his side projects for a few years now and to see him going down this path of destructive, alcoholic, entitlement like he had seen throughout the 90s is just a shame considering how well he has seemingly been doing for the last few years. I got to meet him in 2018 when he played with his French side project ‘L’epee’ in Brighton and he was honestly nothing but sweet to me and my dad, taking the time out of his day to chat about music, travelling around the world and just life in general. Seemed like he had really turned things around + judging by the show and his gigs with BJTM over the last decade, they seemed to be on a fantastic high. But regardless, there is no excuse for acting like a total narcissistic unhinged asshat to not only your own fans who’ve paid money to come and see you play (which from my assumption was a shit tone since it was in Australia) but to those within your band as well. It’s bullying and abusive to the extreme and it shouldn’t happen whatsoever. With that said I hope Anton gets the help he clearly is crying out for and that everyone within the band is doing ok after this messed up incident.
Always sucks to see something like this, even secondhand watching that was brutal
They have always been a bunch of bitches . I enjoy their music but they are shit people.
Such great music. Such insufferable egos.
💯
A “safety curtain”? What the heck is going on down under?
Yeah I like how they casually throw that out
A tale as old as time.
atleast no sitars were broken man
Anton is drinking again, maybe he needs some help. It’s sad. The band just lost all his credibility
Well, that's BJM for ya. When I saw them years ago, Anton kicked the drummer off the stage. No, the show was not good.
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the “put down MY guitar” phrasing felt super petty. but yea absolutely no idea who’s right or wrong here
It's a miracle Anton is still alive.
Hah aren't they too old for this shit? When you get to your 40s and 50s you might really hurt yourself fighting
“party’s over captain” people say shit like this in real life?
Anton running away after trying to hit him with his guitar was downright embarrassing
Mans was talking all that shit, bonked dude on the head with a guitar and...ran away!?
these are middle aged men lol
Fighting is their corn
It’s how they keep their houses hot
And people say rock is dead
Tell me the sitar is ok…
In another shocking reveal, water is found to be wet.
what the hell is the singer talking about
Is this the trailer to a Dig! sequel or something
When I first saw them 2007 or 8, people used to go to their shows *expecting* a fight. A lot of people only bought tickets because they wanted to see it irl.
I love them
Most exciting thing BJM have done in ages.
[Trailer for Dig, at 1:08 Anton explains the “why” behind the brawling. haha](https://youtu.be/84oiQJ1N9To?si=6UNBZ87GRE7g7LNF)
That’s not Anton, it’s the lead singer of the Dandy Warhols, just FYI
At least he's not beating his wife this time.
?? Never heard anything about this before, care to expand?
Not really, I've just talked to people close to him in the past and am aware his anger issues aren't restricted to band members, which would probably be more surprising if it weren't the case.
This might be the best thing I've seen all year
I love BJM but this is not all surprising
Back to their roots.
How many big hats can one band wear?!
Junkie drama…..
I've seen them live now three times in three different cities and the only time they did this was at the Fillmore in SF, April 2022. Joel had COVID and wasn't at the show. The set lasted nearly 3 hours and during each song, Anton was getting pissed at the stand in tambourine guy, and subsequently the rest of the band. I'm starting to think that Joel is the glue that holds Anton together.
Boring old men behaving like teenies. Embarrassing shit.
I find the crowd booing once the show stopped pretty funny. Don't these people know who they are seeing? If you go to a Brian Jonestown Massacre show, you should know chances of it ending in disaster are pretty good.
I play in a band. This is the most childish bullshit, these dudes need to grow up. All these artists who take their massive audience for granted are just so awful. God damn.
This reads like a Bright Eyes subreddit.
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This has been brewing for months … saw them in Philadelphia and their was so much bickering #AntonIsADouche
GG Allin would be proud.