empty the bjm

After the Herculean task that is preparing for and sitting an Ancient Greek exam, my normal life seems easy and plain. But I am at last able to turn to other interests, things like tumblr, pieces of silver, marshmallows, and Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Lately, whenever I try to introduce the Brian Jonestown Massacre to my friends I am usually greeted by a slightly underwhelmed silence. But this only reduces the estimation I hold for my friends, it does not affect my love of the bjm. Who are they? ‘Just a 90’s garage group’ with drug problems that raided the back catalogues of their parent’s generation without inhibition? Yes. But there is an interesting social phenomenon at work with bjm, the underdog coming out on top against the industry megacorps, with a mixed multitude of home brewed albums, a shot of moonshine to wash away the fake glitter of establishment music. An undercurrent, that copy and pasted every genre including itself, a rag tag shermozzle of drone pop, self destroying but somehow surviving against the odds. A success story, a chance survivor of lady lucks’ play.

Anton Newcombe himself an ironic prophet, wearing his history on his sleeve, an exile to Europe and its cultural medicine, a truth seeker. He has embraced the internet and posts early mixes of his stuff on youtube – a two way communion with the audience continuing, it is direct, it is revolutionary.