YOU’RE FIRED - Brian Jonestown Massacre Want You Gone

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Is there a bigger mistake you can make than heroin? I guess you could leave the scene of a hit-and-run or fuck your brother, but being a junkie is still pretty up there. Anton Newcombe, the boss of Brian Jonestown Massacre, has been there and done that (the heroin part), yet when asked, still thinks one of his biggest mistakes ever was “picking Nancy G. over Maryanne L.” Anton thinks this way because he is a man living and making music on a completely different planet from the rest of us—a planet of shambling guys who can get totally high but still work hard enough to obsess for hours over how one little maraca track sounds.

As everyone’s wetting themselves about the new Spiritualized record (it’s just okay), they aren’t questioning the veracity of its decadence. Listen, Jason Spaceman has two kids and has never been in a proper fistfight.

Anton Newcombe, however, is a scrapper, rumored to punch out a new L.A. indie scenester in a new bar every week. His album liner notes are all vitriol and spit. In the new one, …And This Is Our Music, he rails against “Beck pretending to be Nick Drake and getting away with it” and “false fans, narcs, groupies, psychos, drug fiends, liars.” You get the drift.

Anton Newcombe is really just like you and me. He hates everybody, and that’s exactly why he’s fired 50 people from his band in the last four years—because they’re backstage-blowjob-seekers like that bass player from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who got kicked out of Brian Jonestown Massacre because he had no soul.

Anton goes on making great music anyway. …And This Is Our Music is like Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night (the harrowing dark side of hippie) for people who were born after 1975. It embodies that “can’t be fucked to sing in tune but can still convey the message” feeling that every single person in every single rock and roll band would kill to capture.

When pressed on how he sounds so loose and floppy—is it all about embracing mistakes and chance, etc—Anton says, “Living means taking chances. It all goes into the mix.” It seems like a bit of a cliché until Newcombe is asked what mistakes he plans to make on his upcoming tour. He answers resolutely, “I will get too drunk!”

TIERNEY WILLIAMS
…And This Is Our Music is out now on Tee Pee Records.

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