Review: Brian Jonestown Massacre at Turner Hall

August 20th, 2012
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By Phillip Martinez

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The Brian Jonestown Massacre at Turner Hall Ballroom. (Photos: Erik Ljung)

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s shoe-gazed psych-rock has led them to become one of the most influential and erratic groups of the past two decades. The engrossing documentary, Dig!, released in 2004, followed BJM’s tumultuous exploits over a seven-year span from the mid-90s through the early ’00s.

Band leader Anton Newcombe.

At the heart of these tumultuous exploits is creative genius and perceived madman, band leader Anton Newcombe. Internal problems and documented public outbursts sometimes overshadow their body of work that began in the early ‘90s, so at Turner Hall on Friday night, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to finally get to see a band I love play some of my favorite songs or witness a complete disaster. Either way, I knew it would be a memorable night.
Minneapolis band Magic Castles kicked the night off, playing jam-heavy psychedelic rock to a fairly sparse crowd, but as soon as the Minneapolis-based quintet finished their set, eager fans arrived and began to pack the historic ballroom for an evening with The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Touring in support of their latest album, Aufheben, the band took to the stage eight members strong, including familiar faces Newcombe, the only consistent member since the band’s inception, tambourine player and mutton-chops aficionado Joel Gion and founding-member, guitarist and sometimes-vocalist Matt Hollywood. The crowd roared as BJM tuned their instruments as screams of “Joel” and “Hollywood” were heard throughout the ballroom.

Singer-guitarist Matt Hollywood.

They opened their set with “Stairway to the Best Party in the Universe,” a new, tripped-out track with “Paint It Black”-like riffs and Newcombe’s delicate delivery. This was one of only a few tracks played off of Aufheben, as the rest of the set consisted of what would be considered the band’s hit songs.

1995-1998 is arguably BJM’s musical heyday, a time when they churned out six fantastic albums in those short years, and when Friday’s set-list came largely from this period, the crowd reacted with cheers and excitement. Ripping through tracks, with an arsenal of drums, a keyboard, tambourines, and up to 5 guitars, on “Anemone,” “Wisdom,” “Super-Sonic,” “Servo,” and “This Is Why You Love Me,” Newcombe was reserved with his eye-contact but his concentration—to the craft he will literally punch you in the face for messing with—was unshakable.
The highlights and most energized tracks of the night, however, came when Matt Hollywood took the vocal lead on songs including “Oh Lord,” “Got My Eye On You,” and “Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth.” Considering Hollywood’s numerous band departures, it was a welcomed sight. But it wasn’t just Newcombe and Hollywood manning the vocal’s on Friday night, as Joel Gion got in on the mix, belting out a bluesy cover of Bobby Jameson’s “There’s a War Going On.”

Joel Gion.

BJM closed their set with and elongated version of “Straight Up and Down” from 1996’s Take It From the Man, a song that has enjoyed a rebirth as the theme for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. As the song played and the crowd cheered, a different, yet familiar tune crept in, as the song morphed into the Rolling Stones’ classic “Sympathy for the Devil.”
A good two hours after they began, The Brian Jonestown Massacre waved good-bye to the applauding crowd. While at one point, Newcombe did yell at a guitarist about his pedal usage calling it a “sin city of pedals,” nobody really seemed to notice, and at this point, the band appears able to accept those outbursts as Anton being Anton.
While it seems that some things will never completely change, most notably Anton’s unbridled passion that sometimes turns confrontational, one dramatic adjustment has been the rest of the band’s ability to handle these outbursts and continue to function as a band. BJM has been making Milwaukee a standard tour-stop in recent years, and it’s comforting to know that this great band was able to resurrect itself after years of destruction…and put on a damn good show too.

Friday, July 13, 2012

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SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live

Datum:: Donnerstag, 02. August 2012 um 21:00
Location:: .HBC ( Ehemaliges Haus Ungarn )
Adresse:: Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 9
10178 Berlin
Themen:: Konzerte in Berlin
Eingetragen von:: marianne hbc

Hochgeladen von: marianne hbc

SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live

Future Days and .HBC present a very special night with
SPECTRUM ( Spacemen3/Sonic Boom) plus guests, Thursday August 2nd.

Peter Kember former member of Spacemen3 who most recently has produced Panda Bear and MGMT will perform live with long time collaborators : Will Carruthers,(ex Spacemen3, Spiritualized, Brian Jonestown Massacre), Jason Holt and
Roger Brogan.
http://www.sonic-boom.info/

Brian Jonestown Massacre head chief, Anton Newcombe will be djing and broadcasting live on his own Ustream TV channel
" Dead TV".
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/dead-tv-berlin

http://hbc-berlin.de/spectrumspacemen3/

Doors open at 21:00
Entrance 12€

SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live bei popula: Die Informationen zu SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live sind auf dem Stand vom 15.06.2012. Demnach findet das Event aus der Rubrik Konzerte & Nachtleben in 20 Tagen statt. Zeige auch außerhalb von popula was dir gefällt und binde dieses Event auf deiner Webseite ein. Der Konfigurator ermöglicht das kinderleichte Gestalten deines eigenen Widgets. Aktuell finden wir zu SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live nur Termine in Berlin. Wenn weitere Städte hinzukommen, werden wir diese hier auf popula.de aufnehmen. Wir bieten jedem Veranstaltungsliebhaber die Möglichkeit, an unserem Ranking der Woche für Veranstaltungen in Berlin teilzunehmen. Die Veranstaltung erreicht für diese Woche keinen Rang der Top100 der begehrtesten Events. Wenn dir SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live gefällt, zeige es deinen Freunden auf Facebook und gib eine Bewertung oder einen Kommentar ab. Es hilft! Neben der Anfahrt zu dem Veranstaltungsort ".HBC ( Ehemaliges Haus Ungarn )" findest du in der näheren Umgebung Events der Locations Berliner Dom, Marienkirche am Alexanderplatz und AquaDom & Sea Life Berlin. Donnerstag, den 02. August 2012 beginnt die Veranstaltung SPECTRUM ( spacemen3) live. Wenn du wissen willst, was sonst noch am Donnerstag in Berlin passiert, kannst du dich zum Beispiel nach Konzerte, Musical und Kabarett hier erkundigen. Berlin ist übrigens eine kreisfreie Stadt. Bist du Veranstalter dieses Events? Dann beantrage jetzt Bearbeitungsrechte und füge weitere Infos und Bilder hinzu.

Brian Jonestown Massacre / Shepherds Bush Empire

Our man Ed Spencer went down to see the legedary Brian Jonestown Massacre and feel the groove

Filed in Brian Jonestwon Massacre, Live Reviews | Date: at | By Ed Spencer

The groove. That’s the thing about Brian Jonestown Massacre. That, and the band’s unmistakable after hours, fucked-up, should-I-come-onto-you-or-not-I-can’t-read-the-signs-anymore feel - perhaps unsurprising given how long most of those assembled on stage have been under the influence for the last however many years. (I can’t vouch for the crowd but the aroma is certainly herbal mixed with a Saturday skin-full). Happily, the only hits tonight are those being played. BJM are tight, on form, and, well, grown up. Having been going the best part of a quarter of century, Anton Newcombe has returned the band to a classic-ish early line-up, and hot on the heels of the soothingly cinematic Aufheben, they, with their groove, take the stage. It’s so infectious this evening that even the uninitiated (whose only prior knowledge is volleys to the head in that film about those two bands) are soon bobbing and weaving with the best of them. It is rather startling to see that the crowd tonight is so young but that is an indicator of the band’s far reaching appeal.

Anton Newcombe - no coincidence he looks like Beefheart given how he has led his musical troupe of changing mood and member- directs from stage right and after easing us in with a few tunes from Aufheben, kicking off with the psych clang of ‘Stairway to the Best Party’, things really get going with ‘Got My Eye On You’ from 1998’s Strung Out In Heaven’. The groove continues in smoked out form in ‘Anemone’- one of the standouts of the night- given a bruised smacked heart on-the-sleeve working over.

The atmosphere is fantastic. It may all be a bit sardines-in-a-tin but there’s still enough room for little huddles to protect the spliff-maker amid the general bonhomie of the Saturday night crowd. As I close my eyes to allow the full glory of the acid drenched stomping psychedelia to envelope me, the crowd surge and retreat, and all around ‘Super-Sonic’ maintains that smoked out feel, this time combining with it a guttural edge. In fact, it all goes off quite nicely. Only once did Anton deign that a song be restarted – a minor victory given the band’s past.

The middle section of the set is especially strong- the Vietnam haze of ‘There’s a War Going On’, ‘Walking Up To Hand Grenades’ - Aufheben’s standout track and, naturally, ‘Not If you Were The Last Dandy On Earth’- with its pastiche of the Dandy’s guitar style and their bababas and woohoohoos. Cue massive singalong, huge cheers, and general love.

Finally, we are treated to ‘Open Heart Surgery’ – coming across magnificently like a psychedelic Cure, then ‘Servo’ –surely their coolest track– and the mournful ‘Prozac vs Heroin’. By the time ‘That Girl Suicide’ drops, the crowd are proverbial putty and as the lights come in, we take the groove out on to the streets of west London.

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