from the CD Give It Back, BOMP! Records, 1997Coming in with one of the greatest band names ever, the Brian Jonestown Massacre can virtually do no wrong in my eyes. Anyone who has seen the documentary film Dig! (if you haven’t yet seen it, rent or steal it immediately) is already well aware of the band’s notorious antics, which have become legend, both onstage and off; seriously, their leader and resident guru, Anton Newcombe, is this thrilling mix of mental illness, drug addiction, and absolute musical genius. This track begins with a simple acoustic chord progression, nice enough, but quickly explodes into an organic and psychedelic jam; the lead guitar riff is picked out almost as if it was one single train of thought, and it swirls around you in this thick haze of pot and incense smoke. “Open up ‘cause here I come, with a gift for everyone…I am the last of the natural ones, let yourself go and have some fun…” Getting beyond the obvious and nagging narcissism inherent to those words, when digested alongside the trippy soundtrack beneath, they bring to my mind such clear mental pictures---you know, the stock footage of hippies in the ‘60s, on their knees in a circle as if at some holy invisible altar, with some wild shaman in the center doling out sugarcubes soaked in LSD to the faithful. These guys really accomplish what so many other bands try to do, but fuck up; that is, finding a way to juxtapose all of their musical influences into an altogether different whole, which sounds neither dated nor brand new. Unpredictable, yet somehow familiar. “I am the good things that we all share…” Indeed!
