The crucial moment in the career of Anton Newcombe came with the release of 1998's Strung Out in Heaven. Somewhere around that time-- though it's difficult to peg exactly when-- Newcombe became too old to die young. Until then, life was scripted as surely as the last swim of the band's namesake; the once-young artist, whose battle cry even today is "keep music evil," knew his lines: brilliant, erratic songwriter/bandleader hurtles forward sustained by life-provoking drugs, alcohol and rock 'n' roll-- the very same things that threaten to take him over the edge into nowhere.
The problem is that, at the crucial moment when life gives way to life support, you turn a page and the script has nothing but blank pages (and trust me, I speak from experience). Newcombe and his band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, have spent the ensuing years since this unfortunate rite of passage trying to figure out what comes next. The results, in general, have been mixed, but Newcombe has had some great moments, especially considering that cosmetic surgery and dispensing wisdom-- two of three time-honored options-- weren't really within his grasp (the third, denial, has proven a bit more useful).
The key moment on And This Is Our Music comes during "Prozac vs. Heroin", in the form of a righteously head-turning phrase from a rock 'n' roller who is desperately driven to turn heads. More than merely moving units, the song's title articulates the dilemma facing those who won't or can't surrender: What's a guy to do when life offers shitty choices, he seems to be asking, and in doing so, he exposes what may well be the band's first-ever moment of human fragility. Through a typically rich acoustic haze, the lyric "they will be done," comes floating to the surface; were it not so surprising, I'd describe it as blissful resignation.
My friend Richard and I used to laugh and make lists of Newcombe's 60s references each time a new Brian Jonestown album dropped, and had Richard heard "When Jokers Attack", built around The Yardbirds' "Over Under Sideways Down", he'd have nodded happily, except a couple of years ago he went to Amsterdam and nodded off and out one day, case closed. "Joker"-- upbeat and slyly aggressive beneath the fat warm 12-string-- harkens back to an earlier BJM moment, and to give Newcombe credit, he knows it's one that's past. Today, the band's music bears a deliberate, meditative quality, as if it were possible for a guy known for brawling, taunting and taking too much of whatever was available to sit cross-legged with a sitar in his lap and touch souls with some divine spirit or another.
Life isn't easy for hell-bent artists who live past their point of departure. While there's only one Keith Richards, there are thousands who've wrecked themselves the same way, and in Newcombe's defense, he realizes he's getting off light. Most of us, if faced with that outcome, would pack it up and go home. But even while Brian Jonestown Massacre are moving into a future that permits zero visibility, this is still their music, and I like it a lot.
