Poised to tour New Zealand, The Brian Jonestown Massacre's sonic adventures continue, writes Shane Gilchrist.
Anton Newcombe, founder of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, has a conversational style not unlike his songs: focused, intense yet able to head off on a tangent at the merest prompting.
For example, we have segued into analogue synthesisers and their resurgence. That's my fault. I have mentioned a recent music documentary, I Dream of Wires, an ode to modular synthesis.
The topic was raised mainly because the film's narrator made a point that many guitar bands are inherently conservative: they use technology that is relatively old; they revere classic guitars, yet some attempt to position themselves as the next best thing... This leads Newcombe to talk about old guitars and vintage gear for a while: ''I fell in love with all sorts of weird and wonderful instruments that no-one wanted. In fact, I'm a victim of having made them popular. Guitars that I was buying for say, $400, are now worth $4000. I'm not kidding...''
We then jump back to the point I was trying to make.
I Dream of Wires might be a celebration of a certain form of technology, yet it is also a celebration of exploration and the joy of the creative process.
Which brings us to Newcombe and his group's latest release, Mini Album Thingy Wingy, a seven-song offering pulsing with in-the-moment invention, including four tracks written by Newcombe, a co-writer of the band's first Slovakian song (Prad Prad), as well as a cover of the 13th Floor Elevators' tune, Dust.
This prompts another detour, although Newcombe remains within the paradigm of inspiration.
''If you look on YouTube, you might find this wee clip of Ike and Tina Turner doing River Deep Mountain High. They are true entertainers; it's ecstatic; the energy levels are amazing. There is something to be said for that.
''But then you can go to a concert hall and witness someone playing Stravinski or something on piano and the only thing that's moving is the pianist's fingers. And that takes you to some deeper place.
''Personally, I do like the jazz aesthetic of just playing and trying to make a world that only exists at that time and allowing the audience to share it. It breaks down those assumptions between the artist and the audience.''
On that subject, the Brian Jonestown Massacre performs at Sammy's on Saturday, November 7, supported by The Chills, whose new album, Silver Bullets, is released today.
Newcombe says he can't wait.
''I view the recording experience as conceptual art, but playing live is a chance to define it as something else, to really screw the bolts on tight to the songs, to make them work in a live environment.
''When it clicks, it is something unique.''
Formed in San Francisco in 1990, BJM's taste for psychedelia, twisted pop, noise-scapes and artful experimentation has been apparent since the group's 1995 full-length debut Methodrone.
In taking its name from Brian Jones, The Rolling Stones guitarist found dead (at the age of 27) in a swimming pool in 1969, the group acknowledges The Stones' psychedelic phase, but Newcombe does roam wider, his work expanding to include the largely guitar-based United Kingdom shoe-gazing genre of the 1990s as well as incorporating influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian strains.
Clearly, Newcombe enjoys playing with titles, too.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre also references the 1978 mass killing in Guyana orchestrated by cult leader Jim Jones.
And the band's 2008 album My Bloody Underground (a mash-up of British act My Bloody Valentine and better known experimentalists the Velvet Underground) boasts songs such as Bring Me the Head of Paul McCartney on Heather Mills' Wooden Peg and Automatic Faggot for the People.
Newcombe's provocative playfulness has, arguably, obscured his musical output over the years.
So, too, did the release in 2004 of DIG!, a documentary filmed over seven years (1996-2002) by director Ondi Timoner.
In DIG!, the friendship and rivalry between the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, another promising United States band of the time, is explored; Newcombe is presented as idealistic and self-destructive, while Warhols' frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor is more attuned to the corporate world.
Though Newcombe has decried the portrayal, DIG! did serve to raise the profile of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, drug abuse (Newcombe is clean and sober nowadays), internal conflicts and all.
At a rough count, more than 40 band members have passed through the Brian Jonestown Massacre.
The only surviving members from the founding line-up are Newcombe and Ricky Maymi, who started on drums and, after leaving the group for a decade, rejoined and ended up on guitar.
But enough about history.
To the future ... ''I know we've talked about a lot of other things, right?,'' Newcombe says.
''But we are going to be in top form in Dunedin.
''I'm glad this turned out. We had been booked to play two shows in Auckland, but Ricky suggested we head down to Dunedin. I'm looking forward to it.''
The show
• The Brian Jonestown Massacre perform at Sammy's, Dunedin, on Saturday, November 7, supported by The Chills.
• The Brian Jonestown Massacre's Mini Album Thingy Wingy and The Chills' Silver Bullets are out now.
