Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Brian Jonestown Massacre began in San Francisco in 1990 under the restless creativity of Anton Newcombe, who gathered a flexible group of musicians around his singular vision. In the early days the band released home-recorded session compilations and a demo tape called Pol Pot’s Pleasure Penthouse, while their 1993 vinyl‑only Spacegirl and Other Favorites collected what Newcombe called ‘studio trash’. These early works hinted at the lush, ethereal shoegaze sound that would define much of their early identity. Their 1995 debut proper, Methodrone, fully embraced that dream‑pop, shoegaze aesthetic, aligning them with the likes of Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. By 1996 the band’s palette shifted dramatically. With Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request they played with vintage psychedelia: sitars, Mellotrons, didgeridoos and tablas all made appearances in a kaleidoscopic, 1960s‑inspired collage. That same year, Newcombe stripped things bare on Thank God for Mental Illness—an acoustic, lo‑fi affair recorded in his own studio on a shoestring—seeking refuge in folk, country and blues with just $17.36 and raw songwriting at hand. Through the late 1990s and early 2000s the band branched into lush, wall‑of‑sound psych rock. Give It Back! (1997) and Strung Out in Heaven (1998) marked their expanding reach, while the rivalry (and eventual friendship) with the Dandy Warhols, immortalized in the documentary Dig!, added a notable chapter to the band’s turbulent story. Moving into the 2000s, albums like Bravery Repetition and Noise (2001) and And This Is Our Music (2003) found Newcombe experimenting with electronics and refined production, later giving way to the moodier, experimental textures of My Bloody Underground (2008). The band persists today, still prolific, with their self‑titled album arriving in 2019 and later releases such as Fire Doesn’t Grow on Trees (2022) and The Future Is Your Past (2023)—the latter praised as a reinvigorated highlight by critics. Onstage, the collective remains unpredictable and volatile, as stories from fans and venues recount, with Newcombe occasionally sparking chaos mid‑performance. Over more than three decades, The Brian Jonestown Massacre have carved a niche that blends shoegaze, folk, garage and psychedelia into a constantly evolving project. Their influence echoes through the neo‑psych revival, and their records—especially early works like Methodrone—remain staples for connoisseurs of experimental, genre‑bending rock, a fitting fixture in any eclectic record store.