There’s a plethora of on demand video
out there these days. So much so that sometimes it can be hard to wade
through it all and find something worth watching. Watch This Now is
your guide to instant video on Netflix, Hulu and elsewhere,
highlighting the very best stuff that you can watch right now.
This
is Music Week at Watch This Now. We’ll be bringing you the best
musicals, music docs, performance films and music biopics available
instantly online.
One of my favorite music documentaries is Ondi Timoner’s DiG!, which follows the turbulent friendship and enmity between rockers Anton Newcombe from The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor from The Dandy Warhols. I wrote about the film quite a bit in a DVD review several years ago, which (of course) I highly recommend reading.
This is pure rock star stuff, even if the scale is small. Between them Newcombe and Taylor have more raw ambition and ego than a dozen other artists combined. Newcombe’s personality is fiery, yeah, but it’s fun to wonder to what extent the presence of cameras created some of the fights seen on screen. Timoner’s involvement is questionable, as she’s obviously more than fully immersed in the story, but the idea of having Taylor narrate the film is a brilliant one. And when rock and roll is the subject, who really wants objectivity?
(And how often is a big onstage fight followed by “…fucking broke my sitar, motherfucker!”)
The Dandy Warhols have become kind of a cultural footnote — they’re probably more famous now for their relationship to Newcombe than anything else. Newcombe’s band, in contrast, has remained a minor musical force. Despite nearly disintegrating more than once, they’ve continuted to make some good music, albeit without the fire that made their first few years so much fun.
I saw the Massacre about six months ago and it was a competent but generally unexciting show. Much more interesting is the way that Newcombe has embraced the Internet with respect to music delivery — much of the Masssacre’s output has been available for free at the band’s website. (That’s no longer the case, however, as it’s back to regular commerce for Newcombe.)
But Hulu (in partnership with SnagFilms) is streaming DiG! and you can watch it now. (A free Hulu membership is required, because there’s cussin’ and other offensive material in the film.)