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- Anton Newcombe: The Man Who Won’t Let the Song Be Wrong -
There are musicians who walk onto a stage because they like being looked at. And then there are musicians who walk onto a stage because there is something wrong with the sound. Anton Newcombe belongs to the second category. Which is probably why, if you have ever seen The Brian Jonestown Massacre live, you may have wondered whether you were watching a rock concert, a rehearsal, a nervous breakdown, a comedy show, a family argument, or perhaps all five at the same time. Because Anton Newcombe has never been particularly interested in giving you the tidy version.
Newcombe is a songwriter, producer, engineer, composer, singer, guitarist and multi instrumentalist — a musical brain with an appetite for sounds that seems to have no bottom. He can move from psychedelia to garage rock, from folk to drones, from pop to experimental music, sometimes apparently without asking permission from anybody, including himself.
And then there is the other Anton.
The Anton who argues. The Anton who stops the song. The Anton who tells a band member that the playing isn't good enough. The Anton who will argue with somebody in the audience. The Anton who has been involved in enough onstage fighting and backstage chaos to make a lesser man's biography look like a police report.
And yet, perhaps the strangest thing about Anton Newcombe is that beneath all the mythology, beneath “Dig!”, beneath the fights and the drugs and the arguments and the broken equipment and the people coming and going, there is something remarkably old-fashioned.
He cares about the song. Not the image. Not the career. Not the industry. The song. He has the kind of perfectionism that says: if a song is being played badly, why allow it to continue for an hour simply because there is an audience standing there?
That may sound unreasonable if you're standing in the crowd. But if you are Anton Newcombe, perhaps the unreasonable thing is allowing something you know can be great to remain merely acceptable.
And that tells you something about the man. The anger is not always separate from the music. Sometimes the anger is the music's bodyguard.
There is humour in him, too. A very strange, dry, sometimes absurd humour. The kind of humour that comes from somebody who knows perfectly well how ridiculous the whole business is. A man can spend his life making records, fighting with musicians, fighting with audiences, fighting with record companies, fighting with his own reputation — and then sit down and talk about something completely mundane as though the entire history of rock 'n' roll were simply an amusing inconvenience. Maybe that is the secret.
Anton Newcombe understands the ridiculousness of being Anton Newcombe. But he doesn't think the music is ridiculous. That's the dividing line. The world sees the fight. Anton sees the tuning. The world sees the argument. Anton hears the wrong chord. The world sees the chaos. Anton hears what the song could have been.
Perhaps that's why his live shows can feel like walking into the workshop while the machine is still running. There are no guarantees. There is no polished little box marked Rock Concert.
Sometimes the machinery breaks down.
Sometimes somebody gets angry.
Sometimes somebody gets thrown offstage. Sometimes Anton gets into an argument with the audience.
Sometimes he gets into an argument with the people he's supposed to be playing music with.
And sometimes, suddenly, the whole thing locks into place. I’ve seen him live six times, believe my words.
The guitars begin to shimmer. The rhythm becomes hypnotic. The noise becomes beautiful. And for ten minutes you understand exactly why he has spent all those years being so difficult. Because when it works, it doesn't sound like a compromise. It sounds alive. And maybe that's the philosophy underneath all of it.
Newcombe once expressed a view about life and work that goes something like this:
“You have three choices in this world: you can be your own man, you can be somebody else’s man who cares about you, or you can be somebody else’s man and that person doesn’t care about you. You are your own boss, you’re employed by somebody who cares about you, or you are employed or a slave by somebody who doesn’t care about you. There are no other options in life.”
Now, you can hear that as philosophy. You can hear it as rebellion. You can hear it as the philosophy of a man who spent decades refusing to be told what kind of music he ought to make. But you can also hear it in the way he approaches a stage.
If you're going to be there, then be there. If you're going to play, then play. If you're going to make the record, then make the record. Don't pretend. Don't mime. Don't smooth away every rough edge until there is nothing left but the photograph of a song.
This is one reason Newcombe has always had such a complicated relationship with the music business. He has never seemed particularly interested in becoming the acceptable version of himself. And that's a dangerous thing to be in an industry that makes its money by turning people into acceptable versions of themselves.
Anton Newcombe is not particularly acceptable.
He is funny.
He is difficult.
He is brilliant.
He is infuriating.
He is obsessive.
He is capable of extraordinary musical invention. And he has, at various points, been capable of extraordinary self-destruction.
The ups and downs are not a footnote to the story. They are part of the story. But perhaps we make a mistake when we reduce the whole thing to chaos. Because chaos is easy to photograph. Musical discipline isn't.
You can photograph a fight.
You can't photograph the moment when a musician hears that a guitar is slightly out of tune.
You can put an argument on film.
You can't put thousands of hours of listening, experimenting, recording and learning into a thirty-second clip.
You can make a story about the man throwing something.
You can't easily make a story about what is happening inside his head when he hears a melody nobody else has heard yet. That's where Anton Newcombe becomes more interesting than the caricature.
He has spent his life surrounded by instruments and sounds, picking things up, learning them, bending them, recording them, taking them apart and putting them back together.
A multi-instrumentalist in the truest sense — not simply somebody who can play several instruments, but somebody who thinks in terms of instruments. Colour. Texture. Frequency. Rhythm. Space.
The studio becomes another instrument.
The band becomes another instrument.
Sometimes, perhaps, even the argument becomes another instrument. And if that sounds romantic, well, rock and roll has always needed a little romance. But there is something else there, too. A warning.
Because the same personality that refuses to accept mediocrity can sometimes refuse to accept anything. The same perfectionism that produces something extraordinary can make ordinary human cooperation almost impossible. The same independence that protects the music can isolate the musician. And the same refusal to be somebody else's man can leave you standing alone. That's the price of freedom. You get to be your own man. But then you have to live with your own decisions.
And perhaps that's what makes Newcombe's philosophy of live music so compelling.
He isn't really promising that everything will be comfortable. He's promising that it will be real. And real things are sometimes ugly. Real things sometimes fall apart. Real musicians sometimes disagree. Real performances sometimes go wrong. But when they go right, they don't just reproduce something that happened in a recording studio six months earlier. They discover something. Maybe that is what Anton Newcombe has been chasing all along. Not fame. Not respectability. Not even necessarily success. Something closer to truth. The right sound. The right song. The right moment. The feeling that, for once, nobody is pretending.
So if you find yourself at a Brian Jonestown Massacre show and Anton Newcombe starts arguing with somebody, don't necessarily assume you've wandered into the wrong room. You may simply have arrived at the Anton Newcombe version of quality control.
If the argument stops, the guitars come in, the drums find the pocket, and suddenly the whole room begins to levitate — well, then you understand.
The fight was never really the point.
The fight was never the song.
The song was always the point.
And Anton Newcombe, for better or worse, has spent a lifetime refusing to let anybody convince him otherwise.
And I adore him for that.
ink, watercolor on marbled paper
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It always affects me during winter when I see the homeless. It was cold and wet last week when I went into the city. I know I cannot help everyone but I wonder, all the different cross sections of life, how did this man get so marginalised? How does a person get so stripped of their dignity that he is no longer a person and is largely ignored. And at what point did we, as members of humanity, desensitise ourselves to not pay attention? Amongst the millions and millions of photos of people "living the life", this man gets this space - a small dot on social media - but at least he will get a small space and a small handful of you will notice and see him - as opposed to that day when I stood there and observed that no one did.
Edited on iPad with Snapseed &/or VSCOCAM
Rework of September 3, 2012 post.
Fujifilm Finepix x100
Copyright 2012 and beyond Rob Castro
Gallery www.justanobserver.com/
Blog www.juzno.com/
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National Gallery of Victoria
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iPhone 7 Plus + ProCamera
Snapseed
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
©Jeremy Photography 2018
3 dramatic effect result are approaching - one coming from the left which is warmth and bright, another from the right which gives the chill and moist and lastly, the one which is unheard and unseen - the devastating howling of the wind.
This 3 effect forms an element of great disaster if it get overwhelm.
Nevertheless, this shot was taken after a week of rainy period, and a glimpse of sun hue glowing from across the horizon.
Jeremy Hui Photography | Getty Collection | Shutterstock | Room the Agency | Facebook Page
© Luís Campillo 2015
Model Claudia San Román. es.litmind.com/280994
MUAH Inés Castaño. www.facebook.com/icastanoscarrerasmakeup/
Assistant Lighting and Stage Zaira Cabarga.
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Portrait of Professor in the Dark
Photo © 2014 Rob Castro
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sDg
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Hyper Transformation
A digital alteration from my photograph of a completely different subject.
Honoring International Women's Day
Front Page, A Feast for My Eyes, May 2, 2013: www.flickr.com/groups/afeastformyeyes/
Best seen on black: press L to view
Rework of December 18, 2012 post. Thanks for visiting.
The poor fishermen couldn't find a catch. Perhaps it was too late in the day and the fish went back to sleep. Or maybe there no were fish left in the pond.
Juan: "Got any catch?"
Esteban: "Only some useless pearls which I threw back in the water. Couldn't eat 'em."
Juan: "Aye... same here. I found an old gold Rolex. Who could eat that?"
Hope your day is going well.
© 2013 Rob Castro
# #IAMGenerationImage
Rework from previous post.
Thanks for looking.
Fujifilm x-pro 1, 35 mm lens
Chino, California
© 2013-17 Rob Castro
Gallery www.justanobserver.com/
Blog www.juzno.com/
Instagram instagram.com/juznobsrvr/
sDg
Model: Suwon Lee
For 'Nuevo País de las Artes'.
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Wintering VI
Schlossgarten Charlottenburg
Spandauer Damm 10
Charlottenburg
14059 Berlin
Germany
-7˚C is not that cold but it is cold enough.
A day for staying home, drinking tea and drawing.
I live and work in a city. All of my pictures are city scapes of sorts. I am not one of those outdoor types, drifting from glacier to forest. I drift from muesum to a cafe, often by bus when it is really cold or by dutch city bike in the warmer months.
When I do venture outdoors in the winter, oh my, it is so worth it. I love the purple cast of the street lights on the low clouds. Moments before this cloud cast was blue.
15.55 on a very cold afternoon in January. My batteries are blinking and my hands are cold, "Just one more picture" then a coffee and a slice of cake in the Orangery Cafe.
Thank you Berlin
© Luís Campillo 2015
Model Vanesa García. www.facebook.com/vanesagarcia.artistavisual
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Test shot using the diana lens mounted on canon eos dlsr.
Added May 24, 2012: This is my shot of the recent solar eclipse. Just kidding. But wouldn't it make a great story if this was shot during the recent solar eclipse?
I have plenty of reasons to be happy today. It's Happy Thursday, which is my fave day of the work week. And I found out that my photo will appear in the 14th issue of Fotoblur Magazine.
[It's the the one in the bottome left. www.fotoblur.com/magazine/submissions?page=2]
[Here's the web post. www.fotoblur.com/images/215962]
Yay. God is good. This is my second contribution that will be published soon in the photography magazine. The photo is originally from the Angst and Uncertainty book series I did in 2010. Back then, I tried to sell the book but nobody seemed interested. I think because it was too depressing. My style has evolved since then.
Cheers. - R
Gallery www.justanobserver.com/
Blog www.juzno.com/
Somewhere in a sleepy village in Toledo, Spain
Juzno: Senor, por favor. I would like to know where you got your hammer.
Antonio: It's beautiful, huh? It was given to me by my father's father.
Juzno: Do you know where it was from?
Antonio: I believe it was on Ebay.
Gallery www.justanobserver.com/
Blog www.juzno.com/
# #Spain #Toldeo #TrafalgarInsider #BlackandWhite #Xpro1 #Fujifilm #jeweler #BW #BnW #grainy #portrait
Chapter 2: Pointing Is Like Shooting - Who are you to point your finger? Can anyone say for certain that they will react or behave better? Blame ... That's all we do. No one respects themselves enough these days to be accountable. He started it; she started it; it's your fault, and yours' and yours'. How is anything resolved that way?
Procamera, Snapseed, Superimpose, Decim8, Stackables App, Photofx Ultra, Filterloop, Camera Awesome
© Luís Campillo 2015
Model Vanesa García. www.facebook.com/vanesagarcia.artistavisual
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Socrates: Are you taking my picture?
Juzno: You have a problem with that?
Socrates: Well, are you taking a picture of the copy of my form? You know, the real me is somewhere in the Realm of Ideas. You might have to run that by The Demiurge.
Juzno: You mean you are not the real you?
Socrates: What you are seeing is an illusion. In fact, in my former self I was not a cat but a controversial Greek gadfly who was made to drink hemlock by the authorities for my radical teachings.
Juzno: How did the hemlock taste like?
Socrates: It needed more ice.
Gallery www.justanobserver.com
Blog www.juzno.com
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