Rock’n’roll Is Petty as Hell in This Music Documentary — and It’s Riveting

Ondi Timoner’s 2004 documentary Dig! is a masterful blend of everything there is to love about rock music. There is the superb songwriting and guitar playing of both The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, two '90s bands that beautifully blended garage rock and psychedelics to create a unique sound. There’s the vain, petty, and even childish behavior of some of the band members, who obviously heard tales of rocker antics and sought to imitate them. There’s the fierce competitiveness and ferocious drive for success that many '90s bands pretended not to have, lest they seem too interested in commercialism. And finally, there is the frenemy relationship at the heart of the film between the two bands’ frontmen, which veers almost into reality TV territory. As we revisit this remarkably unique rock doc, we’ll see why its embrace of everything both wonderful and terrible about rock’n’roll makes it one of the all-time great music movies.