Dig! XX review – the original version is still the best

This 20th anniversary refit/remaster of 2004’s cult rock- shock-doc Dig! proves that no amount of inadvisable retroactive tinkering can diminish the quality of a core product that’s this good. It tells of the supremely bizarre, largely manufactured rivalry between two ’90s indie rock darlings: The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Well, from the latter perspective, it’s more just the band’s loopy, self-destructive and comically articulate front man, Anton Newcombe who, despite his professed ideals of artistic purity, can’t seem to stop torpedoing his own career through misadventure and… well, just being an Olympic- sized asshat. The Dandies, it transpires, just happen to be an easy target for the blame.

Revisiting the film and you could almost say that Newcombe outdoes all three of Spinal Tap members when it comes to firing out lop-sided rock witticisms and overblown gloats, and the film veritably sings whenever he’s in front of the camera. This souped-up version adds around 30 mins of new footage, as well as additional narration by avuncular BJM tambourinist, Joel Gion. Yet there’s nothing really new here, unless you wanted to see a version of this film with a prefixed Dave Grohl PSA and a new ending which shows how the two bands ended up being great mates, and all this madness is water under the bridge? No, thought not…