Latest news with #Jonestown
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Murder lover Bill Hader sets Jonestown project
Condolences to Martin Scorsese, whose Jonestown project was unceremoniously killed at Continental Studios. It looks like Bill Hader got the jump on him, as it was announced today the Saturday Night Live alum is developing a series centered on the Jonestown massacre for HBO. Hader will co-write and serve as co-showrunner on the project with Daniel Zelman (Damages). According to Variety, Hader will direct and potentially star in the series. In the 1970s, preacher Jim Jones moved his congregation, the Peoples Temple, to Guyana, establishing the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project; the settlement resulted in tragedy after the shooting of a visiting U.S. congressman and the murder-suicide of over 900 members via poison. Even beyond Scorsese's fictional pitch on The Studio, the Jonestown cult has been the subject of fascination for Hollywood. Vince Gilligan was reportedly developing an HBO Jonestown series way back in 2016. Leonardo DiCaprio was cast in a Jim Jones biopic in 2021, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was attached to play him in an entirely different film opposite Chloë Grace Moretz in 2022. We don't yet know what angle Bill Hader's Jonestown project will take, but the budding television auteur is undeniably drawn to darker subject matter. In his acclaimed series Barry, he starred as a soldier-turned-hitman. One of his biggest post-SNL roles was playing the adult Richie in the Stephen King horror It Chapter Two. And he'll next lend his voice to one of fiction's most irredeemable maniacs, The Cat In The Hat. But Hader comes by the darkness honestly. He has a documented fascination with true crime and has spoken often about his love of Dateline, and Snapped, and Forensic Files. Will he bring his signature sense of humor to this latest dark subject matter? A real-life tragedy is harder to make funny, but we'll see what Hader comes up with. More from A.V. Club
Los Angeles Times
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Apple has made splashy bets in Hollywood. Are they paying off?
In the first episode of the Apple TV+ show 'The Studio,' Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese sells his script to the fictional Continental Studios, only to be told later by a studio chief played by Seth Rogen that the project, about Jonestown, has been killed. Instead, the company is fast-tracking a soulless brand-based cash grab: a Kool-Aid movie. 'Just give me back my movie and let me go sell it to f— Apple, the way I should have done it in the first place,' a despairing Scorsese says. The line could practically be an ad for how Apple TV+, the Cupertino tech giant's streaming service, has positioned itself as a creative haven for filmmakers trying to sell bold, original ideas. The service, which was introduced in 2019 with a splashy event featuring Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, found success with comedy shows like 'Ted Lasso' and 2022 best picture Academy Award winner 'CODA.' But the question hanging over the company was, just how serious was it about its Hollywood ambitions? Would it be the next big power player? Or would it become just another deep-pocketed short-timer? For years after they joined the company, Apple TV+ leaders Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were dogged by rumors that their jobs were in jeopardy. Lately though, its efforts have come more into focus. It's been on a run of critical success with shows such as 'Severance,' 'The Studio' and 'Your Friends & Neighbors.' Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a call with investors on Thursday that Apple TV+ 'has become a must-see destination' and posted record viewership in the quarter. Some have compared it to HBO — before Warner Bros. Discovery began making cuts — developing a reputation for being willing to pay big for A-list stars and creatives. 'It's been brilliant at defining its niche ... and the quality of what it does is simply superb,' said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. 'The question is, is the niche big enough to justify the expense?' Apple TV+'s subscriber base remains small compared to competitors, including Netflix. It lacks the deep, established libraries of Walt Disney Co. or Warner Bros. Discovery's Max, which helps keep customers paying every month and not switching to another service. While it has good shows and movies, critics say, it lacks the volume and breadth of its competitors. And the quality over quantity approach has its doubters. Wedbush Securities managing director Daniel Ives estimates Apple TV+ has 57 million subscribers, which he called 'disappointing.' Wall Street had hoped to see 100 million or more subscribers by now, he said. Apple has 'built a mansion [and] they don't have enough furniture, and that's a problem from a content perspective with Apple TV+,' Ives said. Further, tech and business news site the Information reported that Apple TV+ is losing $1 billion a year. The company's strategy has left some rivals scratching their heads. 'I don't understand it beyond a marketing play, but they're really smart people,' said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos in a March interview with Variety. 'Maybe they see something we don't.' Apple declined to comment. Observers noted that it can take a long time for streaming services to become profitable. NBCUniversal's Peacock is still losing money, for example. In recent years, subscription streaming services have been under pressure by investors to produce more profit. In an industry where there's a lot of competition and Netflix has been declared the winner, there's anxiety about how many platforms can survive on their own. But Apple thinks differently about entertainment compared to its more traditional studio rivals, people familiar with the company say. Apple TV+ is just one part of the company's larger strategy to grow its subscription services business under Eddy Cue, which includes Apple Music, iCloud storage and Apple News, among other options. The services category represented 25% of Apple's overall sales of $391 billion in its last fiscal year. The company's largest money maker remains the iPhone, which represented 51% of Apple's total revenues in its last fiscal year. In its most recent quarter, services reached a revenue record of $26.6 billion, up 12% from a year ago, the company said. Apple TV+ is 'a small piece of all the services that you provide,' said Alejandro Rojas, vice president of applied analytics with Parrot Analytics. 'You want this to add to the overall brand experience, but without also crossing a massive gap in resources and investments.' Apple TV+'s programming strategy has taken a talent-friendly approach, tending to favor projects with big-name stars. One of its early major bets was 'The Morning Show' with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell. Drama 'Your Friends & Neighbors' stars Jon Hamm from 'Mad Men.' Its February survival drama film 'The Gorge' stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. One of Apple's biggest movie releases will happen this summer with Formula 1 film 'F1' (featuring Brad Pitt), which hits theaters in June, including on Imax screens. Warner Bros. is handling the theatrical release for the big-budget movie, directed by Joseph Kosinski ('Top Gun: Maverick'). Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, hopes 'F1' will play like 'Top Gun: Maverick' on a racetrack. Some of Apple's previous filmmaker-driven, star-studded movies struggled at theaters, including 'Fly Me to the Moon' and 'Argylle.' 'This is a huge movie for Apple,' Dergarabedian said. 'I think they picked a perfect project to really amplify their filmmaking acumen and their filmmaker relationships.' The way Apple treats talent has a personalized touch, said creatives who have worked with the company. Tomorrow Studios president Becky Clements said she was 'forever grateful' that Apple took a shot on 'Physical,' an original series starring Rose Byrne about a 1980s housewife who struggles with an eating disorder and finds strength through aerobics. 'It's an original piece, which is often a difficult thing to pull off in the marketplace,' Clements said. Clements credited Apple with supporting the filmmakers and not micromanaging the show, which delved into difficult material. Ben Silverman, an executive producer on upcoming Apple TV+ series 'Stick' (starring Owen Wilson), said the show's budget allowed for traveling to North Carolina for filming, where prominent golf commentators Trevor Immelman and Jim Nantz were located during the PGA Tour. 'I think a lot of platforms are supportive of their creators right now, but they may not have the bandwidth to go as deep as Apple can on individual projects because they're just not doing as many,' said Silverman, chairman and co-CEO of L.A.-based Propagate Content. Not all creatives have been happy with Apple. It threw observers for a loop when it did a short and limited theatrical release for last year's Brad Pitt and George Clooney action-comedy movie 'Wolfs,' instead of a more traditional wide release. Director Jon Watts told Deadline he backed out of a sequel because he was surprised by Apple's 'last minute' shift and that Apple ignored his request to not reveal that he was working on a follow-up. Apple has not addressed the controversy publicly. Like other streamers, over time, Apple TV+ has made changes to help generate more revenue, cut costs and increase customers. Last month, Apple cut the price of its streaming service temporarily to $2.99 a month. Its base monthly fee is $9.99. Last year, Apple TV+ reached a deal to sell subscriptions through Amazon. In February, Apple TV+ captured 30% of its sign-ups via Amazon Channels, said Brendan Brady, director of strategy at research firm Antenna. High-profile releases including the new 'Severance' season and 'The Gorge' drove sign-ups, he added. 'It's a combination of content driving their acquisition, and also that opening up of their distribution attracting a new audience,' Brady said. Apple's overall business faces macroeconomic challenges, such as the Trump administration's trade war with China. Government officials have warned that tariffs on smartphones made in China are coming — which would harm Apple's iPhone because many are made in the country. Increased costs to Apple's overall business could eventually squeeze other areas of the company including Apple TV+, analysts said. Some people who work with Apple said it's too early to judge Apple's success based on its estimated subscriber counts so far, and they're placing chips on the venture succeeding in the long run. 'It's about investing early and long-term,' Silverman said. 'I'm always an entrepreneurial spirit who wants to lean in early to these platforms and partnerships, hoping that I can build a beachfront relationship.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'The Hitler Thing': Bill Maher Lashes Out At Larry David's Mocking Of ‘Real Time' Host's Trump Dinner
Bill Maher may have broken bread with Donald Trump, but there is no love lost this week between the Real Time host and Larry David. Three days after the Seinfeld co-creator ruthlessly mocked Maher in a New York Times 'My Dinner With Hitler.' op-end for chumming up with Trump at the White House earlier this month, the RT frontman tried to save face by moving the goal posts. More from Deadline Donald Trump Lashes Out At Fox News After Its Poll Shows His Approval Rating 11 Points Underwater Imax CEO Downplays Hollywood's China Risk Amid Trade War: "Will Largely Target Films With Limited Box Office Potential" Jonestown Series From Bill Hader & Daniel Zelman In Development At HBO 'To use the Hitler thing— first of all, I think it's kind of insulting to six million dead Jews,' Maher told Piers Morgan in a more than 30 minutes video released Thursday. 'That should kind of be in its own place.' Calling fellow HBOer David a 'friend,' Maher continued: The minute you play the 'Hitler' card, you've lost the argument. Nobody's been more prescient about Donald Trump than me. Just the fact that I met him doesn't change that.' 'I went back to my day job of tearing him a new asshole!' Maher with some hyperbole added to ex-Apprentice contestant and Trump pal Morgan on the latter's Uncensored show. On April 11, a charmed Maher detailed the sit-down with the 'gracious' Trump, mutual friend Kid Rock, UFC boss Dana White and others his Real Time audience. 'I'm just reporting exactly what I saw over two and a half hours,' he said, noting how good humored Trump was about signing printouts of all the insults he's hit the former Apprentice host with over the years. 'I went into the mine, and that's what's down there. A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f—ed up. It's just not as f—ed up as I thought it was.' While downplaying any real significance to the meeting between POTUS and the self-described 'f*cking comedian' himself mocked 'all of the people who treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you're ridiculous.' Of course, previously Maher had openly compared his hanging out with fellow anti-woker Trump as 'kind of a Nixon to China thing.' An avowed critic of Trump, David feasted on Maher's dull-wittedness in the dinner with Trump and his Real Time retelling of the occasion in his April 21 NYT piece. 'I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like,' the Curb Your Enthusiasm star satirically penned of his imaginary meeting with the man considered one of the most, if not the most, evil human beings ever. :That amused him to no end, and I realized I'd never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I'd seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler.' Echoing Maher, David ended the scathing article: 'Two hours later, the dinner was over, and the Führer escorted me to the door. 'I am so glad to have met you. I hope I'm no longer the monster you thought I was.' 'I must say, mein Führer, I'm so thankful I came. Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn't mean that we have to hate each other.' And with that, I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night.' Real Time with Bill Maher is back Friday with former VP and almost POTUS Al Gore as a guest. Maybe they'll compare Trump tales. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About The 'Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'Emily In Paris' Season 5 So Far Everything We Know About The 'We Were Liars' Show So Far
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Seth Rogen's The Studio Joked About Martin Scorsese Directing A Jonestown Movie, But Now A TV Show Is Actually Happening With An Unexpected SNL Vet
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The Studio is one of the most critically acclaimed shows to be released onto the 2025 TV schedule so far, with co-creator Seth Rogen starring as Continental Studios head Matt Remick. The series' first episode saw Matt being tasked with putting together a Kool-Aid movie, and he went so far as to court Martin Scorsese to direct it after learning the filmmaker was interested in making a Jonestown movie. Needless to say this didn't go well, and you can break out your Apple TV+ subscription to learn what happened, but now we have life initiating art… almost. There's a Jonestown TV series in the works, and Saturday Night Live vet Bill Hader is attached. Hader is partnering up with Daniel Zelman to write an HBO series about cult leader Jim Jones and the horrific events that took place at the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, a.k.a. Jonestown. Both men are also serving as co-showrunners and executive producers, and if the project moves forward, Hader would also direct the project if it gets greenlighted. Additionally, Variety reports that the man behind SNL characters like Stefon and Vinny Vedecci could end up starring in the series as well. More Bill Hader Stories 'You Think He's Asleep But...' The Funny Titanic-Related Reason Bill Hader Once Got Fired From His Movie Theater Job Fans Were Sad Bill Hader's Stefon Didn't Make An SNL 50 Appearance. Apparently, There Was A Reason Jim Jones started the Peoples Temple in Guayana in the 1950s, and by the 1970s, it became known as Jonestown. The settlement gained global attention in 1978 when over 900 people, including Jones, died in a mass murder-suicide. This came just hours after US Congressman Leo Ryan was shot at an airstrip in Guyana as he and others were attempting to leave, having come to the country to investigate the claims that people at Jonestown were being held against their will. The majority of the deaths came from ingesting a cocktail of drugs and poisons, including cyanide, mixed into Flavor Aid. However, this was misidentified as Kool-Aid, resulting in the phrase, 'Drinking the Kool-Aid.' The Jonestown deaths were previously explored on TV in the 1980 miniseries Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, which starred Powers Boothe as Jones. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was also working on his own Jonestown series for HBO in 2016, but it never moved forward. Although Bill Hader is primarily known for his comedy work, he's also delved in dramatic territory various times, most notably with his HBO series Barry. So he presumably knows that adapting what happened at Jonestown for television needs to be handle with care and not used for comedic fodder. It's also probably a safe bet that if the acting side of Hader's arrangement is worked out, he'd be playing Jim Jones, though we'll obviously let you know if that's not the case. Assuming this Jonestown TV series gets off the ground, I can only hope that its creative process goes ok and doesn't crash and burn like what Martin Scorsese wanted to craft as his final movie in The Studio. Meanwhile, feel free to revisit Bill Hader's work on Barry with a Max subscription, and remember that he'll be heard as The Cat in the Hat's title character in the animated film adaptation hitting theaters next year.
The Independent
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘I get PTSD when I watch it': The inside story of Dig!, the most outrageous music documentary of all time
The year is 1996, and a psychedelic rock band with revolution in their ears and methamphetamine in their veins are in full flow at the Viper Room in Los Angeles. The Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by their mercurial, messianic frontman Anton Newcombe, believe they are on the verge of breaking big. A gaggle of music industry power players have been invited to bless their ascension, yet instead what they witness is a chaotic onstage brawl that culminates in smashed instruments and tattered dreams. Newcombe, ejected into the night by security, seethes: 'You f***ing broke my sitar, motherf***er!' This scene plays out early in Dig!, perhaps the most rock'n'roll documentary ever made. Ondi Timoner's 2004 film revolves around the contrasting fortunes of the Jonestown and their more industry-savvy friends and later rivals the Dandy Warhols. The camera travels from grimy bedsits to lavish video shoots and sold-out festival appearances, capturing the grit, the debauched determination and the righteous fervour required to believe your music really might change the world. The actor Jonah Hill has declared it to be a landmark work comparable to Goodfellas. Dave Grohl called it 'the most honest, warts-and-all description of what it's like when you and your friends join a band, jump in a van and try to start a revolution'. Twenty years on from its release, a new extended cut of the film, dubbed Dig! XX, is back in cinemas and set for digital release. The additional footage adds depth and context, including the backstory to Newcombe's oft-quoted sitar line. More than that, thanks to the additional perspective offered by the last two decades, the film now plays as a fascinating snapshot of music industry excess just before the business was kneecapped by streaming. In 2025 it can't help but pose questions about whether joining a band, jumping in a van and trying to start a revolution is even a dream anyone entertains anymore. For Timoner, Dig! was always supposed to be about larger themes than just the warring bands at the centre of the narrative. An idealistic student at Yale in the early 1990s, she had hit on the idea while trying to release her debut feature, 1994's The Nature of the Beast, about an incarcerated woman in Connecticut. The compromises and sacrifices she had to make in order to get the film out into the world left her questioning her pursuit of the artist's life. 'Is my heart just going to be broken?' she remembers thinking when we speak. 'Am I going to destroy everything just by trying to reach an audience? Is it possible to maintain your integrity and accomplish that? I thought looking at bands would be the best way to answer that question.' At the time, America's alternative music scene was still dominated by the grunge emanating from Seattle, but a host of younger groups on the West Coast wanted to return to a janglier, more melodic sound. Timoner and her brother David started filming 10 struggling bands trying to make it, but it was only after they got turned onto the retro, Sixties-indebted sound of the Jonestown that their film took flight. 'Everyone else we were filming was cowering in the shadows of the industry and waiting for their free lunch,' Timoner says. 'By contrast, Anton was like: 'I'm the letter writer, they're the postman.'' The night of the Viper Room show, Newcombe told Timoner: 'We're starting a revolution. Go meet the Dandy Warhols. We're taking over your documentary.' The Dandy Warhols, led by the high-cheekboned rock god-in-waiting Courtney Taylor-Taylor, are a Portland-based psych rock group who had played with the Jonestown and bonded with them over their shared love of shoegaze guitars and recreational narcotics. Both bands were early in their careers, and Timoner found in Newcombe and Taylor-Taylor the perfect foils with which to explore her art vs commerce thesis. Where Newcombe was endlessly creative but also tortured and often self-sabotaging, Taylor-Taylor was able to play by the industry's rules enough to land his band a major label record deal, shoot a music video with celebrity photographer David LaChapelle and eventually hit it big in the UK after letting their 2000 single 'Bohemian Like You' be used in an advert for a mobile phone company. The film is just the tip of the iceberg. That kind of intensity was every day. It was exhausting, but we were young, so you have more energy for chaos Billy Pleasant, Jonestown drummer In one telling scene in Dig!, Newcombe hosts a sordid party at his squat-like LA base, only for the Dandys to turn up the next morning and stage a photo shoot there. 'That photo shoot is so poignant, and so emblematic of their relationship dynamic because [the Dandys are] like: we'll visit, but we don't want to stay in this squalor,' says Timoner. 'Anton cultivates a certain edge and creates from that place, [whereas] Courtney is like a tourist.' Zia McCabe, the Dandys' keyboardist, witnessed both the obvious affection and later tension between the two frontmen up close. 'For Anton, music is life or death,' she explains over video from Portland, pointing out that music poured out of Newcombe whether he liked it or not. 'Courtney has to wait for those precious moments and then capitalise on them. I think he's always been a bit jealous that Anton can't shut it off, but really, if you step back and look at the big picture, quality of life often suffers, right?' The Timoners (Ondi and her brother David) followed the two bands for seven years between 1996 and 2003, eventually piecing together Dig! from over 2,500 hours of footage. That gave them a front-row seat for Newcombe's descent into heroin addiction and his band's often disastrous low-budget tours, marred by frequent breakups and occasional drug arrests. 'The film is just the tip of the iceberg,' remembers erstwhile Jonestown drummer Billy Pleasant. 'There just happened to be a camera rolling on the bits that everybody sees but, my gosh, that kind of intensity was every day. It was exhausting, but we were young, so you have more energy for chaos.' At the opposite end of the spectrum, the filmmakers also prolonged the production in order to capture the Dandys' rise through the upper echelons of pop culture. 'They did keep wanting to wrap it up, and then s*** just kept happening [to the Dandys] that they couldn't not put in the film,' remembers McCabe, who was 19 when she joined the band. 'I was young and I had given up questioning anything, so everything was just my reality. 'Oh, now we do major labels. Now we fly to other countries. Now we have tour buses. Oh, a film crew comes and films every single thing you do.'' When the film debuted at Sundance in 2004, it was an instant hit, winning the Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category. 'I've had a lot of films at Sundance, but nothing that caused that kind of kinetic reaction,' recalls Timoner, pointing out that the film spoke to the wider artistic experience. 'People say: 'What is Dig! about? Well, it's about these two bands, you know, it's about art versus commerce, but it's also about friendship and rivalry and madness and mental health.' The film reached an even wider audience when it became a featured inflight movie on Virgin Atlantic and entered the zeitgeist enough that the Jonestown's onstage brawl was spoofed on the US TV comedy-drama Gilmore Girls. The band's impish tambourine player, Joel Gion, makes an appearance in the episode. '[The writers] were just fans of the movie,' Gion explains when I call him to ask how that unlikely cameo came about. 'It was weird, but I get more steady checks from [that programme] than I do from being in the band.' Gion is one of the stars of the original movie – it was his face, complete with bug-eyed sunglasses, that adorned the posters. He often plays the role of comic relief, keeping things light as his band implodes around him. 'For me, the minute the camera got put in my face I immediately envisioned a movie audience out there,' he remembers. 'I just went straight into 'Beatles movie' zone. You know, the Maysles Brothers' film about the Beatles' first US visit when they're on the train? That's what I grew up on. That's what made me want to be in a band. I'm not talking to Ondi behind the camera or to myself about how fabulous what I'm doing is. I'm talking to some imaginary audience. That was a pretty far-flung stretch of the imagination when you're living on a mattress in a punk rock band factory, but I'm not mad at how it turned out.' In Dig! XX, Gion provides additional narration, counterbalancing the original voiceover by Taylor-Taylor and adding background for many of the Jonestown sequences. The end of the new version brings the story up to date and shows that however precarious their existence appeared in 2004, both bands have defied the odds and are still together, touring and making music. 'Cutting the new ending was emotional, because it's a happy ending. They're all still here,' says David Timoner, who edited the second film. 'When we had the idea for this new version of the film I said I'd love to end it with both bands onstage embracing. It turned out they were playing in Austin, so we got someone to film it and it happened! We had that kumbaya ending, and then [another onstage Jonestown fight in] Melbourne happened, which was kind of perfect too. It's still the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It's still Dig! It's uncanny, the footage of the fight is like a mirror image of the original.' For those who featured in the film, such as the original Dandys drummer Eric Hedford, watching the new version is an emotional experience. 'It brings up a lot of feelings of that time,' he says. 'It's like a wild movie yearbook of my twenties. I get a bit of post-traumatic stress when I watch it, but I'm old enough now to have nostalgia for those days.' For younger viewers discovering Dig! for the first time, the film may appear to depict an alien species. The reason the bands are so willing to squeeze themselves in tiny vans and traverse the country is largely because there was no better way of getting their music out to eager listeners. Today it's possible to send a song around the world at the tap of a touchscreen, but the financial realities have squeezed already thin margins sharply. To be a touring band hoping to find a pot of gold at the end of a run of shows may now be an antiquated concept. Dig! is a time capsule of a more optimistic, hedonistic time for the music industry. 'One major issue that's different now than it was for us is access to income,' points out McCabe. 'I worked two days a week as a dishwasher, lived with five roommates, had food stamps and state health insurance, and we could afford our rock'n'roll lifestyle. We had time to be artists. Now, if you have time to be an artist that means either your parents are backing you or you have a successful OnlyFans. That curtails access to being able to make music and art, because everybody's got to work 40 to 60 hours. That is horses***.' Gion agrees. 'If people don't know who you are, because you can't afford to record, because you have to work, because there's no money in recorded music, then none of this works,' he says. His dream, he adds, is that some of the people who watch Dig! XX get inspired to start doing things their own way. 'We've silenced an entire group of people that have to bump and scrape and fight to live, who maybe have more to say,' he argues. 'It's been a long time since we had a punk rock or psychedelic revolution. People have got to get f***ed-with enough by these breadhead fat cats to [a point where] some new explosion happens, and the landgrabbers in charge of music are told that this won't fly.'
