The VinylBeat expands its focus this week to present a fun interview with Amoeba’s own Joel Gion, tambourine man with The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  Joel hips us to the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of tambourines as he shares his collection with us.  Enjoy. 



To check out extensive LP label and price guides, head to the Vinyl Beat website!

Although I can say I knew Joel Gion before I knew he was famous, his stardom seems so effortless and fitting that it never ceases to surprise me; he wears it so well. His recent solo release, Extended Play, further showcases his charisma and psychedelic savoir-faire above and beyond a warm "San Francisco Nights" degree. I caught up with him recently to chat about the new jams, future plans and his adventures as a modern tambourine man.

How long was this record in the making? Have you been sitting on these tunes for long?

I don’t know about you, but usually whenever I hear there’s a new Danielson album coming out I feel a curious little pang of nervous energy—the kind that you get whenever dealing with the “touched.” It’s like that with Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre, and it’s like that with his spiritual antipodes, Daniel Smith, the Light of the Danielson Famile tree. This time though, after five years of zero new recorded output, it was more just simple curiosity.

Would Brother Danielson still hold as art-pop’s askew? Would he still bring the Spirit kicking and screaming (and finally rejoicing) through the music? Or, heaven forefend, would the pendulum have swung so that the indie-Bible jubilee of the previous seven albums was compelled towards darker forces . . . towards, indeed, the dastardly craw of the Beelzebub? And would it be possible for him to perform this new set of songs dressed as a nine-foot fruit tree with a backing female faction of nurses (like he used to do)?

Joel Gion is quite the musical renaissance man.  In addition to working amongst piles of vinyl and CDs and obsessing over fine cinema and its soundtracks, he also finds time to front his own popular band, The Dilettantes, while intermittently doing time in his old band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  BJM was recently the subject of a feature documentary entitled Dig, which enabled fans to get up close and personal with one of the most riotous, chaotic groups of all time.  The film comes highly recommended by this blogger.  Joel will be touring with BJM this summer, and continues to gig regularly with The Dilettantes in support of their album 101 Tambourines.  More info in the conversation that follows. Here, Joel speaks about his Brian Jonestown Massacre days, how The Beatles changed his life, and the tambourine.

ME:  What was the first record that really blew your hair back when you were a kid and made you start to really get into music?