To be a performer, to be in a band, you can do whatever you want. Even if you're sittin' on a lawn chair, havin' a drink, watchin' TV up on stage, you can still be the frontman. Well, that's probably why right there, man. You can't go around treatin' your brothers and sisters like that, man, and expect to get too far in life. This hasn't kept Newcombe from infusing the drab, anti-glamor indie world with his own psychedelic visions of world domination and megalomaniacal boasting.
Power is an embarrassment to most indie musicians.
The skittish, resentful manner of, say, Mark Smith, has become a trope for legions of chronically embarassed frontmen who spend whatever time they have in the spotlight side-stepping it, shuffling away from the great expectations their music creates. Power is an awful burden and most of us don't come equipped with egos big enough to accomodate it. Which is why a band like, for instance, the Dandy Warhols is such a relief. Watching Courtney Taylor bathe in the pure power of that group's simple, relentless pop is a call to the rest of us to finally wake up and join the living. Anton Newcombe likes to compare his band to the Dandys.