Off: STONER ROCK (was: Emperors..., then Monster Magnet...)

Andreas Stuewe Andreas.Stuewe at T-ONLINE.DE
Sat Feb 13 12:14:40 EST 1999


Carl Edlund Anderson schrieb:
> On fre 12 feb 1999 13.07 -0500 "Keith Henderson" <henderson.120 at OSU.EDU>
> wrote:
> > Carl had suggested...
> >>     But, anyway, yes--I think spacerock will get more attention
> >>as a spacey adjunct of "heavy groove rock" (a term I like better
> >>than "stoner rock" or "doom metal")
> >
> > First off, I don't think 'stoner rock' and 'doom metal' are one and the
> > same.  Monster Magnet/Fu Manchu/Nebula being the former, and Orange Goblin
> > and a whole slew of other bands I try to avoid being the latter.
>
>      Well, what's in a name and a rose by any other.  These labels
> I think get slung around a lot without being very specific.  In
> Britain "stoner" seems to be the trendy term--with all the love/hate
> relationship that implies.  Media hacks cheerfully apply it to
> Kyuss, MM, and Cathedral alike.  I doubt very many people here
> would think of Orange Goblin as "Doom Metal" anymore!  Maybe in the
> the US still.  That's a term more likely to be kept for old Cathedral,
> St. Vitus when they existed, etc.: slow ponderous dirges are the key,
> and even Cathedral don't do much in that vein any more.  Orange
> Goblin are far too fast and bouncy!  All that stuff got thrown
> into "doom" in the UK before the broader, less off-putting "stoner"
> label popped up.  Now everything in this ilk is "stoner", and the
> bands are scrambling to decide whether they'll sell more records
> by claiming to be a stoner band or by heaping abuse on the term :)

I´ve been to a "stoner-rock" festival yesterday (the Roadburn fest), in
Tilburg/NL. Orange Goblin is indeed no "Doom Metal", just some early 70´s heavy
rock. Celestial Season were more like that, a dutch band, pretty fast. Well, too
fast for my senses anyway. Cathedral & Terra Firma were both quite clever Black
Sabbath clones which I enjoyed pretty much. But best of all were 35007 (or Loose)
and Beaver, 2 dutch bands who are doing some fast space rock. Beaver were like a
cross between Queens of the Stone Age and Bedouin. They even had some sharp
Rickenbacker bass guitarist. All in all it was a quite remarkable event with a
good psychedelic lightshow, some PC´s with internet access and 2 big screens
showing some ´70´s movies like Planet of the Apes, some Bruce Lee films and some
weird early 70´s softporn movies. Cool! It was really like travelling back to
those years!
"Stoner-rock" is the perfect description of this event in Holland, since almost
all of those bands and 90% of the audience seemed to be totally stoned!

Andreas



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