WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STONER-ROCK?

The question dumped itself on me some days ago and after I puzzled about it for a while I started researching stuff and this much I can tell you, folks: Stoner-Rock is well dead. As dead as it ever was, actually, and withholding the little flickering of life between about 1995 and 2000 or so, there was never much live to it anyway . My main point is: those bands which were always around doing, what is now considered as Stoner-Rock, will keep on staying. But these bands, e.g. Cathedral, Scott “Wino” Weinrich, Sleep, amo, never made Stoner-Rock, they made Metal. Call it Doom or Dark or heavy as horseshit, it was metal. Those other bands, who infused Stoner-Rock with life are either all gone, like Kyuss, or moved on to other quarters - some doing interesting stuff like Josh Homme (Queens of The Stone Age), other doing just a heavier version of plain old rock’n’roll (these are too many to mention). Other bands, which are “new” and are helplessly filed und sold under the moniker, e.g. everything on Southern Lord, are also Doom-Metal or even Southern Rock or something else. Stoner Rock, my friends and fellow-victims, is dead.

To note: I stopped complaining about musical filing some time ago. Some keep on saying, the music is important, not the name you give to it. But: there is no existence without a name. If it doesn’t have a name to be called, it doesn’t exist. Even “nothing” is conceivable only because it has a name. Yes, that is well philosophical. Wittgenstein, I have read the guy. Secondly: genres are made to be filled. An idea once thought can’t be pushed back again. (see above). Thirdly, I don’t want to listen to every record there is to find what I like. I want someone to give it a name, so I can find it. And I have to trust the reviewers to give it the correct name. (That is my ethos as a reviewer.) Example: Sum 41 sounds like Blink 182. Do I have to write a whole paragraph? Writing about music is like dancing a theatrical piece anyway, but it is fun.

Another question linked itself to the big one above: why haven’t I heard anything from Man’s Ruin records for some time? You see, in Austria it is not unusual to miss something, because this is such a small country. Moreover, if I lose interest in a style or a band, I tend to ignore them completely, so I didn’t wonder too much. Then I learned that the label folded. Gone out of business. Figures. Even though I was a fan of the label in its first hours – I have a rather large collection of the first 7”-singles – I lost some of my sympathy and fandom when it all became too big. When Man’s Ruin, which is actually Frank Kozik himself pulling all the strings, started to release CDs only. There were only overpriced 10”-records anymore, and the CD would have two of them and thus be way cheaper. 

Then I read an interview with Kozik, where he came off rather arrogant. The typical self-made-man, actually, spouting how much he loves the USA and how everyone can make a fortune (like him) if he just works hard enough, only that most people don’t want to work (as hard as he does) so they have to go hungry and well deserve it. I am recounting the image I got from the interview, my impression off the top of my head, since I haven’t learned it by heart. But this is the picture of Frank Kozik I got from it: a self-righteous bastard whose creativity fell right into the perfect hype on which he cashed in.  

And now he has gone out of business. Well, too bad. Was it because he produced more CDs by unknown bands than his cash-flow was able to hold? On the webpage it says something about problems with the credit-card-company (who are bastards, too) but usually you just get problems with them if your financial credibility is low or gone, so was a problem there and where did it come from? I don’t think we will ever learn, but we have learned that marking the big guy never helped anyone? Or did I get the wrong picture? Anyway, Man’s Ruin has folded and it is time to grab all those old 7”-singles and 10”-records to complete your collections, folks, because one time they be might worth a load of money soon.

There is another business-related incident, which illustrates the downfall of Stoner-Rock. After Kyuss split up, John Garcia formed another band called Unida (you know them?) who were, obviously, one of the truest and most original Stoner-Rock-Bands around. Well, Unida finished recording their latest album just weeks ago but nevertheless were dropped by their label – American Recordings, you know, Rick Rubin. There were no reasons mentioned, just the facts. Could it be that they had some serious trouble with the label, some differences, or Rubin wanted to spend more of his money and time on Johnny Cash, System of a Down and Slayer? Or Rubin saw no interest in Stoner Rock anymore. Rubin is well known to be good businessman as well as putting a strong importance on the music he releases. The guy is a music-maniac, as far as I hear, so the reasoning that he didn’t connect to the music of Unida anymore is quite close.  

I have another fact to show how the interest in Stoner Rock has gone down, and this one is statistics. (It had to come, you see, I work with numbers every day.) The Yahoo Stoner-Rock-Mailing list used to feature about 1.200 mails per month on average during 1999 and 2000, but in the middle of 2001 this dropped to about 500 mails per month. This equals a minus of 60 % in volume, which could mean that interest into Stoner Rock has gone down 60 percent or the volume of news to be spread about Stoner Rock has gone down 60 percent. The latter version would even be worse, since the volume of news (bands forming, releasing, concerts, etc.) follows the interest of the audience. On the other hand, the website stonerrock.com is still working nicely, even their focus has changed more and more towards doom and more metal-oriented bands. But, funnily, they offer every visitor a few choices, how to call the genre, and thus lead them to a mirror-site which might be called CosmicDoom.com, FuzzRock.com or even RiffRock.com (as there could be rock without riffs) which are all equally stupid words, but what the heck.

Maybe it is time to let some of the people speak, who should really know what they are talking about. One could be John McBain, founding member of Monster Magnet and In-Wellwater-Conspiracy and also guest on the Dessert Sessions, who has nothing good to say about the genre anymore. Even though he should be named amongst those who called the style into existence, but such are the vampires you call into life. “Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery” he says, speaking about how Stoner Rock was just a amped up version of 70ies Doom-Rock with longer hair, thicker rhythms, bigger amps and so on. “If you want this Stoner Rock thing going, whatever it is, you gotta be a little more original.” McBain is of course an artistical iconographer, who might just got the feeling that stoner rock has one essential guitar-riff (nananaaa-nat-nat-nanaaa) and that was used way too often now. He carries on: “To me, stoner rock is recycled grunge. … There is no mass appeal and these people just need to understand that. It’s not gonna be there so they should stop it.” Maybe they already have. Or McBain is only spouting his own frustration of having left Monster Magnet before they had their big strike. Their really big one.

Another big strike: Queens of the Stone Age. After the break-up of Kyuss Josh Homme formed the Queens of the Stone Age and had huge success with them. As is to be expected he has no sympathy left with StonerRock as well, but to him the term is more troubling and he has good reason for that: “In 1996 I recorded as song for a compilation record. I sat through a meeting, listening to the music-hating, band-owning cut-throats at Roadrunner Records pitch potential slogans for press and marketing the comp. One of the catchphrases tossed around was “stonerrock”, a term I had never heard before then. Eventually they called the comp “Burn one up. Music for stoners.” They asked KERRANG, amongst others, “how do you like this new stonerrock scene?” Kerrang said, “we dig it” and basically helped to construct the term “stonerrock”. That’s why, in my mind, “stonerrock” has always represented the little box, a salesman’s pitch, that I should jump into and accept.”  

Josh Homme has another point to make, which is that the term was to narrow anyway, since it excluded so many bands which somehow were connected to the scene or worked in the same spirit as Kyuss did. He mentions, amongst others, earthlings?, Ween and Calexico. Well, this would be a far stretch to call a genre, wouldn’t it?

Of course, there is no label-name for music that is made with passion, with creativity and originality, which has energy and life and is on the run with breaking new ground musically and artistically. There is no label for musicians who lay more importance on their musical vision and their artistical integrity than on sales plans, marketing-tools and the plans of their record-company. And there never will be. Because, after all, these are the things the listeners are looking for in a genre as well. Why did Kyuss sell a lot of records and Roadsaw only a few? Because Kyuss had something that other bands couldn’t offer, even though they were working in very closely related musical style. See, that is just the point. A labelname is there to help the listener find a band that sounds like another band he has found that he liked. Yes, that is also a marketing-tool, but it makes things easier for you, the audience. We need the labels. If I just told you that this guy is highly original, very creative and I really like what he does, and you buy the record and realise, the guy is plinking on an acoustic guitar with chains and brushes, you might be angry at me. If I used the term avantgarde-guitarist just once, you would have been warned. That is why musical styles get names.

So, the question boils down to: why doesn’t anyone ever use the term Stoner Rock to describe a musical style anymore? The answer is close: Firstly, because all the bands who did the style have either stopped, moved on (which is practically the same) or are annoyingly boring. Secondly, it has all become too much for the listeners, they are worn out by the endless repeating of the same riff and by the way completely different bands are being sold to them under a labelname they once liked. Maybe it is time to hold a funeral-party for Stoner Rock, a big party were all the old records are played once more, then left in the dessert to wait for the next resurgence of big amps, fuzzed guitars, long hair and thundering rhythms.

P.S.: As I was typing this I was listening to the “Nativity in Black”-tribute to Black Sabbath-compilation, and if you’d ask me, there is a corpus of work by Black Sabbath big enough for new generations of stoner/doom/whatever-rock bands to survive on as cover bands. That is not a good life to live, but also way better than most of their own songs.

P.P.S.: How come I didn’t mention drugs in this article? I have no idea. That Prozac makes me forget. The Valium makes me slow. The weed makes me give a shit. The speed makes me turned up towards other stuff. And the oestrogen makes my titties grow. Or so it goes.

 

 

for mor info go to www.stonerrock.com that's where I got a lot of information and, also, I stole the illustrations there. hope they never catch me..