Stoner Rock 101

I suppose it started with Hawkwind…Pink Floyd….Blue Cheer…maybe even Captain Beyond. Up until the early 90s, heavy metal was alive and well, as we could see in “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”. Then Nirvana came around and ruined it all with grunge (see my grunge blog). Now we have “nu-metal”, Good Charlotte, A Simple Plan, Disturbed, etc. all the dazzlingly brilliant and original (ha!) bands on the Ozzfest. Hold on, where’s the real metal? And I don’t mean Manowar….


I’m talking about bands that know, understand, and live for riffs, guitars, guitar solos, old-school, old-style banging around like …Black Sabbath, who are probably the most important influence to many of these bands. But despite the name, you don’t have to smoke dope, or get stoned, to listen to this or enjoy it, although obviously many of these bands are probably chemically inspired in different ways, to various degrees. For some reason many of the bands come from California. Oddly, there’s little jamming and not much psychedelic (except for Gas Giant) – just straightforward heavy guitars and good fun.


So what passes for real metal these days is best known as “stoner rock” and will not be found opening for Ozzy or Black Sabbath. Maybe just as well, because it means we can see these bands at local clubs for $20 a ticket and maybe even meet the band members after the show. Who are these bands? Here are a few of the most important (i.e. these are not only the ones I’m most familiar with, but who are also the most popular and tour the most – with the exception of sHEavy, mentioned below - and the list is by no means exhaustive):


Kyuss. They are considered the first stoner rock band, if you leave out Hawkwind and Black Sabbath (precursor bands). I actually saw them in concert years ago and can’t remember a thing. D’oh!


Queens of the Stone Age. Derivative of Kyuss thanks to Josh Homme. Despite the name, none of the band members are female. This is one of these more original bands with its own sound that’s hard to describe, but it’s definitely heavy and definitely different. My favorite album is Rated R. I’ve been able to see them a few times, including with Dave Grohl of Nirvana on drums (Songs for the Deaf tour).


Fu Manchu. If Black Sabbath were surfers and into vans, cars, etc. you’d have Fu Manchu. Scott Hill is a bit smarter, and has a better voice, than Ozzy. IMHO, their best album is King of the Road. This is the band of these that I’ve probably seen the most.


Nebula. A three-piece that used to be ¾ of Fu Manchu, with Scott Hill being the 4^th who remained the core of Fu Manchu. Nebula sound almost the same, though with a more spacey riffing and losing the vans & surfing themes.


Monster Magnet. From New Jersey, and led by Dave Wyndorf, the closest thing to a rock personality that stoner rock has. They have several albums and are heavily influenced by Hawkwind – they even covered “Brainstorm” and “The Right Stuff.”


Atomic Bitchwax. This started out as a side project of Monster Magnet guitarist Ed Mundell, but now has a life of its own with replacement guitarist Finn Ryan, who looks like a blond version of Jason Lee. More riff-oriented than Monster Magnet; my favorite song is (surprise, surprise) “Black Trans Am.” They even cover Deep Purple’s “Maybe I’m A Leo.” I got to meet the band in Baltimore and talk to Chris Koznik, the bassist/singer.


Electric Wizard. From England, EW tune the guitars down to C and really, really drone on. Their album Dopethrone should be a dead giveaway (wizard w/bong) as to their inclinations. Imagine Black Sabbath slowed down half speed…and you have Electric Wizard.


Acid King. Now…substitute a female singer in EW and you have….Acid King. Pretty much the same deal. They do an excellent cover of BTO’s “Not Fragile.”


sHeavy. Of all these bands, sHeavy have by far the closest sound to Black Sabbath, thanks to the singer, Steve Hennessy, who does a dead on Ozzy impression. For some reason, this Canadian band doesn’t tour. I finally saw the DVD that comes with their latest album, The Machine That Won The War, and could see why: half the band (aside from Hennessy, who looks like he belongs in a band) look like they have day jobs, wife & kids, etc. and can’t go off on a money-losing tour of Canada or the US. Too bad, as they are damn good.


Fireball Ministry. These guys sound like 70’s Black Sabbath with 90’s-era Ozzy singing.


Pentagram. The DC area’s Black Sabbath. Remarkably, they’ve been around since the 70s yet only put out an album until the 80s. The only consistent member is singer Bobby Liebling, though their drummer, Joey Hasselvander, recently played drums for Blue Cheer, and I found out that Liebling was at the Blue Cheer show I saw at Krug’s Place in Frederick, Maryland (see the shot of me and Dickie Peterson on my Yahoo 360 album).


The Suplecs. A trio from New Orleans. Fortunately they’ve survived Katrina, but I haven’t seen them tour around this area yet. “Cities of the Dead” is my favorite song, and they do a knockout cover of the Beatles’ “She’s So Heavy.”


Gas Giant. These guys are from Denmark, not to be confused with an Arizona band called the Gas Giants. They have two albums, Mana and Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes, both of which are fantastic. They actually have some pretty psychedelic stuff going on, more so than even Hawkwind these days.


Orange Goblin. This was one of the first of these bands I heard, and I got to see them play in Baltimore. Pretty damn good. They are one of the more Sabbath-oriented groups, though the earlier material from the first three albums, Frequencies from Planet Ten, Time Travelling Blues, and The Big Black, are the trippiest.


Lowrider. Teleport Orange Goblin from England to Sweden and you have…Lowrider.


Valkyrie &The Sword. For some reason I put these two together and can’t pull them apart in my mind. They both sound the same. I suppose it’s because The Sword evoke a lot of Norse mythology, which matches up with the name of Valkyrie. They should definitely tour together.


Wolfmother. This new band from Australia gets lumped in with these other bands. They’ve been compared to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, but I hear more Grand Funk Railroad – but I seem to be the only one making that connection.


Even within this narrowly limited genre of rock music, there is much variety, but in addition to cool riffs, they share a remarkable talent for cool album covers, as you can see.