Why is Stoner Rock so called?
 

Is it referring to the musicians, or the fans?

And what qualities must the music have to qualify?

slugy, heavy deep riffing. stoner rock is the rock equivalent of chopped and screwed Rap.

all it means is it sounds good to stoned ears.

And most of the time the musicians are stoned too...

I was listening to QOTSA - Lullabies To Paralyse yesterday, which was got me thinking that. It has no stoned-ness to it whatsoever.

Whereas Bardo Pond is definitely very very stoned soundng, but isn't stoner rock.

Any question like this can be answered by going to wikipedia and looking up stoner rock...

But since you asked, stoner rock is rock to get stoned to... Obviously, but... it's usually slow-paced, heavy, somewhat psychadelic, etc. And I'm not a big weed guy, but I've smoked weed and listened to Kyuss, Sabbath, shit like that, and it actually does sound a lot better when high -- though a lot of music does, so...

Anywho:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_rock

Sabbath fixation
Desert imagery helpful, but not required (especially if you're American)
"Manly" vocals and sludgy distortion of the midrangey/lowendy style on the guitars, usually no reverb
Slow parts
Jean vests
PBR
Beards on at least half of your band
Marijuana imagery intertwined with Baphomets and such

I think this stuff is great of you can do it and stand out, but a lot of these bands sound exactly the same. I love seeing it live, but only a small portion of it is home-listening material for me.

I think the bands and the fans both enjoy the leaf.

Also, 4 replies at exactly 3:37 PM. We're on a ROLL in this JOINT.

The bands I like best in this area are Electric Wizard, Sleep, and Nebula. Orange Goblin are great live, but on record I found them underwhelming.

sleep - dopesmoker.

best.

Thanks.

PS - I know I could've looked on Wikipedia, but sometimes the thoughts of fellow boardies are more interesting to hear/read.

I like some of the bands that influenced this style quite a lot as well.
Beyond the obvious (Black Sabbath), Pentagram made some great stuff as did Saint Vitus.

Understandable. I didn't mean to come off as a dick in my post, I dunno if I did, I was merely saying.. some people, believe it or not, still don't know about wikipedia somehow (?).

Actually - I'm not a stoner specialist, I don't like what I've heard of that genre, but I like that album - I don't think Lullabies to Paralyse is really a stoner album ...

It seems like a stereotype that can only be deemed as it is by those who don't listen to or enjoy it. Like most stereotypes, that is to say.

id have to say my fav of them used to be NEbula..but now its definitely Dead Meadow, no band sounds as amazing stoned as those guys

I don't see Dead Meadow as being a straight-up "stoner rock" band, though they would definitely appeal to some of that crowd.

There have been some great bands associated with Stoner Rock (Kyuss especially) but any scene that seems solely to want to sound like Rock music from 1972 is bound to get stale really fucking quickly.

Greatful Dead ?:D

Grateful Dead were stale the minute the came out of the fridge.

My all-time fave stoner rock tune has to be Monster Magnet's "Tab" - great minimal riffing and lyrics.

Yeah, Tab is great. As is Spine of God. ALL Magnet platters after those are rubbish though. Not that I've actually heard any. I just reckon they're bound to be.

Could any of Loop's stuff be considered "stoner"? I'm thinking in particular of stuff from the "Fade Out" era.

I once recommended Loop to a Stoner Rock fan. Big mistake; they didn't get them at all.

Stoner Rock, at heart, is just rubbish. Even when it's good. If you know what I mean.

Agreed, Stoner Rock usually means the likes of Nebula or Orange Goblιn.

Heard Nebula stoned and thought it was OK. Heard them afterwards straight and thought they were utter shite.

I saw Nebula headlining a show, where the support act was "Dopethrone"-era Electric Wizard. Needless to say, I didn't stick around long to be bored senseless by the headliners - though it was longer than when I saw Celtic Frost as a support act earlier this year, and walked out of the headliners (Kreator) after about 15 seconds.

Electric Wizard pretty much slay all competition in this field to my ears.
I once saw Loop's name brought up on the stoner rock bbs, and though the thread was short, there were some fans there. One of them referred to Loop as "proto stoner rock." I don't necessarily agree with that assessment though, as Loop seems more overtly psychedelic in an LSD type way, and seem to draw more from the Suicide/VU/Pop Group end of things rather than the Sabbath/Pentagram perspective.

yeah i agree
i like acid music way more than stoner music

cuz i'm always stoned when i'm listening to Comets on Fire, nodding like the Churchill Dog in front of a big speaker!

 

AWWWWW YESS!!!!!!

i've never really understood the title, honestly. to me, it implies super heavy, but not ironically metal.

I always think of Stoner Rock as a post-Grunge thing. Bands like Loop, because of the very time they were around had an entirely different set of reference points. The only band that might possibly have influenced them in that way were Dinosaur - although I don't think they were particularly interested in them at all. SC is right about the Krautrock/Post-Punk element to their sound, which is something that 99% of Stoner Rock seems to have no link with whatsoever.

Also agree with SC about Electric Wizard, although I increasingly have trouble thinking of them as a Stoner Rock band. From memory, I think that the members themselves tend to think of what they do as coming more out of the Doom tradition and are often quite dismissive of the SR scene. I might be wrong though.

pffff, i listen to tons of stoner rock and i don't like pot at all.

same with spacemen 3, loop, chrome, legendary pink dots, etc.

I've noticed a lot of psychadelic bands don't really sound that good under the influence of psychadelics.

Like, I really enjoy acid mothers temple.. but I tried to put them on when I was tripping and it scared me.. I prefer real minimal stuff like stars of the lid when I'm tripping...

But a lot of those slower stoner bands actually do sound amazing on weed. But I hate weed. So, hmph.

Just sayin'.

1) both

2) it should sound like a heavy metal band playing Steve Reich covers

Honestly, a metal band playing that composition for 18 musicians thing Reich did would be AMAZING...

Though they're more likely to cover pendelum music. Assholes.

Have you heard Acid Mothers Temple's cover of "In C"? Bloody good stuff, that is. (Yeah, not Reich, I know, but minimalist all the same)

Loop = LSD/Amphetamine. They elevated the two substances to great musical heights. I hear much less the dope on their records than I hear the acid and amphetamine. Spacemen 3 were, on the other hand, a smack/acid band, with the acid bit being more occasional than the smack bit.

Swervedriver had also some moments that were vaguely stoner, not least the way they dressed and looked, some videos (desert/car imagery etc), but they are not strictly a stoner band like some of those ones that have been already mentioned. Did anyone name Monster Magnet, yet? Their earlier output was quite good, if only briefly.

Acid Mothers did a terry riley cover? I'll have to check that out..

No-one's even mentioned Screaming Trees yet.