The brown note is a low frequency sound which, when played at a loud enough volume, vibrates your bowels so as to make you involuntarily shit your pants. Scientific studies say it’s a myth, but that hasn’t deterred a rabble of stoner-rock bands from down-tuning their instruments to seek out the brown note. Many of them - including Kyuss, Sleep and Dead Meadow - are featured in the new documentary Such Hawks, Such Hounds: Scenes From The American Rock Underground…
The movie was originally called Heavy but that conflicted with a VH1 show of the same name. The new title fits in with the mythological waffle that infests in the drone scene. Some of the fried philosophizing in the film is as enjoyable as the footage. "This music is the birth of the primordial supernova," says one. "It’s an exploration of what grows around a tree-stump after a mighty rain in the middle of winter," explains another. It’s heavy shit, literally.
DOM TUNON
Reader Comments
June 27th, 2007
10:48 pm
sounds good
June 28th, 2007
12:31 am
the ‘brown note’ does exist. it doesn’t make you shit your pants, but can cause anxiety, nausea, etc. It’s also well below the register of human hearing, so you can’t reproduce it with a guitar.
June 28th, 2007
1:50 am
Dead Meadow rules
June 28th, 2007
2:22 am
god dammit. I love all of these bands, but why do they have to come across as such retro-delving blase turds? just because you like/play stoner rock doesnt mean you have to act like a stoner. it just feels like such a defeatist attitude, and this is coming from someone with long hair, a beard, and a true love for this genre of music.
it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
June 28th, 2007
5:39 am
dead meadow can go piss up a rope.
June 28th, 2007
6:35 am
Why was this introduced as a piece about the brown note. Why were these young artists questioned about current political debates. Hey, guy that has the fuck nothing to do with something, what do you think about this thing. Nice editing douchebag. Instead of producing something meaningful you edited an attack piece. Doesn’t change this music for me.
June 28th, 2007
2:11 pm
This is all cool but sorry, Dead Meadow and some of these other bands are just psych rock at most. They ain’t heavy. Pearls and Brass? Give me a fucking break! All the walking in woods talking crap stuff won’t help anyone understand that IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC! And riffs!!! Where are the riffs in this film? I hope they are in there cos this slightly psych American indie that the director likes is not stoner rock and it’s certainly ain’t drone. Which bands shoul it be? Kyuss yeah, Sleep yeah, Om of course, SunnO))), Titan, Danava, Electric Wizard, Witch, The Sword. Just my 2 cents.
June 28th, 2007
2:23 pm
Hawkwind , Gong , check em
June 28th, 2007
7:44 pm
brown sound is rad,,, i even wear it. those guys aren’t defeatists,, there heavy scientists… talk about heavy
let’s talk about martin kersels, who also took a stab at it… that fucker is 6′7″ 300 plus lbs,, makes a living taking pictures of himself throwing people, ancient greek statues, yell’s at gold fish, and builds houses just to shake the fuck out of them just with recordings of him walking.. heavy man. and let’s not forget about how heavy eric cartman is…
he also reproduced it with a national elementary recorder band.. brown sound is heavy.. I just scientifically proved it…
so now let’s talk about how heavy your record collection is and how
many tweeked out friends of yours it took to move it,,, the last time you got evicted…
June 29th, 2007
1:06 pm
Haha, brown note or not (and it is an funny buyt ill fitting low-brow issue to tag this scene with imho) Black Sabbath and Hawkwind should be mentioned about every 30 seconds or the people involved just sounds like Drive by Jehu fans who just discovered fucking Wolfmother.
August 4th, 2007
3:35 am
Is this clip a trailer or the whole movie? If there is an entire movie, how do I get it? I like Sleep, High on Fire, Nebula, Black Mountain, The Sword, even The Melvins. . .I wanna see more of the doc.