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.
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