By: Martyn Coppack
Few music documentaries ever cut the mustard. It’s a simple fact of life, they either try to throw as much as possible into the mix and in doing so miss out huge, important chunks, some try to be irreverent and end up plain stupid, or others just literally have nothing to say. Not even musically. Thankfully there are some good ones. The Clash, Dr Feelgood, Motown…all tell a story and a good one., they understand the essence of the subject and bring something new to the table. Intersperse the talking heads with music (which after all is what we are watching it for) and you’re on to a winner. Such Hawks Such Hounds does this. It also has another much more important effect too, it makes you go and hunt down the music that is mentioned throughout. Now that is good television.
With an admittedly wide ranged premise of investigating the music of the US metal underground, Such Hawks Such Hounds cleverly concentrates on the bands that no-one has heard of and in doing so brings to life a picture of an independent scene that is thriving with creativity. Spanning a timeline from the 60’s to now, they offer the giants of music as guidelines only to then dive off on some tangent to a band that if you asked the average punter on the street, they would just shake their head and move on. Familiar names to us here at Echoes and Dust, it’s not often you see a film which covers such bands as Sleep, Fatso Jetson, The Obsessed, Dead Meadow and Sun O))) amongst many others.
Although it is the music which drives the film forward, and as magnificent it is to see footage of High On Fire or Sleep playing live, it is the human aspect that shines through. These are real people making music they believe in and not for money, although the subject is broached. They live to play music which speaks to them rather than to a mass audience and if other people pick up on it, then so be it. It’s all about love and a necessity to create, another point highlighted when the issue of drugs is brought up. It’s music of the imagination and of the mind, it’s music which takes you on a journey.
You can spend all day making up genre names for whatever you are listening to here and a great point is made about the generic stoner rock label. To the musicians it is simply an extension of the hard rock sounds they grew up with, bands such as Sabbath, Budgie, Mountain. To them, the term stoner rock may be a pigeon-hole, but in reality they dismiss this notion. The disparate styles on show from stoner rock to doom through DC hardcore inspired blues is all joined in one familiar aspect, the need to make music they believe in. It’s something worth remembering and next time you consider listening to something, check the dots that lead you there….how does it all join together?
As mentioned before it is the human side that shines through and of course money rears its ugly head. Every musician here admits that it would be great to have some money, just enough to live on. Unfortunately music doesn’t pay the way and many of them have rather mundane day jobs. There is a wonderful moment when Lori S from Acid King speaks of having to work (albeit in a job that many of us would consider a bit of a coup) but wouldn’t have it any other way as she gets to make the music she wants to do. There is no pandering to what a record industry may want, and maybe this is where the Soundgarden reference takes hidden connotations, it is simply to carry on doing what they want to do.
Perhaps the epiphany of all this is the story behind Sleep’s Jerusalem or Dopesmoker as it’s now more famously known. It’s a story that highlights the lengths that a band can go (and we say can, as many won’t) to make a piece of music which fulfils what they set out to achieve. It’s a story of excess and wanton riff making, it’s also a story which highlights the big “fuck you” that underpins these musician’s attitudes to a regular music industry merry-go-round. It serves as the apex of what is a free-wheeling ride through a chaotic range of music.
As the final drones of Sunn O))) see us off and the credits lift up the screen you have to admire the sheer tenacity of the bands here. By not being tied down by industry rules, there are no boundaries. Of course, the ever looming threat of being discovered is always lying in wait and sometimes a band such as Kyuss will break through and become figureheads for a “movement”. For the rest it is an endless grind of day to day living relieved by the knowledge that they can cut loose with their creativity and make some of the most extraordinary music around.
We should be quick to add that whilst this film relates to a certain movement in the US, there are many more bands and musicians following this path all over the world. It is what makes the underground so vibrant. Such Hawks Such Hounds may just be a music documentary about a bunch of bands all inspired by each other, but it is also a film that highlights an ever growing organism that lives and breathes music and is a million miles removed from anything your average punter would recognise. It may seem selfish but sometimes you have to hope it stays like that, after all…everything gets tainted once the masses get hold of it.
