Show Report: Earth

 

“He looks like Michael Myers. Jesus Christ. That’s Carlson, right?”

 

“Dude, he doesn’t look like The Shape. Holy Shit. What?”

 

“Must be the hair.”

 

Maybe it was the beers. But I stared harder at Carlson after that. He didn’t look anything like Myers. No coveralls. No Shatner mask. No gleaming cutlery. There was some serious pomade going on there. A denim shirt embossed with American eagle patches. The sort of look appropriated by vets that tend to haunt coffee shops in the small hours, subsisting on generic cigarettes and weak coffee, grab-assing with waitresses who’ve got no business thinking their toothless grins embody any semblance of come hither hyper sexualis.

 

Carlson’s voice is heliated, strange coming from that head with that hair on that body. He said something about finally getting to Atlanta and then trudged into something off the new record. It was slow, elegiac, finger-eating stuff that got the kids swaying and shooting away with their camera-phones. Jesus Christ. Doesn’t anyone fucking watch shows anymore? Kids sending texts. Some guy bent the fuck over his BlackBerry thumbing in a HLY SHTZ YO IM SEEIN ERTH RGHT NOWZ. 

My mind wanders back to the pre-show lube: Live After Death and beers. Some more beers. Steve Harris mowing down Long Beach’s mensa squad with his sweat-drenched headstock. I’m pulled back into the carcinogenic haze, courtesy of knuckle-dragging hyperbole.

 

Some kid up front is drunk out of his mind. He’s got one of those 89 oz PBR cans in his hand and screaming like Chaka after ever song comes to its lulling, bored-outta-its-fuckin’-skull conclusion. “EARTH! FARGIIIIIINGGGING EEEEEEERRRRRRRTH! AGGGGGGGGGH! CAN’T BEEEELEEEVE I’M SEEEIN EEEEERRRRRTH!” Oh, Jesus Christ. Carlson’s ignoring him and trying to ignore all the sea of hands affixed with camera-phones. Carlson whines something into the mic and again they trudge into something slow and elegiac off the new record. Sounds just like the last song.

 

“You got the new record?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do all the songs sound the same?”

 

“Um, no.”

 

“They don’t?”

 

“Sorta.”

 

“Another beer?”

 

“You bet.”

 

Carlson is a champ. The sound is too weak for Earth; this should be the old Maxell advertisement transliterated for this American Apparel audience. Still, it’s a pleasure to watch the guy play and I can’t help but think of every single note in the context of front-porch hootenanny. Tampa Red. Or maybe Furry Lewis. Long truck bed klatch with jars of moon and lots of chest beating what coulda beens. David Allen Coe. Maybe Haggard. Plastic nights that stretch into dawn drunk on half-brained ideas made palpable by cheep whisky, workman’s gauge weed. These are slick analogues. Connecting Carlson to the “American Tradition” is as easy as wiling away the early afternoon on Bloody Marys and video poker. Prince Gautauma Siddartha put aside navel contemplation and cast pearls: “Don’t believe in something simply because you have heard it.” Yes…  Somehow all the Deadwood-Cormac McCarthy rock tags melt away when you just open your ears and forget all the one-sheet propaganda. Carlson once slowed Slayer; now he’s fitted Crazy Horse with concrete feet. You’ve heard it. Believe it.

 

Someone’s screaming OUROBOUROS IS BROKEN every single time Earth finishes a song. It’s hilarious. It starts to get annoying after a while and then I realize that I really want to hear OUROBOUROS IS BROKEN. I decide I’m going to scream it after Earth finishes this next song. I do it, and Carlson looks right at me. Ha. He sorta does look like Meyers after all.

 

I focus on Adrienne Davies and then that’s all I can do: just look at her. She’s practically spread over the top of the kit and it’s turned towards her sticks and they sorta tap heads and swish cymbals all while she THUMPS that kick-drum in some real Sitting Bullshit type war warm-up that’s just about the greatest thing going on at this show right the fuck now. She’s an incredible drummer. All those tin-eared motherfuckers whining about her lack of “prowess” can’t find their assholes with both hands if they tried. She’s like a semi slowing, air-brakes hissing, hydraulics overhauling, cargo rolling, rattling, rumbling.

 

There’s a monitor to the right of the kick and there’s a bunch of Carlson’s water bottles on it and I watch the water inside them rattle on the ONE and the TWO and the THREE and the FOUR. Sorta Jurassic Park. I’m ready to get torn apart by some Disney’d lizards. It’s that great. The cheep beers are even going down easy. If only Chaka would lose his voice or pass out or just simply get some objectivity and realize he’s being “that guy.” Earth finishes a song and I automatically just scream it out: OUROBOUROS IS BROKEN!

 

“Hey, man. They’ve got a lot better songs than that,” says Earth Fan, bearded, buzz cut, fucking SunnO))) t-shirt on. “I’ll bet he gets tired of hearing that shit every night.”

 

I agree with him. I want to kill him. But I agree with him. I guess he does get pretty gawdamn tired of hearing that shit every night, but when Earth finally plays OUROBOUROS IS BROKEN the whole place goes apeshit and that’s all I remember about this show a little over a month later. I’ll bet that’s all a lot of folks remember.

Earth
The Earl
Atlanta, Georgia
4.30.08