By Al Sotack  |  Send to Friend

Halfway through Earth’s set, the guy standing next to me fell asleep standing up. He was holding a pint. When the glass hit the floor and shattered, the dude snapped to attention, straight as a board, forced to take account of his environment. He looked around at the scene: Dylan Carlson was leading his orchestral doom outfit’s creeping arpeggios in front of a slowly diminishing crowd of sweaty hoodies that hadn’t been changed since senior year of high school. This show flat out ruled.

Earth, of course, has always been an enigma. Simultaneously associated with Seattle’s hilarious “grunge” of our childhood, the entire history of metal and medieval church jazz, Carlson’s ever evolving group manages to defy every lazy pop culture cliché your boring rock critic friends can hurl at them. After inventing a genre, the man infamous for purchasing Kurt Cobain’s shotgun got bored with distortion but never with the glacial pace that has linked all his musical output. Earth’s new The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull furthers the groups motives and adds a healthy dose of electric piano, an instrument that seemed to dominate the upper reaches of their live performance.

Keyboardist Steve Moore (sitting next to an ominous and mostly unused trombone) wandered blissfully through Carlson’s clockwork lead guitar for most of their hour long set. Drummer Adrienne Davies kept time through their meanderings like a Lovecraft-ian horror: it didn’t matter how slow the Thing moves, you know it’s gonna get you eventually. The crowd was mostly appreciative, or what was left of it by twelve thirty. Sure enough, a healthy portion of those who made it to the end were the most metal-looking rocker-dudes at the show. This, of course, is the best thing about Earth. Anyone can play weird-as-fuck and a select few can make really sophisticated, original weird-as-fuck music (like openers Kayo Dot). But only Earth can get the dude who works your hometown’s gas-station to drive two and a half hours in his hatchback to come hear that music live. When Carlson took the stage in his goofy black cowboy shirt to applause and waved an awkward, microphoneless “Hi,” he became the voice of the unaccounted. This wasn’t handsome hipstery and appropriated metal. It was outsider music at its finest.

And for those of us who still occasionally like to rock the fuck out, Philadelphia’s own Birds of Maya did a surprisingly good job of that. Dead Meadow style, post-Kyuss blues sludge at the beginning of the Earth show…while not surprising, terrifically competent. Nothing like some kick-ass rock and roll, or at least getting it out of the way early, so as to slip into a comfortable stupor before the cosmic wall of death.