The Death Of Earth

Todd Forrest says: "Their pupils are like pin-pricks. That's not natural". Photo by Earth

We’d love to tell you Dylan Carlson’s decision to reform Earth with his girlfriend and embark on a European tour was definitely the right and natural thing to do but we can’t. Blame the methadone, but the recent shows of this once-mighty group were some of the most disastrous, pointless and painful outings in rock history. Because it’s the Nature issue and Earth’s good records sound like the whole world dissolving around your feet, we thought it’d be good to talk to Dylan and his partner/drummer Adrienne Davies. Somewhat naively we thought they’d have some interesting things to say about things like rocks, sand, vibrations, I dunno… something. I’m a huge fan of Earth so I was genuinely upset when, despite numerous phone calls and emails, the two blobs of human gloop “forgot” to answer the 25-plus questions we sent them. Instead they just about managed to snap this little out-of-focus photograph of themselves before sinking into the back of their foul-smelling tourbus to lie prostrate amid beers, chocolate bars, nacho dips, tortillas, hastily repackaged old Earth live albums and 48 life-saving bottles of methadone, some of which were mysteriously “broken” so they had to get more. A likely story if you ask me. “The shows on the last European tour were routinely not very good at all,” a tour insider told VICE. “Dylan’s usually amazing guitar playing was totally overshadowed by Adrienne’s terrible drumming. A drummer who can’t keep time! Jesus! What the fuck is that? I’m sorry, John Bonham was an awesome drummer but all he was basically there for was to keep time and fucking Adrienne couldn’t even manage that! I think the word got around Europe because by the end of the tour we were playing to around 12 people a night. “Every time we passed a fucking gas station we had to stop at it for like 20 minutes so Adrienne and Dylan could buy sodas and fucking chips and dips and sunglasses or fucking cuddly toys then they’d lie in the back of the van all sleepy and moaning. On average I reckon we spent at least a whole day in European gas stations as well as hundreds, if not thousands, of euros on complete crap. The shows were uninspired, they were always late and the whole thing was kind of a travesty of what Earth was about in the first place. It was a real shame.” VICE wishes Dylan and Adrienne the best in returning to the studio to record an album anywhere near as good as Earth 2, but somehow, we doubt they ever will. “Their tour manager booked them studio time on tour in Europe but they fucked that up as well. Earth aren’t even heavy any more. It’s like the situation in Spinal Tap with the lead singer and his girlfriend, only this time with added methadone and less chance of shining the turd.” JESS ANYTHING