Earlimart live!

Earlimart
Schubas, Chicago
Thursday, August 30, 2007

Earlimart, like the South Central California town for which they’re named, have a propensity to be overlooked. They admit to not touring as much as they should, and their brand of college rock — Yo La Tengo without the manic guitar leads — is about as remarkable as an earthworm in a flowerbed.

So unhip they are, when local poet Thax Douglas finished reading his peanut-referencing tribute to them at Schubas on Thursday night, frontman Aaron Espinoza meekly joked how most of the band are actually allergic to the versatile legume. Maybe that explains the paucity of appearances: no Planters, no Snickers, no touring.

But the antidote to the ennui of their presence is the songs have legs. Not legs in the sense of off-and-running — Earlimart’s legs are good for standing and keeping up for long stretches. There’s a classic competence to their college rock posture, a relativism reaching back through Grandaddy, Yo La Tengo, Luna, Eleventh Dream Day, and Dream Syndicate. Unable or unwilling to overwhelm you, the method to this summer’s Mentor Tormentor (Palm) is to subtly impress you until the realization all the other overhyped noise you’ve been peddled is short-shelflife trash.

Midtempo fest began just as Mentor does, with the mildly threatening “Fakey Fake” delivering its verbal undressing with the aide of a four-piece string section and “Answers & Questions” building a Tusk-esque Fleetwood Mac breeze. Ariana Murray spelled Espinoza for her melancholic piano ballad “Happy Alone,” begging “Call in the airstrike/Tell them to make the drop/Initiate a cycle no one but you can stop,” and hinting at Earlimart’s debt to Elliott Smith from 2004’s Treble & Tremble.

Espinoza then wrested the keyboards for a tense “Gonna Break Into Your Heart,” and then stepped on the overdrive pedal for “700>100” and “Everybody Knows Everybody,” which finally managed to break the locks on their volume knobs and ankle chains. Taking the chance to play counterpoint with a Pernice Brothers-esque “Don’t (You) Think About Me,” it was a last chance to revel in Earlimart’s new charms before the Smith mask sprung up again for a triple play of older material, “The Movies,” “Hidden Track,” and “Lazy Feet 23.”

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly