A Study in Perseverance and Patience: Clyde Petersen's Even Hell Has Its Heroes

EVEN HELL HAS ITS HEROES 

(Clyde Petersen, 2023, USA, 110 minutes) 

"I really see Earth as a conceptual art project."--Bruce Pavitt

"Grossly unacknowledged and underappreciated in Seattle, and far more popular overseas, Earth is a study in perseverance and patience."--Clyde Petersen

After watching Clyde Petersen's film about the band Earth, I'm convinced he was the only person who could--and should--have made it. 

It isn't just because the artist, filmmaker, and musician has played with founder Dylan Carlson, even managing his band for five years, but because his allusive style suits their patient, lumbering music and the mossy Pacific Northwest environs from which they originated. (When I saw the Breeders in 2018, Petersen's band, Your Heart Breaks, opened, with Carlson on guitar.)

This isn't a conventional, talking-head documentary, though members, past and present alike, recount their history with the band via voice-over. The use of the 4:3 aspect ratio, black-and-white and faded Super 8mm imagery (shot by six camera operators, including Petersen and Benjamin Kasulke), slow pans, and steady, measured pace make most other music profiles seem hectic and busy or dull and workmanlike in comparison. 

Now a duo, the band began as Eights n' Aces in Olympia in 1985 with Slim Moon (Kill Rock Stars) on vocals. I have no recollection of this incarnation, though I didn't move to the Northwest until 1988, right as Mudhoney and Soundgarden were just getting started. The band that would become Earth shared practice space with Kurt Cobain. Slim recalls that Kurt, who became Dylan's best friend, wrote much of Nevermind on the ramshackle property. 

Dylan, who was wearing flannel before flannel became a thing, had specific ideas about the heavy music he wanted to make. Slim had other ideas, and they parted ways, though it's possible he might not have founded Kill Rock Stars without the impetus the experience gave him to be his own boss and do his own thing--Slim also credits Dylan with introducing Kurt to flannel.

Through the years, several other musicians, like drummer Michael J. McDonald, would cycle through before Dylan and Adrienne Davies connected in 2000. She describes Dylan as "the well-read redneck" (he and producer Randall Dunn developed an obsession with author Cormac McCarthy). 

Adrienne's voice-over description of the evolution of her drumming, which plays over a visual sequence of elegant, slow-motion pounding, goes into fascinating depth. Though it isn't mentioned in the documentary, Dylan and Adrienne were married for a time. Much like Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss of Quasi and Meg and Jack White of the White Stripes, their musical partnership survived the dissolution of their marriage. 

Other speakers include guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Karl Blau, cellist Lori Goldston, and Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt. Altogether, over 30 musicians have played with Earth. I have no idea what kinds of prompts Petersen provided, but their words range from the historical to the philosophical, including frank talk about substance abuse. To Caustic Resin guitarist Brett Netson, opiates made life in Boise, Idaho more tolerable, concluding, "Whatever it gives you, it takes back 10 times as much." 

In addition to talk about Carlson's on-and-off drug use and scrapes with the law, Petersen doesn't shy away from his connection to Kurt Cobain's suicide. It's something that's always disturbed me to the extent that I've found it hard to separate that knowledge from him and his work. 

Simply put: Carlson purchased the gun with which Cobain killed himself. They were good friends. And heroin addicts. Everything about the situation was fucked up, but I'm glad Carlson has seriously grappled with it, rather than trying to pretend it didn't happen or that he wasn't involved. 

As much as it's about Earth, Even Hell Has Its Heroes is about friendship, aging, art, commerce, and Old Seattle. There are people who are gone, like guitarist Sean McElligot, and venues that are gone, like Gorilla Gardens, that only exist as phantoms through photographs, handbills, and posters.

There's also plenty of music, most of which was created specifically for the film and the soundtrack, as Petersen told Dave Segal of The Stranger. Beyond the live footage, he uses the music to score evocative images of the Northwest, from foliage to ferries, trees to freight trains. This aspect of the film recalls A.J. Schnack's 2006 documentary, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, which trades talking heads for images of Kurt's stomping grounds.

Of the Seattle bands active in the 1980s, only so many are still active today. From Cobain to Chris Cornell to Mark Lanegan, only so many are even alive (Petersen had hoped to include the former Screaming Trees front man, but the timing was off). The filmmaker doesn't necessarily explain that longevity, but this is the kind of film that embraces ambiguity, and Earth's relentlessness manages to seem simultaneously inevitable and miraculous. 

I believe that the best music documentaries work as films in and of themselves, whether viewers approach them as fans of the subject or not. Even Hell Has Its Heroes is among the best music documentaries I've ever seen, because Petersen creates a distinct mood and vibe rather than an illustrated encyclopedia of facts. He creates a feel for the music, the people who made it, where they came from, and the relationships they forged. 

The full-length feature is only Petersen's second after 2016's road trip-shaped memoir Torrey Pines, which made extensive use of stop-motion animation. Other than their basis in non-fiction, these are very different films in look, theme, and tone. It will be as interesting to see what Peterson does next as it will be to see what Earth does next--may he share their admirable ability to weather all storms and to keep chasing the muse wherever it takes him. 

Even Hell has its Heroes (official trailer) from Do it for the girls on Vimeo.

Even Hell Has Its Heroes will be coming (back) to Seattle on Sept 2-3 at SIFF Film Center during Bumbershoot and Sept 16 at Northwest Film Forum during Local Sightings, and Chicago on Sept 16-17 at Harper Theater during the Chicago Underground Film Festival. The latest Your Heart Breaks album, The Wrack Line, is out now on Kill Rock Stars. Image of Carlson, Cobain, and Lanegan in 1992 from Instagram. All others from Clyde Petersen.