American Music Club/Bob Mould The Whisky,Los Angeles,CA 18/05/89 San Francisco's American Music Club were so awful the first time Frontier Records publicist Wendy Harte saw them that she told the several friends and press reps she invited to the show that she didn't know who the hell they were.Psychotic,self-depreciating singer Mark Eitzel's on-stage activities have ranged from throwing slices of baloney at the walls to calling host venues names like "Music Fuck". Eitzel may be the loneliest guy in rock and he and the Club were chilling and forceful at the Whisky on May 18,their first time in town in over a year.Looking like he had just finished working under the bathroom sink, Eitzel sang like he hadn't told his wife yet that he had lost his job and won the mostly male crowd over with lines like "I think I just came in my pants/Darling,do you want to dance?" It was an anguished,gray and funny set that even upstaged headliner Bob Mould's noisy,uncommunicative walkthrough.(Nothing against his fine Workbook,though).If you missed the show,AMC's cool barren stories can be sampled on California,which made Melody Maker's 1988 Top 30. Review by Ara Corbett for BAM magazine |
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