| American Music Club Astoria, London April 4th 1993 Club Membership Is Set To Rise Ludicrous, perhaps, for a band that has been together for almost a decade to surface suddenly like some overnight success, but Mark Eitzel's American Music Club has certainly crossed a significant awareness threshold in recent months,resulting in its being the current name for discerning rock fans to drop. The nervy, intense Eitzel seems too maverick a spirit to be likely to feel thrilled at becoming a temporary object of fashion in this way, but it is good to find so gifted an artist receiving the credit he has long been due. The magazine Rolling Stone named him Songwriter of the Year in its 1991 critics' poll, and his band's independent release Everclear one of the five top albums. Four previous AMC efforts and one live solo set were equally deserving, but suffered from being released on an assortment of small labels, each with promotional budgets to match their lowly status within the wider record industry. However, their recent signing to the now corporate major Virgin has provided the necessary muscle to launch the band properly at Britain's grown-up pop consumers. Yet, at the Astoria in London, on this last night of a brief British tour, the American Music Club emphasised the extent of their collective history by reaching into the past for much of the material. As a songwriter, Eitzel's particular gift lies in capturing moments of epiphany within human relationships in the flat, economical yet inspired style familiar from the work of the late Raymond Carver. As a performer, meanwhile, he uses his big, bruised voice bravely, his unruly gestures and stance underlining a seemingly artless sincerity. The musical settings range from bleak torch songs to a slightly malevolent-sounding country and western. Material from 1987's album Engine the wonderful ``Nightwatchman'' or ``Gary's Song'', on which bassist Dan Pearson provided exquisite harmonies emerged particularly strongly, but ``Gratitude Walks'', ``I've Been a Mess'' and the forthcoming single ``Johnny Mathis's Feet'', all from the new album, Mercury,showed that blend of humour, pathos and insight which makes the AMC such a convincing proposition. Approaching 2,000 people, this was apparently the biggest audience they had played to: not for long. Review by Alan Jackson for The Times April 8th 1993 Down But Not Out "The reason we wear suits," the singer Mark Eitzel explains, "is because we're older men." Ill-matched, ill-fitting - American Music Club's suits would shame a solicitor's clerks' convention, which is what qualifies them as appropriate stage-gear for the band. That they find them funny is appropriate too: this group seems to occupy the place where punk would have gone if it had stayed spikey when it grew up and learned to play it's instruments properly. American Music Club are confident enough in their own cynicism to be genuinely disconcerting. Mercury, their most recent and widely aclaimed LP, was their first for a major label, and some suggested that the edges had been smoothed off. But live, the band trash the notion that they have become a slick adult rock band. Tunes that on record seemed to be heading into a middle-aged heartland which is countrified rock. - big, jangly guitar chords laced with pedal steel - subtly tighten up and assume a startling belligerence. In the band's lyrics, the bleakness offered up by punk rock has been reassigned to an older person's wateland of emotional and social failure. It is as if the band is remembering those "no future" predictions from 15 years ago and saying, "I told you so." "The sound the air makes as I fall is like a laugh," Eitzel sings on "Keep Me Around". Or listen to "I've Been A Mess" - "Lazarus wasn't grateful for his second wind, another chance to watch his chances fade." So far, so clever, but it is the singer's delivery which pushes the band along and explains why they have so few peers. Songs like "Apology For An Accident" and "Johnny Mathis' Feet" (in which Mathis comes to Eitzel in a dream and informs him " a true showman knows how to disappear in the spotlight") are catalogues of disappointment. But this is no Morrissey: Eitzel's manner courts no pity and his aggression precludes your empathy. In fact, you spend most of the show wondering if he's about to take it out on somebody. It must be said, most of the audience were unprepared for his intensity. Introductions to songs were cheered, but only a hesitant smattering of clapping rounded them off. Either American Music Club need to go a little easier on the uncompromising stances, or they should discover the art of pacing. Or they could do what they did at the Astoria and blame the crowd: "I can't believe you all showed up," we were told, "but now I have no idea what you think of us. What's with you guys?." Return to homepage here |
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