| Mark Eitzel 608,Sommerville,MA 28/05/02 There was trouble at the Mark Eitzel show, from the wobbly start to the bitter end. Microphones shorted, cords failed, and Eitzel had to play someone else's guitar. Several songs sustained total system failure, so Eitzel wandered the club, crouching on the floor and climbing on cocktail tables like an embattled troubadour. Even when things seemed to be working out, the artist occasionally just dashed it all, midway through a tune. It was, apparently, too much of a struggle to get the things out. Trouble is what Eitzel's all about, though, and in a sad sort of way the technical grief fit right into the harrowing scheme of human existence that the San Francisco-based songwriter chronicles, often brilliantly. The former frontman for cult heroes American Music Club, Eitzel is a gutter poet and a dark, evocative singer. It's not often one can describe a song as both impeccably literate and totally hot, but show opener "Patriot's Heart" - a convoluted jazz-folk journey through the mind of a male hooker - was a stunning fusion of the two. Relentless chatterers who gather in the back of the club were - in a rare display - silent from song one. Eitzel draws from folk, rock, and lounge music. Fueled equally by a punk's mordant aesthetics and a beatnik's mysterious rhythms, his songs hang in a state of perpetual suspension, where words and melodies seem to have neither beginning nor end - only the place he chooses to start and stop his stories. "Gratitude Walks,"a marvel of mood and dynamics on American Music Club's 1993 album "Mercury," was something else entirely in this solo, voice-and-guitar setting: a spare, impressionistic snapshot of a man trying to rid his mind and body of the previous night's poison. Eitzel performed only two tracks from his new covers album, "Music for Courage and Confidence," which was a wise decision. "Snowbird" (made famous as an easy-listening staple by Anne Murray) and Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" are among a fabulously diverse and eclectic collection that Eitzel indeed reinvents. But he reinvents them all in pretty much the same way, at a snail's pace with whispery vocals. Labelmate Tim Easton - who opened the show with a solid set of rootsy Americana - helped Eitzel flesh out the two songs with a second acoustic guitar. But the tunes paled next to the visceral impact of Eitzel's own compositions. "Proclaim Your Joy," from last year's "Invisible Man," made for an uncharacteristically jaunty moment: a talking blues with a downtown vibe and a life-affirming message. Performed as the last of several encores, it was shocking for its good cheer. It seemed to scare the hell out of Eitzel, too, who midway through the song pulled the plug from his guitar, and left the stage with an unhappy laugh. Review by Joan Anderman for Boston Globe 30th May 2002 |