| Mark Eitzel Dingwalls,London August 7th 2000 In theory, these are great times for sensitive young men with acoustic guitars. The latest recruit is Suffolk-born Tom McRae, who followed up his slot at Scott Walker's Meltdown festival last month with a half-hour set at Dingwalls in Camden on Monday night.He may look like a well-adjusted suburban bank clerk, but McRae sang with a rasping passion and Celtic-tinged yodel rarely heard in English pop voices. His self-strummed solo compositions were slender affairs, all soft flickers punctuated by sudden gusts of soaring melodrama. The luminous shimmer of his imminent debut single You Cut Her Hair and the acerbic End of the World News were the most instantly memorable tracks, although McRae may need to tone down his hectoring earnestness if he hopes to court the wider audience which undoubtedly awaits him. Headliner Mark Eitzel could teach McRae more about songwriting than about business, since the San Francisco-based singer is currently without a record deal despite being almost universally revered by critics and fellow musicians. On this rare and sold-out UK appearance, the self-deprecating Eitzel joked about his commercial misfortunes, infamous fondness for alcohol and disastrouslove life. The crowd, mostly dedicated connoisseurs, lapped up every dry punchline. Using just wheezing keyboards and acoustic guitar, Eitzel drew his set from a 15-year career of booze-soaked suicide ballads and melancholic campfire laments. His penchant for turning trivial observational detail into poetic pathos served him well in the self-deflating Johnny Mathis' Feet and the tender Blue and Gray Shirt, while a cover version of the Gerry Goffin/Carole Kingcomposition No Easy Way Down proved soulful. After a mere handful of cuttings from Eitzel's extensive songbook, it seemed an absurd injustice that record companies have been unable to find an audience for such a mercurial talent. But halfway through a 90-minute set of fluffed introductions, lengthy guitar-tuning intervals and rambling comic monologues,it became clearer why the marketing men might have had problems. Eitzel'ssquare-peg nature is highly endearing, but also highly uncommercial. Review by Stephen Dalton for The Times August 11th 2000 It's Not All Doom And Gloom "Bitterness poisons the soul... OK, this is the singalong part !" Mark Eitzel cheerily informs us. And it is. Since the commercial peak of his one-time band American Music Club with Mercury in 1993, Eitzel has had plenty of time and reason to be bitter, not to mention sad. His band dissolved soon after that peak amid exhaustion and acrimony with managers and lawyers, and Eitzel's subsequent solo career has shed fans by the bucketload, till he now finds himself label-less and broke. Worst of all, the woman who was his muse, Kathleen Burns, died two years ago, and he hasn't released a record since. Anyone expecting an exercise in depression tonight, though, would have left disappointed. Instead, Eitzel's seemingly bottomless songbook is mined for its mordant humour, as he releases whatever frustrations stalk him in a near-two-hour performance in which verses wander, rhythms drift, chords are missed, and he shambles and wobbles across the stage, maintaining an almost non-stop, freewheeling dialogue with the hundreds of hardcore fans packed around him. Accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and a keyboardist who carefully watches his every unpredictable move, he's offering up the parts of his personality that might entertain us. The self-deprecation behind this can be glimpsed in scattered lines from the songs he plays: "If we could walk without crutches, would we have anything to say?" In fact, the highlight from the several new songs he debuts is a song about a man sitting waiting for a lover who never comes. "So now I just sing my song for people that are gone," he sighs, hunched over, voice soaring and breaking, jokes over. A hush descends on the crowd as they realise the actual death that the song is about. Wondering whether he'll break down and cry (as he can do on stage), the mood is of honest sympathy. It's an unusually naked moment, and when he stops, the cheers explode. Another new song, "Lonely Fairy in the Forest", is pure pop, stuffed with versions of despair that must be fought. It is followed by American Music Club's "Western Sky", which he concludes with this chorus: "It is important, throughout your life, to proclaim your joy." It's something he seems to be telling himself as much as us, and the joy is written on his face, however ephemerally, as he eventually walks away. Reviewd by Nick Hasted for The Independent August 14th 2000 Return to Homepage Here |