Mark Eitzel The Double Door,Chicago,IL 17/05/96 With the acclaimed American Music Club,Mark Eitzel was often saved from self-indulgence by his band's subtle mood swings.What made Eitzel's songs great was also sometimes their downfall - his tendancy to plunge so deeply into his doubting,despairing,near-suicidal artistic subconcious that he would fall apart. Weeping uncontrollably,trashing instruments,disparaging the audience,then begging its forgiveness.Eitzel could be fascinating or embarrasing to watch,but inevitably the band knew how to steady its sinking ship of a front man. Now that AMC has folded,the prospect of Eitzel venturing out without his longtime accomplices held all the hold your breath anticipation of a high-wire act operating without a net. At the Double Door over the weekend,Eitzel performed with a three piece backing band and solo, and as always, a somewhat awkward tension prevailed.Even though Eitzel fans are indulgant to a fault,the performer fidgets and maintains a pained expression,at times rubbing his forehead as though battling a migraine. But the music is exquisite,an anguished marriage of lounge-crooning and electro-folk confessionalism.On the last AMC tour,the bands desire to rock - epitomised by a cover of ACDC's "Highway to hell" that may or may not have been intended as a joke - contradicted Eitzel's affinity for lush pop. This is a singer who at the Double Door openly acknowledged his affinity for non-rock styles of singing.He covered a song long associated with Dusty Springfield, "No easy way down" and,in another,laid his music at Johnny Mathis' feet, only to have the master to dimiss him by saying, "Never in my life have I seen such a mess". Backed by the melancholy trumpet of Marc Capelle and the superbly empathetic rhythms of drummer Simone Ben-White and bassist Jeff Farris,Eitzel played guitar and sang with mercurial passion,his hushed intimate tone broken by sobbing wails. Most of his songs are set in bars or explore the troubled hearts of characters who inhabit them,such as the misfit "Cleopatra Jones".But Eitzel's favorite subject is his gaping sense of unfulfillment,as expressed in "Sacred heart","I'm always alone,i'm always alone and I don't want to be always alone". Peering through those bleak vignettes are Eitzel's self-depreciating humour and the occasional shard of self redemption.It's no wonder his debut solo album is called "60 watt silver lining"- the dim bulb of hope is always on somewhere behind Eitzel's dark cloud. For those not in Eitzel's enthralled cult,this is wahat saves his pretty,passionate,self-consuming music from melodramatic excess. Review by Greg Kot for Chicago Tribune May 20th 1996 |