Mark Eitzel & Danny Pearson   Mean Fiddler,London  May 5th 1991
		Eitzel is looking smart in a new suit as he walks onstage, but as in his song "Blue And Grey Shirt," clothes cannot hide the fact that he strips himself emotionally naked each time he plays. Nor can he hide the pathetic, bedraggled, drowned-rat-in-a-glass-of-beer look of defeat. It is even more apparent without American Music Club. All he has left is his guitar and Dan Pearson with which to clothe his songs. Eitzel cannot keep his distance, nor can he hide his shame and embarrassment from himself or the audience. Before "Jenny" has even finished, he is apologising for messing it up. In the middle of the devastating "Last Harbour," he stops, says sorry and starts over. He cannot help telling us how "Western Sky" is no longer about the friend he wrote it for because he did not like it Further, he cannot help telling us that the friend is lying in hospital with AIDS. So he sings "Rise" for us when he knows and we know that it is meant for his friend in hospital. Really, we have no right to be here, no right at all to hear him sing his songs. Dan Pearson, his cohort from American Music Club, sits on his stool, adding in mandolin and guitar. The impact of January's Borderline show, great as it was, is trebled. The harmonies on "Outside This Bar" let their hooks sink even deeper under the skin, Eitzel altering the lyrics on the spot, just as he did to the last versse of "Jenny,"shredding than California's recorded version. "Clouds," without American Music Club to back it, is reduced to its very core, two voices, two guitars, but "Do The Crabwalk" drops even the guitars for its verses. On one song he unplugs the microphone, lets the guitar drop, and stands to attention as he sings for the very few who can hear him over the conversation from the bar. "When no one cares for you, you're made of straw," he sings on "Kathleen." Soiled straw, one might add. Mark cannot resist, or cannot help, showing us the dirt and ugliness that he is made of, and lands up in. Angel's underwear have skidmarks, pants get stained from sheer lust, whores get bought, faces end up in pools of blood and beer. But out of all this, Mark can find humour, black, self-deprecating humour. He has us laughing hysterically as much as he stains our cheeks with tears. Just when it seems that "Gary's Song" is nothing but the corpse of his hope jerking jauntily on puppet strings, the song's deathly rictus grin will broaden into comedy. Just as he cannot help finding death and decay in beauty and love, he cannot help but find beauty and love in the dirt and decay he scrabbles around in. Songs Of Love, songs of self-pity and death: he sings about both at once. At times, his songs are as appallingly enthralling as a road accident, but Eitzel cares too much to let this remain an emotional stripshow. He can still love. Love him to death. Reviewd by Nick Terry for London Student  May 30th 1991                                                                      Return to homepage here