the stage,flat out and motionless as worried members of American Music Club fuss over her.
Could this be Mark Eitzel's guiltiest dream being realised? Has someone actually died after hearing one of his songs?
Well,no,immortality will have to wait a little longer.The girl recovers sufficiently to walk away,albeit obviously shaken.Such is the emotionally charged atmosphere of an AMC gig,though,that one has come to expect anything from theseaffairs,and a fatality would have been the thorny crown on a career indelibly branded with the words 'No Luck'.
Even before tonight had begun to look like a scene from Casualty,their cards appeared to be marked.Ambling on before a crowd swollen by a clutch of major label MDs wondering whether the time is at last nigh to give the Club their just desserts,Eitzel proceeds to apologize inj advance for the next hour or so - he's got laryngitis and his voice is wrecked.Pass the oblivion,mine's a double.
Yet this was from a man who has turned self-depreciation into a fine art,and no more than par for the course.Eitzel's
throat ailment actually enhanced his singing's husky beauty,amplifying the likes of 'Why won't you stay' and 'Blue
and grey shirt' where emotional and physical breakdown is but a whisper away.
Bolstered by the calm strength of his band,there's none of the trauma that marked his infamous Borderline solo
appearance last year,where Mark looked and sounded near the end of his tether.Indeed,rarely has he appeared so at ease with an audience.
For all the joshing though,it comes down to a white-knuckle finale of 'Last Harbour' to cement Eitzel's reason for
belief,as he abandons the crutch of a microphone and sings to us directly.At such moments this man has to be one of
the most nakedly honest and covincing performers in the world.
For an encore AMC bulldoze their way through the deliberatly bare-faced 'Bad Liquor' before leaving Eitzel to grapple
alone with 'Kathleen',an excruciatingly personal,irredeemably hopeless song.He can't go on.The voice finally breaks,
and Mark rips off his guirar in frustration before hurling the strap into the audience.Not the guitar,the strap.It's all too real for comfort.A gasp goes up,followed by the lights.
Oh,just another night down at the American Music Club.You've never lived 'til you've been there.
Reviewed by Keith Cameron for NME
and all that.I can't even mention their exquisite cover of "Tall Windows" was penned by the same geezer who wrote
"Gentle On My Mind" and it's sequel,"Granny Won't Use Smokes And Mari-Joo-Ana" then jacked it all in to buy a
peddle boat.You would have wanted to know about that.Kill to see them as soon as you can.
American Music Club have,until now,sashayed along the other side of my street,existed merely as something I've always intended exploring without ever quite getting round to it.Enticingly peripheral,they've spent the last seven years very nearly grabbing my attention.And,rest assured,now that I now what I've been missing,I will spend the rest of my days splashed with melancholy and regret.
Rather like AMC's Mark Eitzel,in fact.He's the most affectingly sad performer I've ever seen,spilling his stories of
bewildered loss across an almost irrelevantly spiky musical backing,stabbing at your psyche with relentlessly accurate
questions about why things turn out like they do,about moments of terrifying loneliness,about how hate always gets in
the way.He's been lauded so often that younger readers must think his first name is Genius,an epithet that I'm not
about to disagree with.
The afficianados tell me to prepare for the extraordinary,tumbling down the front to mouth along to Eitzel's husky
heartbreakers.I don't even know the titles,but for the first time in years I'm driven to actually make notes,give you lines that make the rest of us look like emotional mutes.
Eitzel's words don't appear to be overly concerned with the song as a web of internal rhymes,smart puns or complicated metaphors.Quite the opposite,in fact.He strips his language down to brutal simplicity,embraces the straightforward,
opens up like a canyon.Sometimes it's almost too honestt,too demanding in it's nakedness.You don't want to hear all
that hurt,but you just can't turn away.It's compulsively transfixing.
On "Western Sky",he repeats "Oh baby please be happy,please don't cry" over and over again,each reiteration cutting deeper,getting closer and closer to a feeling that these are the only words you ever need in a song,a desperate
universality that takes your breath away.Then he goes and tops it."Why do you do this to me?/Showing me all I'm good for is watching you sleep.....lying there like an angel".There's a thousand people biting their lips and flashing back over all the times EXACTLY the same thought has crossed their minds.Only we never said it,never articulated the dark night of the soul with such simple desolation.We just sat and waited for morning,a morning that in Eitzel's world is always hours away.
There's more."I just called you to ask what you did last night","I've got no love left in my heart" and,oh,just about
every line from the entire set,but you need to hear Eitzel delivering them with his crasked grace,his all-consuming
pain.Despite the impression I've given so far,the American Music club experience is curiously uplifting,a spritual purge that somehow lifts the heart.He may say,"I sing my songs for people who have gone",but he can still touch those of us hanging around for more.I've written,"an American Blue Nile" at the bottom of my notebook.I'm not quite sure why,but I've an idea I might be onto something.
Halfway through the set,the gut standing next to me turns to his male companion,obviously no more than a casual
aquaintance and,perhaps fired by Eitzel's confessionals,says,,"You know people in relationships can do terrible things. They can destroy you." His friend appears startled by the admission,but I'm sure Eitzel would be proud.
An epiphany.
Review by Paul Mathur for Melody Maker February 8th 1992
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