September 25th 1995
The "fake jazz record" is a solo record called "Sixty Watt Silver Lining" and it'll be out on Virgin in early 1996.
Tonight is an intimate chance for Eitzel to air the new material and within seconds of the first song, a moving
declaration of frustration to a drug addicted loved one, it is obvious that these are going to be his finest songs since 1991's masterpiece "Everclear".
With his bottle of red wine by his chair and his voice ever more lived in, he moves through an even more touching lament that repeats "will your heart always be broken" until the place is nearly silent. EWitzel seems in good spirits and with his trademark self-depreciation, introduces "Saved" as "the corniest thing I've ever done" and "written for Barbara Streisand". It is Eitzel at his best - a love song celebrating love as a security when "there's no safety in the world".
Three songs in and the new stuff is so haunting I almost forget the outside world and American Music Club until someone calls out to Eitzel to ask what has happened to the band. You can almost hear a pin drop and then Eitzel retorts: "I did quit the band."
The horror on most peoples faces is only broken when Eitzel mockingly confesses that the wine he is drinking is French. He has a knack for diffusing awkward situations , like when he finishes an acapella number, complete with theatrical like arm wavingand then looks embarrassed and sits down saying; "I feel like a male impersonator" - a line so stupid and funny you forget the past two minutes or so of bizarre cabaret, This is outdone in the weird stakes by a song "written about Southend On Sea".
"When My Plane Finally Goes Down" is forlorn in a despairing but uplifting manner - the guitar pickings alone induce goosebumps. "Cleopatra Jones" is again about a flawed character: "You just got fired/Now you're out on the town/High and drunk...celebrating."
Eitzel will never cease feeling for life's wasted and wounded and these songs are so lyrically beautiful that it's hard not to get choked up. Old AMC fave "Why Won't you stay" is simply stunning and as it ends he explains who it's about: "I sing about the same two people all the time. One is now in rehab." The other is the topic of "Apology For An Accident," the most powerful and painful documentation of still being in love with someone who no longer loves you, ever. "Well I'm an expert in all things that nature abhors/The look of disgust when I touch your skin."
And then he stops and after a pained silence explains that he's forgotten the next line, to which a fan (quick as a flash) says, "I tried to figure out what the world needs me for." Eitzel laughs and picks up the song. As it ends he gets the fan up for a bow and gives him £5 for saving the song. His generosty floors the room.
The last last trio of newies begins with "Sacred Heart", a gorgeous whisper of a lyric about the breathtaking Sacre Coeur cathedral in Paris and ends with Eitzel switching from romantic phrasing to the plain sad "I'm always alone."
This starts Eitzel's plummeting mood swing from in between joking to solemn despair, lost in a very dark and intense piece of music where Eitzel ends up moaning: "the source of all your pain" over and over . He gets up from his chair to change guitars and the towering pain in his face cannot be rationalized. "I don't know what the fuck that was about....smoking pot in Big Sur." The final song continues in this vein and then he's gone,looking at the end of his rope.
He returns to play an emotionally charged "Chanel #5" and closes with "I've Been A Mess," which is so heartbreaking I find (like most people there) I've got a lump in my throat. He ends by saluting us with his wine.
Whether AMC ever get back together is obselete, that Mark Eitzel has written some of the most beautiful songs in his career is a cause for joy. The lyrics are richer...even more poetic and the music more emotive than ever. If Raymond Carver, one of the world's greatest ever writers about the dispossesed had picked up a guitar, he'd have written something as astonishing as what I've heard tonight. This was the seventh time I've seen Eitzel play and tonight the nakedness of the performance made it the most affecting show I've ever seen by him....or anyone else for that matter.
Like the American TV show "My So-Called Life," Eitzel unbderstands how life never works out.... people never get what they want. The flawed, the sensitive, the vulnerable - they all get beaten to death - Eitzel knows it -he's trying to sing away the scars.
A weary Raymond Carver of Rock?Is there a highr accolade? Don't ever,ever stop writing songs Mark Eitzel.
By Nick Johnstone for Aspects #2 Spring 1996
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