American Music Club: Classic or Dud?

the albums will either come out 35 years after their first release or Mark will bit the bullet and just put them out and then deal with whatever blowback occurs.

"if the band finally seems some reward for their work"

"the band" at this point is just Mallon's estate, Danny, and Vudi. Mark is giving up his share of whatever these make from sales the them. But there are still some feelings somewhere that this isn't good enough and some thought that these albums are worth more than we know they are on the marketplace. Anyone who has released an album on this board knows the reality of the marketplace is that there is shit little money in physical releases now and streaming revenue doesn't bring in very much either. Mark will always own any royalties for the actual licensing of the songs should that ever happen (which he says it never will; in his words, "when I die it's not going to be Pink Moon in a VW commercial, it just isn't") because he was the songwriter. So in a rational world this is easily solved but there are some irrational feelings at play. My recommendation has always been to self-release this and don't take it to a label because what good is a label at this point for something like this? We can put some money toward PR when they come out to help sales. But a label is just going to siphon off money frankly.

Well shit, I guess I have to give up on my dream of hearing "Patriot's Heart" used as the theme song for my favorite NFL team.

revision on all of this though: I think things are moving along better than how Mark portrayed it to me the other night. So fingers crossed this stuff will be happening soon(ish)

Chanel No 5, hello?

Headed to the UK in a week to do another recording with @Bernard_Butler Looking forward to it!

— Sir Arthur Palgrove (@MarkEitzel) June 6, 2019

hell yeah

Nice piece, don't think it's been posted here before:

https://www.toppermost.co.uk/american-music-club/

Fantastic!

any word on whether we should expect a new Eitzel/Butler joint this year?

an album has been recorded, I'm not sure if Butler worked on it or not. if anyone follows Mark on social media you'll know that he loudly proclaimed his album terrible and stated he was quitting music then deleted all his social media accounts. I think he's calmed down about it now.

I saw a bit of that, yeah. I hope he's alright.

he's playing SF next week but I'm already busy so I can't check in on how that goes. He played LA the other week but didn't get any reports on it. FWIW his complaint about the album was solely around the mix of two songs.

Ditto. Someone should give him Kozelek's latest albums for perspective on terrible.

Re: LA, think someone gave a short review on the Facebook Firefly page.

I hope the next one gets him some new fans. He's way overdue a proper rediscovery, and despite v good reviews, Ferryman didn't appear to do the trick.

...yeah, Eitzel/AMC have 4k/8k monthly listeners on Spotify. I know some of the albums are missing but that's still tragic.

But most of the good albums only recently added? Maybe word hasn't gotten around?

well hopefully the reissue campaign will bring some more attention. that said obviously the market for this type of music is what it is.

xp

those are only availble in the EU and UK, not the US for whatever reason I haven't pressed anyone on.

Any news on the mooted AMC reissues?

xp lol

lucky us in the UK and EU then

So the versions of the first four albums that are currently on Spotify in the EU, have they been remastered?

no, they're the old versions. Remasters are still being finalized.

there is some chance there may be a (probably one off) reunion show in SF in the coming months. Can't say much more because I don't know much more.

The bankers, the liars and the thieves
They want to sell you into a life of fear
They call it a plan that will make you free
But nothing's free
You taught me that, my dear

I notice date of previous info and wonder if anything changed since then. Since pandemic probably hadn't quite hit by then.

The first time I saw Eitzel live, The Invisible Man had come out the year priot and he was doing a set of dates opening for Low, who were about to release Trust. I was a prospective student at a college and it was my 18th birthday. Needless to say, my mind was sufficiently blown and I ended up a student at said college the next fall.

Anyway, I still don't think I'll ever get over how much I loved the first few songs on The Invisible Man, and still kind of wish he'd done more weird folktronica stuff...if he has, I've missed it.

iirc there's some of that on the demo-y releases he did between the more widely released albums, eg Candy Ass, but I don't think there's much of it on his fully produced output. I love those songs a lot too. The Invisible Man should have been a bigger deal.

Hmmm, will check it out. Thanks for the tip!

things are moving very slowly, right now the work is around collecting and vetting outtakes and live material for bonus tracks.

I personally think all of that stuff should just go on bandcamp (like, ALL of it) and the albums should just be reissued as originally released, but I don't have much influence there.

I would spend more money than I care to admit on a proper release of the 4-Track Demos of Shame

the last time I checked the original tape(s) were nowhere to be found. funnily I was listening to this last night myself and thought the same thing (it's likely whatever mp3s anyone has of that are from the same source that I got mine, and they sound like 3rd of 4th generation)

I'm listening to Copenhagen 2009 for the first time - definitely a worthy listen for the converted, spare (piano + voice) but confident versions of a bunch of his best songs, with a lot of pretty funny and lewd banter. Franz Nicolay, bless him, turns up on accordion. (Not too many people have played with both Eitzel and Leftover Crack.)

Mainly once again just thinking, as I often do when I listen to his stuff, about how criminally underheard these amazing songs are.

Had a really countryish track pop up on my walkman yesterday that I couldn't quite place. had True West running through my head but turned out to be AMC from the 1984-94 compi so I assume it must have been around teh time of Restless Stranger. Mark didn't even sound much like himself.

which song was it?

I can't remember. THought I'd recognise Mark's voice after knowing it for so long. Know it was from that compilation buut can't think song.

Gonna guess the country-hick version of "Art of Love" from Engine, based on nothing in particular.

wonder, has been a while since i had a copy of taht lp on cd which I need to remedy.
Looking back at what was on Restless Stranger it seems less different than I thought it was even hasa couple of tracks i thought were on Engine

Could it be "Crabwalk"?

I was thinking Crabwalk

god I wish United Kingdom, California and Engine were on Spotify. (I never got into Restless Stranger tbh)

I watched the version of Mission Rock in Copenhagen 09. the studio Version is so much better

UK, california, and engine are on Spotify everywhere but the US I think, now.

and poor Canada :(

hmmmm

https://www.musicdirect.com/vinyl/Mark-Eitzel-The-Ugly-American-%28Colored-Vinyl-LP%29

ah I see it was reissued in the UK in sept of last year. huh!

Listening to the new-to-me 2001 tribute album makes it clear that AMC are a very, very tough band to cover well. Calexico are a great fit for "Chanel #5", though:

https://casadecalexico.bandcamp.com/track/chanel-no-5

Portastic doing "firefly" otoh is shite as you can imagine

OTM, an utter disaster

Everything but the Girl used to play a decent cover of 'Firefly' live although I don't think they ever committed it to tape. 'Come on Beautiful' is a bizarre compilation e.g. Lambchop's version of 'Why won't you stay' delivered as a spoken word piece.

update for anyone caring: there will likely be some solo eitzel releases (the limited tour ones) available on bandcamp before too long, as well as some live AMC stuff. Trying to get some stuff out to people before the reissues are finalized (plan is to simply reissue the albums by themselves; cds might have a bonus cd of extra tracks or they might be on bandcamp, hasn't been decided yet)

I always appreciate these lil updates!