American Music Club: Classic or Dud?

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!

I recall Eitzel saying he loved The Divine Comedy's cover of "Johnny Mathis' Feet"

oh man how had I never heard this? faithful but very rousing.

Great update! Happy that Bandcamp is continuing their first Fridays fee-waving. Hope this happens before that goes away, for a little increase to the band.

Re: The Divine Comedy, The Whitlams do a fun cover of "Your Daddy's Car", which now has me thinking of a covers mix of Band covered by Band B covered by Band C ...

grabbed the Before Love Songs demos on friday, looking forward to giving that a play soon but thought I'd listen through the older solo albums first. 60 Watt Silver Lining still stands up for me as one of his very best. very tied into a specific difficult time of my life so i'd not listened to it for a number of years, but wow... Sacred Heart / Always Turn Away / Saved / Cleopatra Jones is an amazing run to start it, plus Mission Rock is as heavy and intense as Nightwatchmen or any of the early AMC classics

Before Love Songs demos is great! he's added three more to the bandcamp today including an unreleased AMC live set

These were recorded with Jay Bennett of Wilco.(!)

The first four AMC albums on are bandcamp today.

nice!!

Also some good live recordings

gah, they were on Spotify as well for a while but now seem to have disappeared from there.

Can anyone tell me how early Mark started as solo performer? Thinking of Songs Of Love and I'm guessing some circumstances preventing too many band members from touring?

around 1989, AMC was basically on a break for a while and/or maybe breaking up. Didn't last too long, then, anyway

Those were on spotify in the EU/UK, not sure why they would be off now, I can check.

I havent listened to the bandcamp versions yet so not sure if they are remastered, I'll ask

I think they have been remastered? It might be my brain/ears tricking me though.

Can confirm AMC are on Spotify in Europe. A different set of albums than on Bandcamp, mind you.

the WB albums (and maybe Everclear) are on spotify. the first four were on spotify in Europe for most of last year. Now, the first four are on bandcamp, and I don't believe the WB albums are. Also: the plan is to actually reissue everything including the WB albums, eventually. My hope is for a vinyl pressing of 60 Watt though.

listened to the first three albums right in a row today..... god

if the golden age weren't my favorite album, don't be a stranger would be

been listening to recent Eitzel and Peter Milton Walsh/The Apartments a lot lately, two guys making the best music of their lives in their 60s or so, you love to see it

The Golden Age is great. AMC's late phase was such a joy. Great gigs too.

The Golden Age is great but it's still not really an AMC album to me. I wish they'd redo the cover at least to not have replacement bassist as the only person on it. Merge, what were you thinking? But the album was engineered and produced extremely well, it just sounds amazing, and I love almost all of those songs.

mercury is a record i've lived with for more than a decade and still keep hearing new things in

Well I've been praying a lot lately
It's because I no longer have a TV
Just a fluorescent hangover to light the way
Between the things you say and the things I see

really in my "mark eitzel is the greatest lyricist of all time" feelings these days

Mitchell Froom gets a lot of flack for all the bells and whistles he dumps on his recordings, but there's a lot of really interesting and original stuff going on with Mercury production-wise.

I saw them live for the first time in support of Mercury. The audience consisted mostly of me and my high school pals, but they still absolutely killed it. Got to have an interesting conversation with Bruce Kaphan about his custom pedal steel effects controller.

Froom's work on that album is my favorite production work by him on anything; I'm biased, I've been obsessive on the band since 1990, know them, seen them 1000000x, etc, yes, but I really do think it's his best work. Bruce was never completely happy with it because a lot of his contributions didn't wind up in the final mix (which was even more true with San Francisco) though he said he did learn a lot in the studio with Blake and Froom.

I'm sure there's a lot of cool stuff that got left off, but what's on there is absolutely top notch. It was a shame that he couldn't stick with them for the 2000s albums.

i have never spent a lot of time with san francisco. "fearless" is the most beautiful song ever written