American Music Club: Classic or Dud?

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

I think overall the songwriting was a bit weaker, but perhaps it was a victim of that mid/late 90s trend of overlong CDs. The production and performances are absolutely immaculate throughout though.

I'm a big fan as well though it is 'overproduced' much more so than Mercury, IOW with Mercury I feel like the production benefits and never overwhelms the songs, whereas on SF it is sometimes too much. I also quibble with the song selection; I'd have made sure Sleeping Pills was on the CD and not just the vinyl. I like all of the songs on it but How Many Six Packs apparently had a different set of lyrics before it was recorded that were more explicitly gay. But the lead up to the release of this album was a big deal for me personally.

Cape Canaveral will always be one of my absolute favorite songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D_QX_Lo1mE

i had no idea this cover existed and it's fucking perfect!!!!!!!!!

yes I was delighted to find that a couple months back

I can't get into SF besides "fearless" but this section is maybe my favorite part of any Eitzel song, or in the running for it

A stubborn heart can stay broken forever
But someday the tightrope's gonna break
Will I fall into a cool cool river?
Or will I fall into a frozen lake?

otm

honestly there's probably charming stuff on SF I'm missing but "it's your birthday" is just such a dispiriting step down that it throws me off every time

gotta embrace the misanthropy!

Producers had a really tough time figuring them out, huh?

I wonder if they were more willing than other bands to let whatever producer they worked with just run wild. They ended up with a string of records that each sound very distinct, often in quite weird ways.

maybe it's just that Joe Chiccarelli, perfectly solid rock producer, produced it like a rock record, and they were barely a rock band

The "Wish The World Away" bio has some info on the lack of decision-making with the production of the records, seems they let themselves get pushed this way and that by Tom Mallon or whoever came later as no-one could figure out who was in charge of the band. Hence the lack of focus. I hated the production on Mercury when it came out, but like a lot of Mitchell Froom productions it's aged like a fine wine.

I like the rock songs on San Francisco as well as the dirges. It's the overly cheerful love songs that grate on me.

I feel bad saying it, but I prefer Eitzel when he is angry, destructive, or wallowing in self-pity

Every time I think about wanting to get more into AMC, I just end up listening to "Johnny Mathis' Feet" over and over and over until I'm finally ready to listen to something else entirely.

Hey, akm, have you been able to clarify the Bandcamp remaster question?

If they are remasters, surely physical releases imminent...?

think i love "cape canaveral" because it could be on the golden age

It's weird, some albums from late 80s and much of the 90s sound enormous and not even big bands in modern times get that often. Is this a budget thing or just a style/trend of the time?

I think it is a little of both. There was a big back to analog trend that emphasized large rock sounds that had been diminished during the first wave of digital recording in the 80s. These days computer tech sounds a lot better and is more affordable than it was in the 80s, but things do seem to sound much more squeezed and smoothed out. I think the move away from large studios and analog tape/effects has a lot to do with that.

simon, "revolving door" -> "in the shadow of the valley" -> "what holds the world together" is a helluva run on san francisco

Have to say I love the watery, cavernous, reverb heavy sound of Everclear; I can’t imagine the likes of “Miracle on 8th Street” and “The Confidential Agent” without it

i love the sound of everclear too. every detail of "royal café" is perfect

I really miss that sound. Like, even Jane's Addiction debut album sounds like a production for the biggest rock band in the world.