American Music Club
Indie Rock / Alt Country
fter a 10-year hiatus, American Music Club is back together!! They've recently completed work on a new album, Love Songs For Patriots, which will be released on Merge Records in October 2004. The band tracked the new songs in San Francisco at Closer Recording Studios and mixed the record at The Echo Lab in Denton, TX with Matt Pence (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel)
Mark Eitzel (vocals and guitar) reports that things turned out "much better than I could have ever expected." " It's very inspiring to be working with these great musicians once again,Ó Eitzel recently told RollingStone.com. " We're pretty different now. I think we've changed a lot. You'd have to in ten years, right?Ó
Forming in San Francisco back in 1983, Mark Eitzel, Vudi and Dan Pearson began by synthesizing their love for rock, country, blues, folk, pop and punk, into an incredibly unique and engaging musical melting pot, featuring Eitzel's enigmatic presence, heartfelt vocals and brilliant songwriting. Songs often became an unpredictable wedding between their free-form jazz tendencies and Eitzel's downbeat poetics, eventually landing him " Best SongwriterÓ accolades in Rolling Stone Critics Poll, not to mention a ÔHot BandÓ pick from the same publication. The band went on to release five, much applauded, full length records on a handful of indie labels before recording their major label debut in 1993. Mercury is considered by many to be a masterpiece of modern popular music and their most focused record. Then, after incessant touring, the band settled down in the spring of 1994 to produce a set of songs that emphasized the line-up's steadiness and a wealth of new perspective. They called it San Francisco, their seventh album, which laid claim to their critical birthright in an album full of introspective songs that twisted and turned like the ambivalent emotions that created them. Soon after, American Music Club split up, albeit amicably, in 1995. Eitzel went on to create of reservoir of much loved solo efforts, including 60 Watt Silver Lining and The Invisible Man. Danny went on to play with Clodhopper, and release his solo recordings. Tim is a busy producer at his own Closer Recording Studios in San Francisco, and Vudi fronts LA band Clovis de Foret.
Now, after a decade apart, the band is back together and better than ever.
In the summer of 2003, Tim phoned up his AMC bandmates to see if the time might be right to think about playing and recording together again. Eitzel had been working on a batch of songs and the band decided that these would be the seeds for what would become a new record. Things went so well, that the band even decided to hit the road again between recording sessions. AMC played a string of sold out tour dates across Europe and the U.S. in February and March of 2004 including the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, TX.
The brand new album, Love Songs For Patriots, finds American Music Club exploring shimmering sonic textures and harder sounds coupled with Eitzel's distinctive voice and signature stinging lyrics about love, life, & politics.
AMC are original members Mark Eitzel (vocals, guitar), Dan Pearson (bass), Tim Mooney (drums), Vudi (guitar) and they are joined by new member Jason Borger (keyboards).
Extended bio/history:
Although chosen for its deliberately nondescript qualities, in retrospect the name American Music Club was the perfect moniker for the lauded San Francisco-based band led by singer/songwriter Mark Eitzel: over the course of seven acclaimed albums, the group tied together the disparate strands of the American musical fabric -- rock, folk, country, punk, even lounge schmaltz -- into a remarkably distinct and riveting whole, creating a brilliant and cohesive body of work dappled by moments of haunting beauty and impenetrable darkness.
Although born in California, Eitzel spent his formative years in Great Britain and Ohio before returning to the Bay Area in 1980 with the punk band the Naked Skinnies. After the band's break-up, he founded American Music Club in 1983 with guitarist Vudi, bassist Dan Pearson, keyboardist Brad Johnson and drummer Matt Norelli. Despite the skill and diversity of the other members, Eitzel quickly became the group's focal point: an evocative vocalist and gutter poet capable of composing songs of disquieting honesty and intensity.
Their 1985 debut, The Restless Stranger, offers a rough outline of their increasingly eclectic sound, and firmly established Eitzel's worldview, a harrowing vision of life as seen through the bottom of a shot glass. 1987's Engine honed the formula: the addition of producer Tom Mallon as a fulltime member expanded the group's sonic palette, while Eitzel's songs achieved new levels of intimacy as compositions like "Outside This Bar" and "Gary's Song" grappled with the realities of the drinking life.
American Music Club earned a solid cult following on the strength of 1988's California, a brilliant collection highlighted by the shimmering country and folk accoutrements which couched fractured love songs like "Firefly" and "Western Sky; " "Blue and Grey Shirt," Eitzel's most heartfelt and powerful composition to date, was the first in a series of devastating chronicles of friends lost to the AIDS epidemic. Their next LP, 1989's United Kingdom, appeared only in the nation which lent the record its name: another superb collection drawing on leftover material and live tracks, it featured "The Hula Maiden," the first recorded fruits of Eitzel's growing fascination with lounge crooning.
After a solo acoustic Eitzel release, 1991's Songs of Love: Live in London, American Music Club emerged with its masterpiece, Everclear, a remarkable song cycle released to phenomenal critical acclaim. Still, the lavish praise heaped on Everclear finally made the major labels take notice, and a bidding war ensued. After months of negotiations, AMC -- now consisting of Eitzel, Vudi, Pearson, multi-instrumentalist Bruce Kaphan and drummer Tim Mooney -- signed with Reprise in the U.S. and Virgin throughout the rest of the world, and entered the studio with acclaimed producer Mitchell Froom.
The result, 1993's Mercury, was a typically iconoclastic effort featuring unwieldy song titles like "What Godzilla Said to God When His Name Wasn't Found in the Book of Life" and "The Hopes and Dreams of Heaven's 10,000 Whores" resting uneasily against lush, obtuse gems like "If I Had a Hammer," "Apology for an Accident" and "Johnny Mathis' Feet." Despite glowing reviews, Mercury fared poorly on the charts, and earned virtually no recognition from radio or MTV. In 1994, AMC issued San Francisco, an erratic collection which precariously balanced stark, moving confessions like "Fearless" and "The Thorn in My Side Is Gone" alongside slick pop constructs such as "Wish the World Away" and "Can You Help Me." When San Francisco failed to connect, American Music Club finally dissolved; in 1996, Eitzel issued his proper solo debut 60 Watt Silver Lining, a collection of torch songs. At the end of the year, he and producer Peter Buck of R.E.M. returned to the studio to record 1997's West.
In 2003, American Music Club were reunited to record a new album, Love Songs For Patriots. The new album, their first in 10 years, has been called their best record yet. Rave reviews have come in from Uncut, Mojo, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Q, and many others. The band will embarke on a major world tour starting in October 2004 to last into 2005.
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