From the late 1980s to the mid-'90s, American Music Club were the kings of “sadcore,” turning out tragically beautiful tales depicting the bottom-rung residents of life's ladder. Mark Eitzel's deep, expressive voice careened across sonic landscapes that shifted dramatically from hushed, acoustic crackles to raging electric firestorms, with Vudi's discordant guitar coruscation powering the whole brilliant mess.
They slogged it out in the indie world for their first five albums before being signed to Warner/Reprise for 1993's Mercury. When that album and its '94 sequel, San Francisco, failed to sell, the toll of the years, miles, and madness finally pulled the band apart, with Eitzel and his cohorts splintering off to pursue individual projects.
AMC reunited in 2004 for an album and tour, but when Eitzel tried to rally the troops for a follow-up, only Vudi assented. With a new rhythm section, they've breathed life into American Music Club once more for The Golden Age. The album is the band's most mellow and accessible to date, full of acoustic-based ballads. “The thing about the old AMC,” Eitzel told Amplifier, “is that the music we played was so dark...apocalyptic music, what everyone played in San Francisco in the early '90s and late '80s, everyone was dark. I'm not feeling that way anymore. It feels like a relief, like a weight off my shoulders.”
Touring in support of Golden Age, though, the warm-and-fuzzy version of American Music Club was transformed into an outfit that bore a striking resemblance to the soul-baring, hard-charging angst merchants of old. For the second of two back-to-back New York appearances, the band brought their sturm und drang to the intimate Mercury Lounge, which they last played on the original band's final tour in '94, and the same visceral charge they displayed 14 years earlier was still palpable.
The acoustic guitars that occupied the lion's share of the arrangements on the album were replaced with their plugged-in cousins, and songs that Eitzel imparted with a gentle whisper on record were belted out with heart-on-sleeve emotion, wringing the maximum gut-level impact from every line. In an effort to satisfy both their aesthetic ambitions and their hardcore cult following, they split the evening's set list evenly between old favorites like the plaintive “Blue and Grey Shirt” and the mock-melodramatic “Johnny Mathis' Feet,” and such Golden Age selections as the drunken-tourist tale “Windows of the World” and the propulsive “Decibels and Little Pills.”
Just as the new lineup's mellow mood was given an onstage makeover that recalled the early days, another AMC trademark was revived over the course of the set.
Eitzel's notorious self-effacement, bordering on self-loathing, that often appears unvarnished in his lyrics, has alternately enlivened and undercut his performances over the years -- depending on how far he let it go -- and AMC fans often waited in the wings to watch him self-destruct like a Coliseum Christian feeding himself to the lions. It's a quality seemingly so intrinsic to Eitzel's makeup that even in the band's kinder, gentler formation he still excoriated himself humorously but harshly in between songs, frustrated himself with false starts, and tempted his band mates to put him in his place.
For another band, it would have created an odd, uncomfortable dynamic, but from the funhouse-mirror worldview that's always been a crucial part of the American Music Club experience, it just felt like part and parcel of their homecoming. Regardless of any alternate agendas, the kings of good old feel-bad music were finally back in full effect.
--Jim Allen
