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Articles:BAM - August 9, 1991: Difference between revisions
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(Created page with "{{DISPLAYTITLE:BAM - August 9, 1991}} '''Membership Has Its Privileges'''<br> Publication: Bay Area Musician<br> Author: Steve Solder<br> Date: August 9, 1991 File:AMC-BAM-...") |
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[[File:AMC-BAM-91.jpg|200px|thumb|left]] | [[File:AMC-BAM-91.jpg|200px|thumb|left]] | ||
It's hard not to size up [[Mark Eitzel | It's hard not to size up [[Mark Eitzel]] and picture him with one ear. | ||
It's one of those rare San Francisco summer days when the temperature climbs into the nineties and nobody wears a jacket. The 4th of July looms two days away. [[Mark Eitzel]], [[American Music Club]]'s chairman of the bored, you might say, is sweating like everyone else at La Boheme, a Mission District Coffeehouse. | It's one of those rare San Francisco summer days when the temperature climbs into the nineties and nobody wears a jacket. The 4th of July looms two days away. [[Mark Eitzel]], [[American Music Club]]'s chairman of the bored, you might say, is sweating like everyone else at La Boheme, a Mission District Coffeehouse. | ||
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On Mark Eitzel: "I have a lousy personality and I'm not the most literate person in the world, so that's pretty much why I put it all in a song. I mean, I'll never make it on my good looks, and I'll never make it on Johnny Carson." | On Mark Eitzel: "I have a lousy personality and I'm not the most literate person in the world, so that's pretty much why I put it all in a song. I mean, I'll never make it on my good looks, and I'll never make it on Johnny Carson." | ||
Johnny Carson? No, probably not but Jay Leno, maybe. After all, with a tangled history that stretches back to the early 80s,AMC is poised to take its place among America's elite independent bands. A wonderful new album, ''[[Everclear]]'', comes out on the Alias label this month (the group celebrates its release August 15th at SF's Great American Music Hall), members of the group say they were ecstatically received at this summer's New Music Seminar (and this is one outfit that doesn't engage in self-promoting hyperbole), and a growing cult is championing this disarmingly involving and self-involved singer/songwriter and the sympathetic ensemble that surrounds him. | Johnny Carson? No, probably not but Jay Leno, maybe. After all, with a tangled history that stretches back to the early 80s, AMC is poised to take its place among America's elite independent bands. A wonderful new album, ''[[Everclear]]'', comes out on the Alias label this month (the group celebrates its release August 15th at SF's Great American Music Hall), members of the group say they were ecstatically received at this summer's New Music Seminar (and this is one outfit that doesn't engage in self-promoting hyperbole), and a growing cult is championing this disarmingly involving and self-involved singer/songwriter and the sympathetic ensemble that surrounds him. | ||
Picture an American Morrissey with a receding hairline and a rootsier record collection. And while Eitzel's insistently naked emotionalism can make life difficult for those around him, it can be incredibly moving when everything falls into place. As droll bassist [[Danny Pearson|Dan Pearson]] observes in what's intended to be a glowing compliment: "Sometimes Mark can be amazingly, you know, non-erratic." | Picture an American Morrissey with a receding hairline and a rootsier record collection. And while Eitzel's insistently naked emotionalism can make life difficult for those around him, it can be incredibly moving when everything falls into place. As droll bassist [[Danny Pearson|Dan Pearson]] observes in what's intended to be a glowing compliment: "Sometimes Mark can be amazingly, you know, non-erratic." | ||
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"Our judgement for the criteria for every show is not really what people think or what people say to us. It's another thing.I t's like, how honest was it? If I go through the motions, it's like zero time or negative to me. [Then] I've lied. I've been whoring up there. Obviously, I have been anyway. Every rocker like myself is a whore, basically. But I haven't been a good whore. [laughs] An honest whore. I've just been this self-aggrandizing asshole. That's how I feel. And then I'm embarrassed, and then I'm upset." | "Our judgement for the criteria for every show is not really what people think or what people say to us. It's another thing.I t's like, how honest was it? If I go through the motions, it's like zero time or negative to me. [Then] I've lied. I've been whoring up there. Obviously, I have been anyway. Every rocker like myself is a whore, basically. But I haven't been a good whore. [laughs] An honest whore. I've just been this self-aggrandizing asshole. That's how I feel. And then I'm embarrassed, and then I'm upset." | ||
Eitzel's writing style is as bare all as his onstage antics. He speaks of backing off from writing about drink and "this person", then he refuses to elaborate on just who "this person" is. But he does admit to having lost friends because of his brutal frankness. "Like that song '[[Ex-Girlfriend]]', he says of a track on ''[[Everclear'' | Eitzel's writing style is as bare all as his onstage antics. He speaks of backing off from writing about drink and "this person", then he refuses to elaborate on just who "this person" is. But he does admit to having lost friends because of his brutal frankness. "Like that song '[[Ex-Girlfriend]]', he says of a track on ''[[Everclear]]''. "That guy didn't like that I wrote about him." | ||
"He didn't like it at all. At all! It was like I used him or something - I used him to make this song so I could play it in front of other people, which is how he feels. And it's true. [laughs] Yeah, I guess that's what I did." | "He didn't like it at all. At all! It was like I used him or something - I used him to make this song so I could play it in front of other people, which is how he feels. And it's true. [laughs] Yeah, I guess that's what I did." | ||