American Music Club: Academy 3, Manchester 30 Jan 2005

It’s been ten years. Ten long years (full of very agreeable Mark Eitzel solo fare to be sure, but – ten years is ten years, you know what I’m saying?) And now American Music Club – the greatest band you’ve never heard of – are back.

American Music Club were the band of my youth, the band I gravitated toward after growing tired of The Smiths and Codeine and Slint and all of that sadcore junk. Here was a band who made genius album after genius album (much like REM in the pre-‘Green’ days) without any kind of sales recognition at all (although AMC were, are and have always been critically lauded, on both sides of the Atlantic); unlike REM, AMC never had that one breakthrough rekkud. So they wound things up, Eitzel went solo and – in the intervening years – band after band (everybody from Jeff Buckley through Radiohead and Coldplay) cited Eitzel as one of the greatest living whatevers. And Eitzel – always bullish, combative at the best of times – did all he could to rain on any parade anybody offered to stage in his honour. And so now they are back, with a new rekkud (‘Love Songs for Patriots’, try saying that with your tongue firmly in your cheek) and a reinvigorated sense of just how mighty and valuable they are.

Guitarist Vudi, a man who looks like Rex Harrison doing an impression of a crane, takes to the stage first, and is rapidly followed by Eitzel (stockier than last, fidgety, awkward), bassist Dan Pearson, drummer Tim Mooney and young keyboard player Jason Borger (who was, I think, part of the band Eitzel played with touring ‘Invisible Man’ two or three years ago, and is tonight a new addition to vrrr ‘Club). And, like every AMC gig I have ever seen, they begin combatively. Or rather, Eitzel begins combatively. Always one to extend the Groucho Marx aphorism (about not wanting to be a member of any club yada yada yada) to his audience (sceptically regarding anybody who would pay money to hear him sing as being worthy of contempt), it takes Eitzel a few numbers to warm to the crowd. But that doesn’t get in the way of the music. They open with a stripped down ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ (the new album opener, a muddy dirge in its recorded format, a thing of wonder to behold when performed live), before tearing into a coruscating ‘Gratitude Walks’ (a song that sees the band pulling together and apart like some beautiful anemone, it’s a blazing piece of work that leaves your mouth dry and you wonder: just how has the world survived a decade without music as profoundly wonderful as this?!?). It isn’t really until ‘Challenger’, however (introduced by Eitzel as the song President Bush wanted to use as the new anthem for a disenfranchised America, and Eitzel admitted he was tempted, right up to the moment Bush wanted to put his tongue in Eitzel’s mouth) that the band start to have fun.

They don’t necessarily perform songs as they have been recorded (which improves tracks like ‘Only Love Can Set You Free’ and ‘Patriot’s Heart’ no end), with Eitzel changing the vocal line and Vudi interjecting curious discordant noises so that – what is formed is a curious hybrid of the familiar and the new: you know these songs and yet you hold your breath because – they could go anywhere. So (for example) the (aching? heartbreaking? yearning? words really don’t suffice) chorus of ‘Why Won’t You Stay?’ (from AMC’s ‘Everclear’ album, which should be your first port of call when you’ve finished reading this review!) – which runs “Why Won’t You Stay? / Why Won’t You Stay? / Why Won’t You Stay?” – becomes a sunburnt tangle of Pearson and Eitzel singing “Why?” (with “won’t you stay?” soft, whispered, over in a blink, gone before you know it). It’s breathtaking, and beautiful, and thrilling. Imagine a 50s jazz singer with a sandpaper voice like Roy Orbison fronting the quietest metal band you’ve ever seen during a night in which they have decided to perform country covers of songs inspired by the work of Raymond Carver and you might get a sort of slippery idea of what all of this is like. The crowd are as grateful as Lazarus (who makes an appearance for ‘I’ve Been a Mess’) and lap up classics like ‘Jesus’ Hands’ and new tunes like ‘Home’ as if they were old friends. Which in a way I guess they are.

It’s not all perfect (‘Another Morning’ and ‘Western Sky’ need an acoustic in there somewhere, and the lack of one lets you know pretty early that we’re not gonna get ‘Last Harbour’ or ‘Jenny’ or ‘The Song of the Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship’, and the boy Borger overplays his hand somewhat with ivories tinkled all over the place) but you know what they say about perfection requiring a flaw. So there’s the flaw(s). And it just makes the rest of the night shine. This is a shining night of aching, beautiful music performed by a band that, yeah okay, you may never have heard of. But the fault is yours. And you don’t know what you’re missing. ...

words: Peter Wild

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