A Happiness Like We'll Never Know--American Music Club and Everclear

Don't Worry About The Magic Kingdom

In my opinion, Mark Eitzel is America's Gay Bob Dylan. It sounds a little silly--whatever his personal preferences, the salient thing is that he is flat-out one of the greatest songwriters of our era. His best songs are timeless. And while there is very little new under the musical sun, genres and sub genres of classifications are continually being coined. American Music Club and singer Mark Eitzel are the progenitors and leading lights of "Sadcore". And a lot of his songs are pretty miserable, though often beautiful. I always used to notice in reviews how critics remarked that on a particular album or song Eitzel "seems happier". Hopefully so, but I just hope that he keeps producing music of quality and I'm not too concerned about what he does specifically--happy, sad, more cowbell. Apparently he is in a better place today than he once was,and that is good news. People tend to glorify the self-destructive behavior of artists, but history demonstrates that it does not make a very good long term career plan. However, I must admit that I consider the dark intensely tortured Everclear from 1991 to be the high water mark of all his albums, with band or as a solo artist.

While there is no shortage of memorable songs in his lengthy career, the combination of great songs with the exceptional sound quality on Everclear make it stand out above the others. Why Won't You Stay? is such a great song,  a sad sleepy late night echo chamber croon, Eitzel reinvented as Roy Orbison. The instrumentation on this album is almost more an environment than accompaniment as much sonic textures as arrangements. Eitzel's weary vocals on Miracle on 8th Street come dreamily from the deepest depths of human despair. He sounds like he could be singing from inside an isolation tank.

Themes of loss, loneliness,abandonment and disenfranchisement abound throughout the record. Sympathetic character portraits of people down on their luck or who have lost their way. People who need help and keep making the same bad mistakes but just can't be reached. The Dead Part Of You is an open blister of a song about baggage and emotional distress. The outwardly jaunty Crabwalk is a character study done in Honky Tonk country glory. What The Pillar Of Salt Held Up is one of Eitzel's very best songs, a poignant ballad full of vivid imagery. It is spellbinding evocative poetry set to music.

Probably if there is one cheerful song on the album, it is Royal Cafe, with its upbeat Banjo driven melody belieing the typically downbeat lyrics. A pretty good driving song in fact. Ex-Girlfriend is another desperate howl. The backing music on the song sounds more like a soundtrack--it's amazing what textures Vudi manages to wrench out of his guitar. Also kudos to the multi-instrumentalists Dan Pearson and Bruce Kaphan who make this entire album sound so intensely moody and texturally interesting. And in some ways Mark Eitzel comes across as a crazed lounge singer on some of these songs sometimes crooning at other times shouting. Sick of Food is just a song driven so low, like a person just so down that they don't feel anything, that basic human requirements are even too much. But then the songs bridge crescendos to a emotional explosion of frustration. The album finally ends with almost hopeful tune Jesus' Hands, which stylistically sounds like a song that could have been written during the Great Depression.

So What Do I Do With My Time?

One head scratcher regarding the album involves the single that came out to support the album. As unlikely as it might seem for an album of this type, they put out the ep "Rise" to support the full length. It is more uptempo, almost like a Springsteen song, perhaps stylistically the best choice for a single, but by far not the best song on the album. It reminds me of an inferior version of the rollicking Somewhere from their prior album California. What is even more surprising is the exclusion of the awesome Chanel #5 from Everclear. It is another Eitzel tour de force.There is a harrowingly raw version of the song done on his live solo album, Songs of Love. "All over town people lookin' for their little piece of goodnight." The ep adds a good conventional country song, The Right Thing, and ends with an acoustic dirge version of Crabwalk that I don't particularly care for. But the two middle songs make it a worthwhile ep.

There are a lot of other good points of departure for American Music Club work like California, United Kingdom, Engine, or the post-Everclear albums. Mark Eitzel has put out good solo albums like West, 60 Watt Silver Lining, his live Songs of Love. It's not a bet idea to check out their web site on occasion as they sell limited addition recordings unavailable in shops or conventional on-line stores. I know that sometimes his music seems pretty depressing but take the time to listen to the lyrics--they are about as good as you can find by songwriter today. And Everclear was one of the best albums of the 90's, whose complete sum is greater than its parts, fitting together like an unintentional concept album.