American Music Club

Led by the charismatic songwriter Mark Eitzel, American Music Club became one of the most acclaimed U.S. underground bands of the '80s.

In 1980 Eitzel moved to San Francisco from Columbus, Ohio, with his band Naked Skinnies. After that group dissolved, he formed American Music Club, going through various lineups and becoming infamous for his desperate attempts to either entertain or terrify the audience. Tom Mallon produced and released the band's debut on his Grifter label; later he joined the group. The Restless Stranger introduced Eitzel’s songs of loneliness and decay, set to AMC’s postpunk honky-tonk. Engine, featuring such classic downers as “Gary’s Song,” “Nightwatchman,” and “Outside This Bar,” revealed emotional and musical depth. California confirmed the band as an underground favorite and garnered international attention.

When the band’s label, Frontier, signed a licensing deal with BMG it financed what would have been AMC’s major-label debut. Bruce Kaphan, who had been playing as a sideman for the band, joined full-time and produced Everclear, but the BMG deal collapsed, and AMC parted company with both Frontier and Mallon. While in limbo, the band recorded the partially live United Kingdom, named after the only country in which the album was released and where AMC had developed a strong following. In 1991 Eitzel released a solo live record, Songs of Love, on the same label.

Everclear was eventually released by the indie Alias to much fanfare (ROLLING STONE critics dubbed it album of the year in 1991) but negligible sales. Eitzel’s alienation from religion - as a teen, he was born again - fueled songs like “What the Pillar of Salt Held Up” and “Jesus’ Hands.” Notorious for his often alcohol-induced rages and depressions, the singer became sober around this time. He subsequently returned to drinking, although not to the onstage abuses of yore.

In 1991 AMC’s revolving door of drummers settled on the Toiling Midgets’ Tim Mooney, who had also played with the band in the mid-’80s (Eitzel moonlighted in the Midgets for a while and sang on their 1992 Matador release Son). The band signed with Reprise/Warner Bros. in 1992 after a bidding war. Mercury, produced by Mitchell Froom, was a strange major-label debut, full of lush, discordant music and obtuse musings with titles like “What Godzilla Said to God When His Name Wasn’t Found in the Book of Life” and “Johnny Mathis’ Feet.”

The title cut of AMC’s 1995 Hello Amsterdam EP (the song first appeared on 1994’s San Francisco) confronted the band’s commercial lack of success and proved to be its last gasp. In 1996 Eitzel released his second solo album, 60 Watt Silver Lining, a jazzy adult-contemporary affair. Eitzel made West, a collaboration with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, in 1997. Recorded with members of Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out ’Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby appeared the following year. Meanwhile, former AMC members Mooney and Pearson formed Clodhopper, a rootsy, banjo-driven outfit that included Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament, and released Red’s Recovery Room in 1998.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)