AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB - Mercury

AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB - Mercury
(Reprise 1993) Out Of Print CD (?)

01. Gratitude Walks
02. If I Had a Hammer
03. Challenger
04. I've Been a Mess
05. Hollywood 4-5-92
06. What Godzilla Said to God When His Name Wasn't Found in the Book of Life
07. Keep Me Around
08. Dallas, Airports, Bodybags
09. Apology for an Accident
10. Over and Done
11. Johnny Mathis' Feet
12. The Hopes and Dreams of Heaven's 10,000 Whores
13. More Hopes and Dreams
14. Will You Find Me?

Personnel:
Mark Eitzel - Vocals, Guitar
Vudi- Guitar
Dan Pearson - Bass
Bruce Kaphan - Keyboards
Tim Mooney - Drums

File Under:
Indie Rock, Sadcore, Regret, Nick Cave, Jeff Buckley, Afghan Whigs

As Morrissey is wont to say, "I will be in the bar with my head on the bar..." Regret and dread hang over the music of American Music Club, and this, their first album for a major label is no different. 'Gratitude Walks' and 'Johnny Mathis' Feet' are good examples, but 'I've Been A Mess' pretty much sums it up. Beautiful music for a miserable day.

From AMG:
Leave it to American Music Club to make their major-label bow with the most perversely idiosyncratic record in their catalog. Produced with eccentric panache by Mitchell Froom, Mercury spotlights the band at their darkest and most eclectic, favoring odd rhythms, bizarre effects, and extreme arrangements ranging from the synthetic lounge grandeur of the worshipful "Johnny Mathis' Feet" to the swirling sonic maelstrom of the fatalistic "Challenger." Under the cover of defense-mechanism titles like "What Godzilla Said to God When His Name Wasn't Found in the Book of Life," "If I Had a Hammer" and "The Hopes of Dreams of Heaven's 10,000 Whores," Mark Eitzel paints some of his bleakest portraits to date; even the most superficially upbeat tracks -- "Keep Me Around," "Hollywood 4-5-92," "Over and Done" -- are relentlessly grim at their core. A triumph of abject misery.

Although chosen for its deliberately nondescript qualities, in retrospect the name American Music Club was the perfect moniker for the lauded San Francisco-based band led by singer/songwriter Mark Eitzel: over the course of seven acclaimed albums, the group tied together the disparate strands of the American musical fabric -- rock, folk, country, punk, even lounge schmaltz -- into a remarkably distinct and riveting whole, creating a brilliant and cohesive body of work dappled by moments of haunting beauty and impenetrable darkness.

American Music Club - Mercury (329kbs download) UPDATED LINK!!