629. American Music Club - California (1988)















Track Listing

1. Firefly
2. Somewhere
3. Laughing Stock
4. Lonely
5. Pale Skinny Girl
6. Blue And Grey Shirt
7. Bad Liquor
8. Now You're Defeated
9. Jenny
10. Western Sky
11. Highway 5
12. Last Harbour

Review

A good Americana album, before anyone was talking about Americana really. It feels extremely fresh and new because it also sounds like it has been very influential indeed. Stuff here sounds like some Damien Rice songs and that kind of indie acoustic stuff.

Then there are songs here which don't particularly belong in the album, Bad Liquor just feels out of place, and some of the other tracks are pretty unmemorable. It lives by a couple of very good tracks indeed, some beautiful heartbreaking stuff here.

Due to this it isn't a great album, but it is a good album with some great tracks. I have a kind of dilemma when I get albums like this, when I definitely want to listen to some of the songs again but not particularly the whole album... Pretty good.

Track Highlights

1. Last Harbor
2. Highway 5
3. Jenny
4. Somewhere

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Although born in California, Eitzel spent his formative years in Great Britain and Ohio before returning to the Bay Area in 1981. After a brief stint with the band The Naked Skinnies he founded American Music Club in San Francisco in 1982 with guitarist Scott Alexander, drummer Greg Bonnell, bass player Brad Johnson. The band went through many personnel changes before arriving at a stable line up of guitarist Vudi, bassist Dan Pearson, keyboardist Brad Johnson, and drummer Matt Norelli. This lineup would change over the next several years but Eitzel always remained the core of the band in terms of its vocals, lyrics and thematic focus with Vudi and Dan Pearson accompanying him on guitar and bass.

Jenny by Eitzel, the band's vocalist: