"Ten Years of Tears" Review

My copy turned up in the post today, #260 of 500. It is a white CDR with a rubber stamp on the front. It does actually say Vol.2 which implies Mark may have released a Vol.1. If he has then I have missed it. The front cover is a portrait of a small uni-browed child who might possibly be Mark.

So, what does it sound like? It is all good quality recordings. Mainly all originals except for his covers of Joy Divisions "Heart & Soul", Springsteens "My Fathers Place" and a couple of tracks from the solo albums.

It starts with 4 Music Club tracks with the Undertow Orchestra and then jumps back 10 years to a couple of "60 Watt" tracks. Next there is a track from "West". I don't know if that is Pete Buck on guitar is it? Then comes my fave bit, 3 tracks with the band that toured "Invisible Man". They only played one gig in the UK supporting J Mascis and they rocked. Big time. Next come the covers and finally there are 3 of the old classic.

It could easily have been an hour of Mark and his guitar so it is good to hear a nice selections of bands playing on there. At 64 mins they could have stuck some auidence banter on there or possibly a couple more unreleased tracks. Still, worth getting as a document of the man in his prime.

New Live Videos

A couple of clips of Mark on his current tour have appeared on YouTube.

Zagreb


Cardiff


With added audience singing.

Interview From Ireland

There is an interview with Mark in the Galway Advertiser. He touches on his relationship with Vudi and how the new songs he is currently doing are for the next American Music Club album. He says there will be some recording in May with an eye to a January release.

"Ten years of Tears" Available

Marks new live album is available here. It looks like a few tracks from a radio show from around the time of "60 Watt ..." as well as a few tracks with the Undertow Orchestra. That means that half of it will be with a band of some sort and half will be solo strumming. As they say in the Jazz Club, Nice.

Update. Not shipping to North America. You probably want the bands web site for that.

Edinburgh Review

There is a review of Marks gig in Edinburgh on Thursday here.

"Mean Mark Eitzel Get's Fat" - BitTorrent

It seems there is a FLAC torrent of Mark Eitzel: 1981, "Mean Mark Eitzel Get's Fat" 4 track demo out there in BitTorrent land. Unfortunately you have to be a member of dimeadozen.org to see it.

New Live Album!!!

It seems Mark has a new limited edition live cd coming out soon. It is called "Ten years of Tears" and features live recording made over the last ten years. It will be available on his current tour or shortly from his website. There are only 500 copies available so be quick.

Tracklisting is
1.Ladies and Gentlemen
2.St Michael My pet rat
3.Sleeping Beauty
4.Home
5.Mission Rock Resort
6.Aspirin
7. In You Life
8. Greeting Cards
9. To The Sea
10.No Easy way Down
11.Rehearsals For Retirement
12.My Father's Place
13.Heart and Soul
14.Blue and Grey Shirt
15.I've Been A Mess
16.Jesus’ Hands

More details as they emerge.

A review of California

Here is a nice overview of the Music Clubs album "California" from Julian Copes HeadHeritage site. The reviewer places it at the tail end of all those West Coast Hippy albums about that state which I am not sure I agree with. He also gives a nice track by track run down of it.

The site seems to have more going on than when I last looked at it. There seems to be more general content with reviews and features not necessarily about Mr Cope. Check it out.

Tour News

It seems the gig at Sheffield on 20 April has been cancelled. However the is now one at Loppen in Copenhagen on the 27th of April.

Eitzel v Mould

In a change for the usual news posts, today will be more of an opinion post. I was flicking through my iPod the other day and it struck me that two of my favourite singers were following rather similar career paths. The two chaps in question being Mark Eitzel and Bob Mould. As I see it, their careers go something like this.

• Start as singer in an influential underground band (American music Club and Husker Du respectively) that briefly flirt with success and major labels.
• Split the band up for music influence/ego problems.
• Get a reputation as a really miserable git. When "Black Sheets of Rain" came out the Guardian called Bob "the most miserable man in rock" and Mark of course wrote "If I Had a Gun".
• Release great debut solo album and then a series of patchy follow ups.
• In Bobs case, do the same again with a band call Sugar.
• Endlessly tour with solo acoustic shows.
• Come out of the closet, start hanging around clubs like Trade (or the US equivalent), think that Soft Cell are fab and re-invent yourself as a "electronic" artist.
• Release a series of electronic/dance albums to various amounts of critical praise.
• Finally make a decent comeback album. In Marks case it was "Love Songs for Patriots" and in Bobs case it was "Body of Song".

I just find it strange that the singers of my two fave bands of the late 80s/early 90s both had such similar career paths. They have both gone electronic and produced Pro-Tools albums though the albums have been most different. Marks are still singer/songwriter albums while Bobs still have that hint of power pop guitar in them.