There’s a lot to be said for an artist making an audience feel uncomfortable. Richard Thompson used to say that he considered it sound practice to keep punters ill at ease and on their toes. Mark Eitzel would probably agree, although it’s never been entirely clear whether the nervous exhaustion he induces among his fans is deliberate or unintended. Mercurial is one way of describing his on-stage aura. Volatile and unpredictable others.
The first time I saw Eitzel perform, in 1993, he was still the singer in the great San Francisco group, American Music Club. That night, he drank a pint of whisky and returned for the encore with a slice of processed ham stuck to his forehead. He shouted at the sound engineer, threw his microphone to the ground and perched on the edge of the stage to sing and play without amplification.
Eitzel seemed forever to be teetering an inch from oblivion, and the queasiness was infectious. The next time I saw AMC I was left so discombobulated I walked straight into a heavy glass door five minutes after departing the venue.
Those were the days when Rolling Stone magazine was calling Eitzel the greatest songwriter of the age, and American Music Club were taking a (doomed) tilt at major-label success. In the real world, Eitzel was never going to seduce the mainstream. His songs are peopled with strippers, addicts, alcoholics, self-loathing musicians and lovers in variously advanced stages of disarray, while his big, wounded voice carries an ingrained sob. The setlist in Glasgow told its own story: ‘I’ve Been A Mess’; ‘Why Won’t You Stay’; ‘Will You Find Me?’.
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