Mark Eitzel

Mark Eitzel (born January 30, 1959) is best known as lead singer of the San Francisco band American Music Club. He was voted Rolling Stone's Songwriter of the Year in 1991. Eitzel's first solo album was the (now elusive) cassette-only 'Mean Mark Eitzel Gets Fat' (1982), which pre-dates his AMC work. He released a solo live album, Songs of Love Live in 1991, featuring raw and emotional acoustic versions of his best AMC songs. His first solo album proper was 1996's 60 Watt Silver Lining, a highly personal, jazz-inflected work.

Eitzel's first solo album was the (now elusive) cassette-only 'Mean Mark Eitzel Gets Fat' (1982), which pre-dates his AMC work. He released a solo live album, Songs of Love Live in 1991, featuring raw and emotional acoustic versions of his best AMC songs. His first solo album proper was 1996's 60 Watt Silver Lining, a highly personal, jazz-inflected work.

He went on to release albums of varying styles and quality, including another difficult-to-find effort in Lover's Leap USA, produced as a tour-only CD and notable for including two songs which Eitzel's own sleeve notes instruct the listener to skip past. This was followed by 1997's West, a collaboration with REM's Peter Buck, and the stark and harrowing Caught in a Trap and I Can't Back Out 'Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby in 1998. 2001 saw him take a new electronic direction with The Invisible Man, followed in 2002 by two covers projects: Music for Courage & Confidence and The Ugly American, which included re-interpretations of American Music Club songs by Eitzel and a traditional Greek band!

American Music Club reformed in 2003, and released an album, Love Songs For Patriots, as well as touring the United States and Europe. Eitzel released new solo material in 2005, Candy Ass, which saw a return to the electronic experimentation of The Invisible Man. A new AMC record, The Golden Age was released in February 2008.

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