Mark Eitzel

Born in Walnut Creek, California in 1959, Mark Eitzel grows up across several countries before settling in San Francisco at the end of the 1970s, a central frame of his career. After early work in the groups Cowboys and then The Naked Skinnies, he forms American Music Club in 1982 and becomes its voice and principal songwriter, at the crossroads of indie rock, folk rock, and a highly narrative writing. With this group, first active until 1994 and later re-formed in the 2000s, he develops a sober and taut sound, made of guitars, melancholic ballads, and arrangements that draw as much from alternative rock as from country and chamber pop. In parallel, Mark Eitzel begins a solo career in the 1990s with Songs of Love in 1991 and then 60 Watt Silver Lining in 1996, followed by West in 1997, co-written with Peter Buck. His subsequent records show a more fluid format, from Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out ’Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby in 1998 to The Invisible Man in 2001, which introduces a more electronic approach, then The Ugly American in 2003, where songs from American Music Club are reinterpreted with Greek musicians. The rest of his career notably passes through Klamath in 2009, Don’t Be a Stranger in 2012 and Hey Mr Ferryman in 2017, maintaining an intimate writerly voice and a register between spoken word, orchestral folk, and slow rock.