Published on May 15, 2003
I took
The Invisible Man with me to the gym I go to, where I blast
new albums on my walkman and try and think about them. I kept
having to turn it up. The Counting Crows and Train were jumping
into the spots between songs to say
“Hi! Remember us? Whaddaya mean, you’re trying to forget?
C’mon!” (I have an interesting story about Train and a very
delinquent studio bill for basic tracks on their debut owed to a
friend of mine, but that’s leaving the subject.) My fitness center
plays an endless stream of snoozer, diet-rock (s)hits from speakers
conveniently placed throughout the place, so you can flex your ass
muscles or whatever-noids in the mirror and hear (insert “safe”
band here) at the same time.
“The Boy With The Hammer in The Paper Bag” started this all off,
and the words “layers of gauze” and “blackness” and “oboe” kept
popping into my head, even though I’m pretty positive there isn’t
any woodwind action happening on
The Invisible Man. The “layers of gauze” and “blackness”
could just be me reaching for a quickie description of the album.
There are many, many layers to it, and I feel as though I could
spend the next three months writing about it and the crossing bits
out and changing them. I think “oboe” really refers to the immense,
grumous bass tones throughout the thirteen songs.
I have to admit to not knowing nearly as much as I should about
Eitzel’s old group, The American Music Club. I like ’em, but is
that enough? I own 1994’s
San Francisco, their swan song, and even brought it out of
my cd collection for reference, but I’ll just be honest and say I
don’t
really know jack shit about them. They’re often compared to
Red House Painters, another band I admire. Mark Kozelek (RHP) and
Mark Eitzel (AMC); probably both from another planet
altogether.
The Invisible Man is a murky, bottomless, mournful and deep
(thrilling) to me, but to Mark could have been “a bit too poppy”.
He’s an alien. What did you expect? Do they even have Aqua where he
comes from? Look at all the wonderful noises he’s missing.