| - Calexico -
 I first heard of AMC when playing with Kyle Brodie and Franklin Bruno of Nothing Painted Blue. It was our first tour of the states in a king cab pick up truck with four people crammed in like soggy ass sardines. Kyle put on some albums of the AMC and all relative lack of space seemed to be instantly relieved and the rest of the tour made more enjoyable.
I think that's what I identify most when I listen to their music. It reminds me of growing up on the California coast as a kid watching the sunsets over the Pacific Ocean and that same feeling hanging out in the Sonoran Desert outside my home in Tucson, Arizona.
The instrumentation is all about subtlety and instinct, to approach the technique innovatively and soulfully has always inspired me to follow down a similar path.
I met Mark Eitzel at the Columbia Hotel in London, a dive of a hotel, but somehow always seemed to give a feeling of heart from their late night front desk clerk with the
most infectious smile.
So it was early afternoon, and I recognized this silhouette sitting in a big comfy chair in front of a sun-filled window looking out over Hyde Park. He was wearing a hat and a goatee and I said hi. We just chatted a bit before both of us were out the door to our respective gigs.
A year later, John Convertino, Howe Gelb and I backed him up at a SXSW music festival in Austin. It was set up by our shared management at the time by Jackie Nalpant, and I really enjoyed learning his solo songs and material he had recored with Peter Buck. At the rehearsal in some tiny, smokey carpeted room, he went full throttle, as if just having wrote the song. He went into such a fury that he lost all control and hit his head on the microphone...the dude was punk rock,
but his voice always had a lot of soul. This combination is what fuelled the fire behind the AMC, Mark's solo works and what inspired us to cover their song "Chanel No. 5".
The song is so personal, and so clearly filled with imagery and emotion, that I didn't know if it would work. But we really enjoyed working on the song and bringing out that feeling of spaciousness and tension all wrapped into one.
Hope you enjoy. Thanks AMC and Thanks Mark. See you at The Columbia for an after hours drink.
Joey Burns
/ photo
: Laurent
Orseau
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