| - Portastatic
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 Exactly halfway through the first Superchunk tour of the US (this is 1990
I think), just before leaving Seattle we stopped in at the record store owned by our friend Nils Bernstein, in search of cheap cassettes to get us through the snowy Seattle-Minneapolis haul.
Nils made a gift of a pre-recorded tape of AMC's "California". We listened to the tape over and over again, at least while I was driving. I had heard the name American Music Club from Homestead compilations, Dust Devils liner notes, and other obscure places, but never really knew what the band was about. My first impression was that the music was surprisingly straightforward, almost slick compared to most "indie rock" of the time, but the songs were so striking that the setting didn't seem to matter, an impression later born out by the equally affecting and completely raw "Songs Of Love live" album.
The version of "Firefly" from that live solo album is maybe what I think of when I think of this song, along with versions I have witnessed live over the years, with the fabulous AMC and solo both. For as great as the studio records are, the edge of Eitzel's live performance and the way, like most great singer/songwriters who are also great performers (eg Bruce Springsteen, Martin Phillips) he seems to re-live the situation that first inspired the song each time he performs it, are difficult to capture in the studio I think.
Anyway it's a great song and I've taken a fairly odd approach (for me anyway) to covering "Firefly" since any version of the song that seems to try and approximate any AMC or Eitzel version will come up woefully short of the percieved target. And I always thought Mark could write a great disco record.
Mac McCaughan
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