The Golden Age

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The Golden Age
AMC-Golden.jpg
Studio album by American Music Club
Released February 19, 2008
Label Merge Records (US) / Cooking Vinyl (UK)
Producer Dave Trumfio
American Music Club chronology

A Toast To You
(2005) 		The Golden Age
(2008) 		Atwater Afternoon
(2008)

The Golden Age is the 9th studio album[1] from American Music Club. The album is the band's second after a 10-year hiatus that ended with the release of 2004's Love Songs For Patriots.[2] The album is an effort by the band to experiment more in their music.[3] The album was produced by Dave Trumfio, who has also worked for bands such as Wilco and My Morning Jacket.[4]

"The Sleeping Beauty" is a re-working of "Sleeping Beauty" from Mark Eitzel's 2005 solo album, Candy Ass.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic4/5 stars[5]
Pitchfork Media(7.7/10)[6]

The album was released to generally positive critical reviews with a score of 80 (out of 100) on Metacritic.[7]

Recording

The album was recorded over two months at Kingsize Soundlabs in Los Angeles with Dave Trumfio, who also recorded Wilco's Summerteeth album. Mark Eitzel began writing the songs that appear on The Golden Age in 2005, though recording didn't begin until 2007.[8]

Noting that this album wasn't really American Music Club without Tim Mooney, Danny Pearson or Bruce Kaphan, Eitzel told San Francisco Weekly, "We wanted to call this the MacArthur Park Music Club. I went to the record label, and I said I had a band with Vudi. And they were like, 'no.' I found out: I can get paid this much if I called it American Music Club, this much if MacArthur Park Music Club, and this much if we call it the Mark Eitzel band."[9]

Eitzel told Prefix, "We did that (previous) American Music Club record, and it was basically me, Tim, and Danny working in San Francisco and flying Vudi and the keyboard player up on the weekends. We’d fly Vudi up and he’d do fifty takes and I’d edit them into a part, and I really didn’t want to do that again on this record. Vudi is a slow burn: He comes up with ideas after a while, and you really want those ideas, because he’s a genius. On the next record, I basically said, 'Well, I don’t want to make a record like we did last time. I want to make a record with Vudi in L.A.' Vudi drives a city bus, and he couldn’t move. And those guys (Mooney and Pearson) were like, 'Yeah, sure, great,' and then I couldn’t get them on the phone for about eight months for various reasons. I finally called Vudi and said, 'Look dude, I’m coming to L.A. I’ve got these songs and I want you to hear them.' The thing with Vudi is that he just gives me so much hope when I play him my songs, he’s like, 'Oh! Oh, we can do this...' Even my shittiest songs — like a song I had called 'You’re So Eva' - 'So very Eva Braun….' It was a horrible song, but even that one, he was like, 'Oh, this works!' As long as Vudi is in the room it kinda works. It had to be Vudi. He got these two guys (bassist Sean Hoffman and drummer Steve Didelot). As soon as I played with them it felt more like a band than American Music Club had felt in years.”[10]

Track listing

  1. "All My Love" (5:10)
  2. "The John Berchman Victory Choir" (2:53)
  3. "The Decibels And The Little Pills" (5:41)
  4. "The Sleeping Beauty" (3:58)
  5. "The Stars" (5:17)
  6. "All The Lost Souls Welcome You To San Francisco" (2:43)
  7. "Who You Are" (4:31)
  8. "Windows On The World" (6:11)
  9. "One Step Ahead" (3:33)
  10. "The Dance" (3:17)
  11. "I Know That's Not Really You" (3:52)
  12. "On My Way" (5:13)
  13. "The Grand Duchess Of San Francisco" (2:46)

Personnel

American Music Club
  • Mark Eitzel - vocals, guitars, keyboards, additional production & editing
  • Vudi - guitars, accordion, keyboards
  • Sean Hoffman - bass guitar, backing vocals, guitar
  • Steve Didelot - drums, percussion, backing vocals, guitar
Additional performers
Technical

References

  1. ↑ "American Music Club : Discography : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2008-12-22. 
  2. ↑ Howe, Brian (2008-02-20). "The Golden Age". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 
  3. ↑ "Editorial Reviews-Amazon.com". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-08-27. 
  4. ↑ Pia, Camilla. "American Music Club - The Golden Age (Cooking Vinyl)". MusicOMH. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 
  5. ↑ Allmusic review
  6. ↑ Pitchfork Media review
  7. ↑ "American Music Club: The Golden Age (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 
  8. ↑ "American Music Club" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-12-21. 
  9. ↑ Sanders, Mark (February 13, 2008). "American Music Club's San Francisco Fixation". SF Weekly. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Newspaper Co. Retrieved January 16, 2018. 
  10. ↑ Jim Allen (April 1, 2008). "Mark Eitzel: Interview". Prefix. Retrieved June 16, 2017. 

External links

Retrieved from "http://americanmusicclub.com/index.php?title=The_Golden_Age&oldid=29777"