American Hamburger Club

"Drunk on the kind of applause / That gets louder the lower you sink"
Mark Eitzel with American Music Club from "Gratitude Walks"

The new Neil Hamburger ...Sings Country Greats mixes comedic country songs with a few covers, John Entwistle's suicidal "Thinkin' It Over" and American Music Club's "The Hula Maiden". While I could see Hamburger having a few solo Who 8 tracks piled up by his console stereo, his selection of "The Hula Maiden" shows a certain amount of self awareness. He admits he is not actually a just a struggling comedian doing a country album in a jokey "I can't sing" sing-song style but that he is a guy who could and would select and sing an obscure indie rock number from a very obscure release from quite a number of years back. This may be the first instance of Hamburger winking at the audience. We now know that he is also "in on the joke."

Neil Hamburger's lifetime of misery illuminates the song from the inside, it also submarines the Mark Eitzel sad clown image in a way that all the funny lyrics Eitzel has written couldn't do. But do we want Eitzel to remain a person and Hamburger a character? Can Neil Hamburger be taken solely as a humorous creation? I think a certain amount of empathy has to be formed. Aren't we rooting for him to pull it together and become a successful comedian? Because he can't sink any lower than he has.

Neil Hamburger also sounds a lot like Doc Dart throughout this disc and the more melodic leanings of the Crucifuck's Wisconsin album- a masterpiece. Doc Dart (nie 26) sings country greats is a concept I could get behind.

Neil Hamburger - The Hula Maiden mp3