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"I don't try to hang anybody up or get anybody over-involved in my
hang-ups. I don't try to bore people with my problems. The main thing I want
to do is play well and be there for people to respond to in any way they
want."
- Marshall Crenshaw
"Marshall Crenshaw offers the present pop generation no more and
no less than Buddy Holly offered an earlier one."
- Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker
"Will her heart ever be satisfied? There she goes again with another
guy."
- Marshall Crenshaw
Let's talk about it: 1982 has its first and probably
the finest brand new pop star in Marshall Crenshaw. An affable, reasonable,
quietly intelligent man of 28, he seldom drinks or takes drugs ("drugs
are a myth," he claims, "they don't do what they are supposed to do - help
you escape reality"), he has been happily married to his high school sweetheart
Ione for the past four years. "A creature of habit," he smiles, and a stable
person, his personality a balanced scale, not a pendulum. In fact Mr. Normal,
who Marshall would be if he hadn't spent his life obsessed with that "pop
music thing" and learned his obsession so thoroughly he can translate it
into gentle, harmonious, sprightly, addictive, late 50's-early 60's influenced,
modern pop tones.
The Crenshaw comparison is self-evident and worthy:
Buddy Holly. Good company and reaching further than Marshall's physical
similarity to Holly (or the Crenshaw Band's - brother Robert on drums,
Chris Donato on bass - Crickets-like line-up). It's one of desired impact
and emphasis; Marshall's songs are perfect unto themselves - melodies,
jaunty rhythms, super fine love lyrics and an exactly executed production
that gives the songs a final and finished veneer when put on vinyl. The
end result is a track like "Cynical Girl" from Marshall's debut album (on
Warner Bros.), where a Vox twelve string is overdubbed seven or eight times
and the vocals doubled and echoed to get the airy acoustic ambiance of
a Holly song like "Heartbeat" - not a replica, not a steal, but an update,
a feel.
OK! Let's talk about it! I meet Marshall for the
first time at Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan; he's just back from
an interview at WPLJ. I start the ball bouncing. Are you the next big thing?
"No, I'm not. That's jive. People shouldn't even
think about that. What's the next big thing? What does that mean? It means
nothing. People going around chasing the next big thing has fucked up their
ability to hear what's good in what's around them. Forget that and just
enjoy what there is for what it's worth. I don't want to be the next big
thing and whatever the next big thing is I don't want to know about it."
Marshall's emphasis of the point doesn't change the next big thing aura
around him, what with the superb long-player (co-produced by Richard Gottehrer
of Blondie and Go-Go's fame) catching a four-and-a-half star review from
the aging hippies at Rolling Stone, both Boz Scaggs and Robert Palmer
sending third-party feelers to see if Marshall would like to collaborate
with them, Lou Ann Barton's great cover of his "Brand New Lover," Robert
Gordon's radio hit with his "Someday, Someway," and a support slot on the
Dave Edmunds tour. That's without mentioning his long term (five years,
eight album option) contract with Bugs Bunny-land, or that v. famous rockcrit
John Rockwell forwarded some Crenshaw demos to unknown entity Linda Ronstadt.
This didn't happen overnight, however. Marshall
- the eldest of four boys - was brought up in Detroit and got the bug at
an early age. "My father had a guitar when I was a kid and I'd play with
it, pose around the house, drag it into the backyard, break the strings.
Stuff like that.
"My father finally got me my own guitar when I was
six, but I didn't really have the attention span then to try and play it.
By the time I was 10 I could play it fairly well. The first song I ever
wanted to play was 'Wild Weekend' and the guitar solo on 'Louie Louie,'
I thought that was the most incredible thing I ever heard." Marshall
despised high school: "I was really a terrible student and all but
dropped out by fifth grade. I shouldn't have been there, there was nothing
interesting going on and I was getting more aggravation than anything else."
He spent his time playing in school bands, listening to WKNR, and - an
avowed pacifist - staying out of trouble.
There was no way Marshall was going to go to college,
so he started the long list of cover bands. "I worked in an oldies
group called Danny and the Robots - by then my obsession with all things
rock 'n' roll was overwhelming, I couldn't even think of anything else.
But I didn't want to get into a bar band situation covering Uriah Heep
and Deep Purple, I couldn't get behind conveying that kind of sound, I
couldn't get into it on any level. Early 70's music like post-Woodstock,
I hated it, I hated every minute of it so I really dropped out from
'68 to '78 I didn't listen to anything modern. I'd listen to Al Green or
Todd Rundgren, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes or the O'Jays, but as far
as 70's rock is concerned it's all one song to me.
"I was playing country music or I was playing
rock 'n' roll. I like old country, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Webb Pierce,
Lefty Frizell, country swing. My most memorable gigs in Detroit were in
a bar with this guy from Memphis - he cut a couple of albums on Somian
- Jack Earls, and with an oldies band called the Winegrapers with whom
I played bass. I did a lot of things that weren't rock and I liked
that.
"And although I consider what I do now rock
music, I feel that our music is a denial of that 70's rock concept. We're
trying to circumvent all that stuff."
But before Marshall could start circumventing, there
was a unfortunate time when he ran a studio with some friends, a trip to
Los Angeles that left him broke and Beatlemania. "Ah yes, Beatlemania."
Crenshaw wearily re-tells the soon-to-be-legendary story of his recording
the Beatles 'I Saw Her Standing There' not-perfect with Robert on
drums, mailing it to the producers of Beatlemania, forgetting all
about it in the excitement of marrying Ione, and landing the role of John
Lennon in the touring company. "I could almost stand playing the early
Beatles songs because I have fond memories of the Beatles when they first
came out and that's when they made the strongest impact on me. I think
that string of singles from 'Please Please Me' to 'I Wanna Hold Your
Hand' is the most awesome thing they ever accomplished."
Marshall stuck it out for 18 months - until February
1980 - because the money was so good, "more than I'm making now, although
the possibilities today are far greater." Marshall moved to Manhattan where
he met up with his brother Robert, who was studying electronics and working
part-time at Richard Sarbin's studio. Richard became his manager, and when
the bassist was added the Marshall Crenshaw Band was formed, playing around
Manhattan's clubs and garnering great word of mouth (though I saw
then once and thought they were boring). Alan Betrock heard a Crenshaw-produced
demo and produced a 12" EP on his Shake Records. Richard Gottehrer heard
the demo as well, and suggested it to Robert Gordon.
There followed media attention from likes of Robert
Palmer in the New York Times and Andy Schwartz, editor of the highly
overrated New York Rocker (a marvelous story though). "We had one
solid offer from a label other than Warners and if we hung around we'd
have gotten more but I didn't really care about playing any waiting
games," Marshall explains. "I wanted to make an album and the faster
the better. I'd been waiting to make it for a year already, so when it
finally came down to a couple of solid offers I said 'enough now,
we don't need any more, we don't need to play this game any more,' so we
signed and got in the studio." In an unprecedented move, Warner Bros. allowed
Marshall to produce the album himself but after some trial and error he
decided it was too complex for him at that stage and got Richard to help
out. The album is easily the best debut since the dB's Stands For deciBles.
In the back of a rented car I trade my gossip
with the nicest manager it's been my good luck to meet, Richard Sarbin.
We're on the way to Passaic, New Jersey, where Marshall is playing support
for NRBQ and Dave Edmunds. "Marshall doesn't know the people at Warners
very well," admits Richard. "He's only met them like five times, the publicity
guys and parties. It's I who have to deal with them on a daily basis.
"The thing about big companies is that it's a two-edged
sword. If a record isn't going to break they won't spend the time to break
it the way an indie would, but their distribution and set-up as a whole
is much better. Obviously it's true that large companies are the same.
The individuals have to work for so many bands that they don't like, that
when they find one they do - like Marshall - they are superb and hard working
in their efforts." You betcha.
The Capitol is half empty when I sit down next
to two very pretty girls. "Are you with the Crenshaw crowd?" I enquire.
They sure are. Debbie Guardian is Robert Crenshaw's main squeeze, Amy Karanfilian
is John Crenshaw (another brother, who's head roadie. There's one more
Crenshaw, Mitchell, who lives in Texas)'s girlfriend: They are vivacious
and pleasant, and CREEM fans. I inform them of my love for the
album, but that when he played support for Tom Verlaine at the Ritz he
was pretty ordinary. They remember the concert and agree that it wasn't
his greatest - since the beginning of the year things have been getting
far better, though. They swing and dance once Marshall hits the stage.
But I'm less certain. Crenshaw suffers from the
dB's live syndrome: put simply, his songs in a live setting can't compare
to their vinyl exactness. Crenshaw tries to get around the problems by
roughening edges, rawing the sound, speeding the songs. In retrospect,
I enjoyed the concert more than I thought I did - there was at least
one moment when my reservations went out the stage door. Crenshaw did a
superb cover of Cliff Richard's "Move It," and I can forgive him much for
having such great taste. Still, I'm disappointed. The concert was filmed
by MTV (if you don't know who they are, check your old CREEMs for Toby
Goldstein's story). They shouldn't have bothered.
Later that night Marshall drives me back to Manhattan
in his '75 Volks. Like any two fanatics we discuss the subject we're fanatical
about: pop music. Trading heroes, and new discoveries, what will happen
and what might. CREEM and NME and rock criticism and Lester Bangs and ESG.
I tell him my niece, my sister-in-law and my (ex-) girlfriend all love
his work. "Girls like me more than guys do," he nods, "there's no macho
posturing in my work." There's no bitterness either. "No, closer to regret
then bitterness." Very humane music, actually. "I think if you hear
my album and you really listen, you can tell everything about me. My politics,
my beliefs," he ruefully smiles. "On the other hand, you can listen to
it just once and take it for what it is ... good music."
That's what it is, all right.
from
CREEM Magazine
September 1982