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| This one felt most right... |
To think it all started with Beatlemania...which left the artist feeling conflicted...
The Hit
Marshall Crenshaw wrote “Someday, Someway” in only 30 minutes and it only strayed into “hit” territory (it topped out at No. 36), but it’s still a cool little tune by a largely forgotten singer/songwriter. He built it around Gene Vincent’s “Lotta Lovin’” (loosely), but made it his own:
“Crenshaw wanted to use the beat to create a hypnotic effect and wrote a new melody around it. The lyrics were described by Crenshaw as simple, but with a hidden depth; he later claimed that the lyrics had been influenced by the beginnings of his marriage.”
You’ll hear that slightly-fuzzed, reverb style guitar all over Crenshaw’s considerable catalog, but there’s definitely a better version of the single knocking around – e.g., The 9 Volt Years collection version. The studio version from his debut album is still a fine song...but, Lord, the crunch on that guitar on that 9 Volt version. Simple isn’t always better, but it sure as hell can be.
I remember seeing Crenshaw’s video on early MTV growing up, but only appreciate now just how far it went over my head. It’s a love song about the rarest subject of the form: the actual work of a relationship, as opposed to the fun shit of infatuation.
The Rest of the Story
“Although he was seen as a latter-day Buddy Holly at the outset, he soon proved too talented and original to be anyone but himself.”
- Trouser Press (quoted in Wikipedia)
Crenshaw was born in the Detroit, Michigan suburb of Berkley in 1953. There isn’t much about his childhood on the web, but he did mention how every high school seemed to have five or six bands. He formed his first band at age 15 – and it may or may not have been named “Astigfa” – an acronym for “A splendid time is guaranteed for all” borrowed from The Beatles’ “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” but the records show he played in that one. In any case, they played yard parties around the area before they could play the bars, and they played the bars after that. That carried Crenshaw to his early 20s, when he decided he wanted more.
A period of drifting followed, time where he looked for something to get him started. Because he wound up in New York when he did, some of that took place around the CBGBs/New York punk scene – which he remembers fondly – but it ended with a choice: a music school in Los Angeles and or a shot at actual paid work in the musical Beatlemania. Crenshaw went with Beatlemania/paying work and, after some time as an understudy in New York, he moved to the West Coast show and, later, the touring cast. That lasted a couple years before the charm of channeling John Lennon (the role he landed) wore thin. And, as noted above, he never got all the way comfortable with the gig (for what it’s worth, the Classicbands.com interview has good material on this, e.g., saying he would have left the show the same night had the real John Lennon actually walked in).
He squeezed songwriting into his down time through this two years and, by the end of it, had a good feeling about his sound and direction. He shopped demos (as one does; these are The 9 Volt Years recordings, apparently) and landed with an independent label called Shake Records. Run by Alan Betroc, it put out some famous material (if for the right crowd - e.g., Blondie’s first demos, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and, later, The Smithereens), but the only song noted from Crenshaw was “Something’s Gonna Happen” (which, for the record, explores the “fun shit of infatuation,” just not with the one that brung ya). Warner Bros. picked him up from there.
Despite coming out the year before and moving some units (for a “neo-rockabilly musician” named Robert Gordon), “Someday, Someway” carried Crenshaw’s 1982 eponymous debut album. It did all right on the charts, cracking No. 50, but he remembers having more success with the college radio crowd. It dished a couple more singles – e.g., “There She Goes Again” (but not the one you think...or this one; and he's right about the production), “Cynical Girl” and “Mary Anne” – and received some critical accolades (including Rolling Stone ranking it “one of the top 100 albums of the 1980s” years later), but Crenshaw still doesn’t care for the production. When the time came to record a follow up, Warner Bros. connected Crenshaw with English producer Steve Lillywhite (who has considerable credits to his name) who guided him through what became 1983’s Field Day. Crenshaw still likes the production on that album better, but it fell just short of his debut album’s high-water mark. The returns got slimmer with each album he released for Warner – e.g., 1985’s Downtown, 1987’s Mary Jean & 9 Others, and 1989’s Good Evening – and the relationship deteriorated until it petered out. In fact, he stuffed that last album with covers due to “his lack of faith in the album and his label.” And yet you can make a case that Crenshaw’s real, ongoing career happened outside of that.
Without intending to present it as anything linear, Crenshaw wound up in a couple movies - .e.g., 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married and 1987’s La Bamba, where he played (yes) Buddy Holly and recorded a version of Holly’s “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” for the soundtrack. A couple more acting credits followed – he played a “guitar-playing meter reader” on an episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and has a cameo in the video for Yo La Tengo’s “Tom Courtney” (solid call-back, btw) – and he co-wrote a song with the Gin Blossoms’ Jesse Valenzuela and Robin Wilson for the Empire Records soundtrack (“Till I Hear It From You”). All that sounds like a lark because music remains at the heart of what he does.
The Hit
Marshall Crenshaw wrote “Someday, Someway” in only 30 minutes and it only strayed into “hit” territory (it topped out at No. 36), but it’s still a cool little tune by a largely forgotten singer/songwriter. He built it around Gene Vincent’s “Lotta Lovin’” (loosely), but made it his own:
“Crenshaw wanted to use the beat to create a hypnotic effect and wrote a new melody around it. The lyrics were described by Crenshaw as simple, but with a hidden depth; he later claimed that the lyrics had been influenced by the beginnings of his marriage.”
You’ll hear that slightly-fuzzed, reverb style guitar all over Crenshaw’s considerable catalog, but there’s definitely a better version of the single knocking around – e.g., The 9 Volt Years collection version. The studio version from his debut album is still a fine song...but, Lord, the crunch on that guitar on that 9 Volt version. Simple isn’t always better, but it sure as hell can be.
I remember seeing Crenshaw’s video on early MTV growing up, but only appreciate now just how far it went over my head. It’s a love song about the rarest subject of the form: the actual work of a relationship, as opposed to the fun shit of infatuation.
The Rest of the Story
“Although he was seen as a latter-day Buddy Holly at the outset, he soon proved too talented and original to be anyone but himself.”
- Trouser Press (quoted in Wikipedia)
Crenshaw was born in the Detroit, Michigan suburb of Berkley in 1953. There isn’t much about his childhood on the web, but he did mention how every high school seemed to have five or six bands. He formed his first band at age 15 – and it may or may not have been named “Astigfa” – an acronym for “A splendid time is guaranteed for all” borrowed from The Beatles’ “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” but the records show he played in that one. In any case, they played yard parties around the area before they could play the bars, and they played the bars after that. That carried Crenshaw to his early 20s, when he decided he wanted more.
A period of drifting followed, time where he looked for something to get him started. Because he wound up in New York when he did, some of that took place around the CBGBs/New York punk scene – which he remembers fondly – but it ended with a choice: a music school in Los Angeles and or a shot at actual paid work in the musical Beatlemania. Crenshaw went with Beatlemania/paying work and, after some time as an understudy in New York, he moved to the West Coast show and, later, the touring cast. That lasted a couple years before the charm of channeling John Lennon (the role he landed) wore thin. And, as noted above, he never got all the way comfortable with the gig (for what it’s worth, the Classicbands.com interview has good material on this, e.g., saying he would have left the show the same night had the real John Lennon actually walked in).
He squeezed songwriting into his down time through this two years and, by the end of it, had a good feeling about his sound and direction. He shopped demos (as one does; these are The 9 Volt Years recordings, apparently) and landed with an independent label called Shake Records. Run by Alan Betroc, it put out some famous material (if for the right crowd - e.g., Blondie’s first demos, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and, later, The Smithereens), but the only song noted from Crenshaw was “Something’s Gonna Happen” (which, for the record, explores the “fun shit of infatuation,” just not with the one that brung ya). Warner Bros. picked him up from there.
Despite coming out the year before and moving some units (for a “neo-rockabilly musician” named Robert Gordon), “Someday, Someway” carried Crenshaw’s 1982 eponymous debut album. It did all right on the charts, cracking No. 50, but he remembers having more success with the college radio crowd. It dished a couple more singles – e.g., “There She Goes Again” (but not the one you think...or this one; and he's right about the production), “Cynical Girl” and “Mary Anne” – and received some critical accolades (including Rolling Stone ranking it “one of the top 100 albums of the 1980s” years later), but Crenshaw still doesn’t care for the production. When the time came to record a follow up, Warner Bros. connected Crenshaw with English producer Steve Lillywhite (who has considerable credits to his name) who guided him through what became 1983’s Field Day. Crenshaw still likes the production on that album better, but it fell just short of his debut album’s high-water mark. The returns got slimmer with each album he released for Warner – e.g., 1985’s Downtown, 1987’s Mary Jean & 9 Others, and 1989’s Good Evening – and the relationship deteriorated until it petered out. In fact, he stuffed that last album with covers due to “his lack of faith in the album and his label.” And yet you can make a case that Crenshaw’s real, ongoing career happened outside of that.
Without intending to present it as anything linear, Crenshaw wound up in a couple movies - .e.g., 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married and 1987’s La Bamba, where he played (yes) Buddy Holly and recorded a version of Holly’s “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” for the soundtrack. A couple more acting credits followed – he played a “guitar-playing meter reader” on an episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and has a cameo in the video for Yo La Tengo’s “Tom Courtney” (solid call-back, btw) – and he co-wrote a song with the Gin Blossoms’ Jesse Valenzuela and Robin Wilson for the Empire Records soundtrack (“Till I Hear It From You”). All that sounds like a lark because music remains at the heart of what he does.
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| From the WFUV promo. Maybe. |
He release new material into the 2010s, some for labels (e.g., 1991’s Life’s Too Short and 1996’s Miracle of Science), some on his own (#447 (1999), What’s in the Bag (2003) and Jaggedland (2009)), plus a pretty solid collection of songs recorded between 2013 and 2015 released as #392: The EP Collection. Nearly all of that sounds like Marshall Crenshaw, and that’s by no means a bad thing (and just has to be your thing), but the post/late-career thing he did that most interested me was his radio show, The Bottomless Pit, which broadcast on New York City’s WFUV from 2011 to 2017. For a taste of how it worked, here’s Classicbands.com:
“I play stuff from my own personal record collection. Not records I've made myself, but records that I've bought myself. So, I play these and talk. I love doing it and it's really an interesting show. It's a good time for everybody, including me.”
And:
“I might play records back in the '20s or I might play Bootsy Collins' new record or Thurston Moore's new record. It's not just sort of a random thing, there's always some sort of agenda behind all the shows. It's never just purely random.”
As a musician, he can still find an audience, even if it isn’t always a big one, and that kind of speaks to where he lands on the genre spectrum - i.e., college rock, a bit niche, and so on, just don’t call it “power pop” because “the term does have sort of a dodgy connotation.” He happened to write a hit – and he’s happy for the royalties from that, and from soundtrack work (he co-wrote the theme John C. Reilly sings in Walk Hard) – but Crenshaw never laid down a sound for the masses. And, by all indications, he never wanted to.
Sources
Wikipedia – Marshall Crenshaw
Wikipedia – Steve Lillywhite
Classicbands.com Interview
Please Kill Me Interview (2020; pretty good, esp. on his early days in Michigan/NYC scenes)
1991 appearance on David Letterman (gives a good sense of his idiom)
About the Sampler
Given some notes in the above, the fact the playlist is heavy with The 9 Volt Years should surprise no one. I already linked to a couple above, but the others include “Run Back to You,” “That’s It, I Quit, I’m Movin’ on,” an instrumental with a ton of personality called “Stay Fabulous,” and, finally, my personal favorite (and I really love this one), “You’re My Favorite Waste of Time.” (My wife hates this song and it bugs me.)
Because Spotify doesn’t have the rights to (or the interest in?) the original Warner Bros. albums, the rest of the sampler comes from Marshall Crenshaw’s second career. In no particular order – and I think these are all solid songs for the right kind of people:
“Better Back Off” and “Face of Fashion” (Life’s Too Short); “Theme from Flaregun,” “The In Crowd” and, in a tribute to how well he gets around certain parts of the music world (e.g., he subbed on guitar for the MC5), his cover of Grant Hart’s “Twenty-Five Forty-One” (from Miracle of Science); “Tell Me All About It” (#447, ach, the opening); the rootsy “Someone Told Me” and one that comes from as close to out of left field as Crenshaw gets, “Jaggedland” (Jaggedland); and, finally, my favorite from #392: The EP Collection (which I’ve got to circle back to), “Driving and Dreaming.”
If I’d heard anything from Marshall Crenshaw besides the hit before last week, I don’t remember it. After a week of listening, I’d recommend him to anyone...well, anyone over 30.
Till the next one. Who I think more people will recognize.
“I play stuff from my own personal record collection. Not records I've made myself, but records that I've bought myself. So, I play these and talk. I love doing it and it's really an interesting show. It's a good time for everybody, including me.”
And:
“I might play records back in the '20s or I might play Bootsy Collins' new record or Thurston Moore's new record. It's not just sort of a random thing, there's always some sort of agenda behind all the shows. It's never just purely random.”
As a musician, he can still find an audience, even if it isn’t always a big one, and that kind of speaks to where he lands on the genre spectrum - i.e., college rock, a bit niche, and so on, just don’t call it “power pop” because “the term does have sort of a dodgy connotation.” He happened to write a hit – and he’s happy for the royalties from that, and from soundtrack work (he co-wrote the theme John C. Reilly sings in Walk Hard) – but Crenshaw never laid down a sound for the masses. And, by all indications, he never wanted to.
Sources
Wikipedia – Marshall Crenshaw
Wikipedia – Steve Lillywhite
Classicbands.com Interview
Please Kill Me Interview (2020; pretty good, esp. on his early days in Michigan/NYC scenes)
1991 appearance on David Letterman (gives a good sense of his idiom)
About the Sampler
Given some notes in the above, the fact the playlist is heavy with The 9 Volt Years should surprise no one. I already linked to a couple above, but the others include “Run Back to You,” “That’s It, I Quit, I’m Movin’ on,” an instrumental with a ton of personality called “Stay Fabulous,” and, finally, my personal favorite (and I really love this one), “You’re My Favorite Waste of Time.” (My wife hates this song and it bugs me.)
Because Spotify doesn’t have the rights to (or the interest in?) the original Warner Bros. albums, the rest of the sampler comes from Marshall Crenshaw’s second career. In no particular order – and I think these are all solid songs for the right kind of people:
“Better Back Off” and “Face of Fashion” (Life’s Too Short); “Theme from Flaregun,” “The In Crowd” and, in a tribute to how well he gets around certain parts of the music world (e.g., he subbed on guitar for the MC5), his cover of Grant Hart’s “Twenty-Five Forty-One” (from Miracle of Science); “Tell Me All About It” (#447, ach, the opening); the rootsy “Someone Told Me” and one that comes from as close to out of left field as Crenshaw gets, “Jaggedland” (Jaggedland); and, finally, my favorite from #392: The EP Collection (which I’ve got to circle back to), “Driving and Dreaming.”
If I’d heard anything from Marshall Crenshaw besides the hit before last week, I don’t remember it. After a week of listening, I’d recommend him to anyone...well, anyone over 30.
Till the next one. Who I think more people will recognize.
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