MARSHALL CRENSHAW HAS A FIELD DAY

MARSHALL CRENSHAW HAS A FIELD DAY

Karen Schlosberg

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What a guy. That phrase, always delivered with a flatter-than-thou Midwestern twang, is often bandied about within the Crenshaw camp. It could be used in jest or in earnest, to describe anyone from Roger Whittaker to Wayne Newton. It could also be used, while rockin’ around the studio in NYC, by any assorted Crenshaw— Marshall, Robert, or John—to describe each other, producer Steve Lilly white, manager Richard Sarbin (especially if he’s come equipped with per diem pay), engineer Scott Lift, or various passers-by within range.

What a guy. And what a year Marshall Crenshaw has had since his self-titled debut album was released in April of 1982, an album that caused a breakdown in rockcrit cynical reserve that may have only been surpassed by this year’s critical establishment camp following of Prince and Michael Jackson (which is no reflection on either’s music, just the rather humorous, if somewhat patronizing, reaction to it by the rock press). Besides charming the pants off the press, and winning various and sundry Best New Artist and Record of the Year awards in publications across the country, and placing very highly in Top 10 records of 1982 polls in many of the same publications, Marshall Crenshaw managed to make a respectable dent with the record-buying public, landing in the Top 50,'with a single, “Someday, Someway” (which had previously been a moderately successful FM hit with a cover by Robert Gordon) hitting the Top 40.

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was that Marshall Crenshaw actually deserved the praise. It’s a great album. This deceptively unassuming looking 29-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist has found a direct line between heart and music resulting in an album that was a joyful celebration of pop music at its purest. Not happy, but joyful—happy doesn’t give you goosebumps, but joy does.

The only drawback was that releasing a fully-formed album as a debut doesn’t leave a hell of a lot of options open as far as a second album is concerned. It wasn’t perfect, mind; the production (Richard Gotteher with Crenshaw) was a bit too thin, a bit too tinny, and not particularly representative of the band’s live sound. Marshall, brother Robert the human drum machine, qnd Chris Donato, bass player and honorary Cren‘ shaw, put on a live show that is as good a definition of rock ’n’ roll as if the band was, in fact, an undiscovered “roots” band of the mid-’50s, carving out a place in time with classics like “Someday, Someway,” “Cynical Girl,” “There She Goes Again,” and “Mary Anne”; and, ingenious rework, ings of .covers such as Elvis Presley’s “Got A Lot Of Livin’ To Do” and Conrad Birdie’s “Honestly Sincere” (about as good a case of art imitates life as you ban get).

Therefore, you find our heroes, early into the New Year,, pushing button^, twiddling knobs, sliding faders and generally looking for clues at the Power Station in New York, with English producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, XTC, Joan Armatradirtg, Psychedelic Furs, Ultravox, Peter Gabriel, Thompson Twins) at the helm. Someone, somewhere along the way, after hearing of this strange but inspired paring, jokingly commented, “U2 meets Buddy Holly.” well, yes and no.

“After hearing a lot of different things he’s done, it seemed to me that he could do most anything, that he had done just about everything, and that he didn’t have any one set way of working,” Marshall said of Lillywhite. “And then, after I had talked to him, I realized that he was a guy who would go to any extreme to get a sound, to fill up spade and make it pop. I knew he understood the idea of records as pure sound.” Marshall, a self-confessed “fanatic for sound,” mentions the bright tinkling sounds in U2’s “I Will Follow,” which have a lot to do with bottles thrown against a wall and bicycle spokes. “That’s ridiculous to do that. But that’s just the kind of person I wanted around. Someone who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘formality’ as far as making a record was concerned. •

“I really hate the realistic approach to recording rock ’n’ roll music. It’s like Iggy Pop says in his book—to him, good music should be like an hallucination. What’s important is just the impression of it, rather than the specific little notes and stuff like that. I think that’s really a great, simple explanation for a feeling that I share, too. It’s just the impression of the sound.”

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The sound of the new album; Field Day, is quite impressive. Though most of the songs are clearly in the Crenshaw style, they sound richer, more textured, and evocative and moody in a way that may surprise fans who are expecting, as manager Sarbin quipped, “Son Of Crenshaw.” Listening to it (loud, please—the better to absorb the sound) can be like an emotional therapy session, from “Our Town” ’s almost tangibly aching longing; the driving, dark and irresistibly doomy “One More Reason”; the earnest insistence of “Try”; the hallucinogenically ’60s feel of “What Time Is It?” (another inspired cover, from 1962, performed by the Jive Five and co-written by ex-Crenshaw producer Gottehrer); and ending with the optimistic and comforting “Hold It” (a better song to soothe depressed psyches has not been heard since the Kinks’ “Better Days”). This album generates enough goosebumps to warrant listening to it in a coat. “I think we got more onto the record of

what we really wanted to convey than we did last time,” says Marshall, who’s thoroughly pleased with Field Day. “I wanted to come up with tunes that would allow us to expand and develop our sound a little bit. We want to get more variety, more things integrated into our sound, and more contrast. ’Cause that’s all I can really do. That’s what I’m good at. My ideas aren’t necessarily original—and I don’t think anyone else’s are, either—it’s just a matter of how you balance this against that; how you create contrasts, which is what I think real rock ’n’ roll is about.” These contrasts were created very smoothly in the studio, with lots of peace on earth and goodwill towards men,

on earth and goodwill towards men, Heineken, cigarettes, cold pizza, tea, strong coffee, lots of different kinds of humor bouncing off the acoustically sound walls, and various artistic endeavors courtesy of Crenshaw John (one particularly pleasing work involved the total and graphic destruction, via poster, of the group Asia, dismembering members, adding eyes, gory scars and bleeding stumps). The three Crenshaw brothers I saw (there’s a fourth, Mitchell) have an unmistakable stamp of similarity, besides the

accent (“Accent? What accent?” asked bassist Donato innocently in deadly imitation twang), particularly in their faces, whiph still retain an element of open-faced boyish innocence that probably let them get away with a hell of a lot as kids, and probably still does. Robert, who’s heard “Stop tapping on the table” all his life, still does just that, on every available surface with any available instrument (Lillywhite once mentioned, in passing, Animal in The Muppet Show after listening to one of Robert’s drum parts). He taps with a lively, restless energy, and only seems relaxed when actually playing the drums. Marshall, spiffy one day in crisp pleated gray trousers and the next day sporting a Ted Nugent camouflage-style T-shirt, spent most of the time behind the board or behind

a mike, and could always be counted on for the dry remark, obscure media reference (Monty Python’s “crunchy frog”), and up34

“It’s just the way I am. I’m real obsessive about everything that on. But I thought

goes on. there was a really nice level of teamwork and cooperation between the three of us—I’m photos by tQura Levine

relying on Steve to be the final arbiter of things, and to keep a general reign over everything. Within those limits I try to get involved and oversee as much as I can, but in the end it was Steve who was running the show. It’s exactly the same as last time. That’s why I like having a producer there. It’s that guy’s job to draw everything out of me and make sure I’m doing it right, not copping out and being lazy.” Producer Lillywhite would draw the best

out of everyone with his near-trademark “And again!” (which would be mimicked by almost everyone). The 28-year-old Brit, who runs a close second to the Crenshaws in the boyish-good-looks category, is softspoken and calm, and though he’d never heard of Wayne Newton, he and the Yanks got along like the proverbial house on fire (with the occasioned Trans-Atlantic Terminology puzzle; “dodgy” had great amusement value to the Americans). “He talks funny. I can hardly understand word he says,” Marshall deadpans about

Lillywhite. “No, really, it was great working with him. It was a real lucky hunch. I felt like I nailed it that time, that the right thing happened at the right time with the right combination of pe;ople. That’s another reason why I like the record—everything just clicked. “I think there’s a tremendous difference between English and American recording

sensibilities. Anyone can hear that there is. think there’s a hell of a lot to be learned 'from the English approach to record making. I don’t really know how to account for it. It seems like English engineers have more awareness of traditional methods but at the same time have more of a willingness to experiment. Isn’t it strange, I mean, the British are supposed to be more reserved and more conservative, but in the recording field I find it to be the opposite—that Americans are much more constricted in the way they behave in the studio and less willing to just go completely balls out. “That’s another thing. People often ask, well, did you find it strange working with an English person, which is a really stupid

person, a question. I mean, English people and American people have cooperated on lots of things...World War II...before that, World War I. Lots of stuff.” Late one afternoon in a tape-strewn apartment in New York, Lillywhite, selfeffacing as always and nursing a slight day-

after-birthday hangover, talked about the album and producing in general. Marshall had sent him the first album, and Lillywhite’s first thought had been, “Why does this man want me to work with him?” Nothing on the album made him think that there was much he could have done with Marshall, so, Lillywhite says, “I immediately got interested just because of that reason.” After flying to D.C. to see the band perform, his mind was made up. Though this year has, so far, been very good to Lillywhite (U2’s War and Joan Armatrading’s The Key have received both critical and commercial success), one of the prerequisites for a project is that Lillywhite enjoys the people and the music. Lillywhite mentions a client he could have had. “This group Rush called me up,” he says, still sounding slightly amused. “I spoke to the manager and I suddenly saw lots of

"This group Rush called me up," he says, still sounding slightly amused. "I spoke to the manager and I suddenly saw lots of dollar signs in front of my face. How many records do these guys sell—millions, right? But then I realized, no, I couldn’t keep a straight face working with them.” And it wasn’t even so much a question of losing his rock ’n’ roll credibility, he continues “it’s more whether 1 could do them a good job, and I know, deep down in my heart, they’re the wprst group in the world. Or one of the worst. I was tempted, I must admit, but I stuck to my guns.”

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One of Lillywhite’s signatures is his drum sound, vast and alive and full. A-good drum sound “like death, or Armageddon. I don’t want to know about any record unless it’s got a drum that sounds like it’s a threat to your personal safety.”

Marshall writes from the beat upwards building a mood around that, and then, rather reluctantly, adding lyrics.

“The only idea behind the lyrics I write— well, I’m not being totally honest here—but the primary idea is to bring out whatever mood there is in the music. What I really want to do is create some kind of mood.”

What makes Field Day more successful in expressing moodiness is the sound, which is somewhat more than the sum its parts. First there was the song, then the singer became as important, in some cases more so, than the song. Now technology has raised sound to a level where sometimes the sound is more important than singer or song (next time you’re in a club, listen carefully to dance mixes). And the sound is more than just getting the right balance of voices and instruments, putting down the right amount of echo and EQing correctly. The sound can be as integral a part of the song as the words, melody and singer. Field Day, in many cases, takes pop music that one step further to create an almost threedimensional feel.

As Marshall would often say after a final mix was approved, “It doesn’t have to be any better than that.”

What a guy. '