Marshall Crenshaw first came onto the scene in 1981 with the release of his first single, “Something’s Gonna Happen.” And it did. Crenshaw’s career took off, and escalated exponentially quite rapidly with the release of his self-titled debut album in 1982, and the equally sublime Field Day in 1983. Since then, Crenshaw has come back down to earth in terms of his career, eventually leaving major record labels, and recording a series of independently-released albums, albeit always continuing to validate his artistic credibility. After 30 years, the one constant in Crenshaw’s career is that the man writes built-to-last classic melodies, which have their home in the roots of the past, but always with an eye for a timeless future, or a style he helped create and name, “retro futurism.”
Jambands.com caught up with the artist en route to his first rehearsal with Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, who will accompany Crenshaw for three shows in New York later this month. Crenshaw is a plain-spoken man who doesn’t dodge either the self-reflective criticism, or his opinion of his lasting mark on a musical culture, which has seen its fair share of change and evolution over the years, but not without finding a home for someone of the singer/guitarist’s caliber. Indeed, Crenshaw’s music can still evoke memories of a more innocent, romantic, and sincere time, but what is so refreshing is that they are all qualities that he has seduced with an instinctual knowledge, rather than some affected posture like so many of his other peers seeking critical and commercial validity.
RR: You’re playing a series of gigs at New York’s City Winery at the end of April, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of your first single, “Something’s Gonna Happen.” Included in your band is the esteemed guitarist, Ira Kaplan from Yo La Tengo. How did you select that venue and the musicians to play these special dates?
MC: The City Winery has turned into my clubhouse. I think of it that way. I play there a lot now, and I’ve had a good turnout at all of those shows. I used to play at the Bottom Line all the time, and most always had the place full whenever I played there. But the other cool thing about it was that I could just walk to the front door any time I wanted, and say, “Here I am,” and they would bring me in and put me at a table. Whenever I would go there, I would run into friends of mine, and it would be like a really nice social experience. When the Bottom Line closed down, I was at sea for a while in New York with no particular fixed address. But now the City Winery…it’s like the theme song from Cheers plays in my head whenever I walk into that place. I mean I think of it that way; it’s a very friendly spot for me, now. I’ve played there a bunch in the last couple years, so it was the right place for me to do this.
As far as who is in the band, my brother, [drummer Robert Crenshaw] is going to be there for a couple of nights. I don’t think he’ll be there for all three shows. They are actually talking to me now about possibly adding a fourth, but I’m not sure I want to do it. Robert will be with us on Friday and Saturday. Graham Maby is the bass player. He started playing with us back in 1987, and that is a situation that has continued right up
until now. Graham is a great friend. He’s not just a friend of mine, but he’s also a friend of my family. Like if he is down in Dallas, Texas with Joe Jackson, or somebody, he’ll call my brother, Mitchell, and invite him and his wife to the show. He’s friendly with my parents. He’s almost like a family member. That may be a slight exaggeration, but Graham is just somebody that we’re just very close with, so he’s the right guy for that.
[Graham] recommended a drummer who he has worked with lately who he thinks is really special, and this guy’s name is Josh Dion, so he’s going to be there. My brother’s going to play also, and the first couple of nights, it’s going to be two drummers—my brother John on percussion, and myself on guitar, and Ira from Yo La Tengo on guitar. Ira is going to be there for all the shows.
RR: I love the combination of players because you’ve got a mixture from different eras—Graham Maby dates back to the Mary Jean & Nine Others era of your career, your brother is your original drummer, and, of course, there is Ira Kaplan, who is new to your band for these series of dates. What is your connection with Ira?
MC: Well, this will be the first time we’ve played together. I have become a really big fan of Yo La Tengo over the last five or six years. I love him, in fact, and I was trying to think of someone who could fill out the band, someone who could come in there and add some spice to the whole thing, and I just thought of him. I’m on my way to the first rehearsal with him, so I don’t know exactly what we’re going to ultimately end up with, but I imagine he might say, “How about a keyboard on this song? A Farfisa organ?” I imagine anything is possible. There are a lot of possibilities there with him. I just think it will be cool. We’re not going to get out there, and do any note-for-note copies of any of this stuff. I want it to be exciting and of the moment. Hopefully, it’ll be like that. It’ll be a lot of excitement and spontaneity. I really want that.
RR: Whose idea was it to play this celebration of your 30th anniversary, which includes a full reading of your self-titled debut album?
MC: I’ve been candid about this right from the start, and I’ll tell you this—it wasn’t my idea, initially. It was my manager’s idea. He said, “Why don’t we do this? This would be cool. How about a 30th anniversary show?” And when he first hit me with this idea, I said, “Really?” and I was gritting my teeth. And then I said, “My first album came out in April of ’82, so, great, talk to me in 2012.” But I thought about it again, and I started to dig the idea. I remembered “Something’s Gonna Happen” came out in ’81, and then we started working on our first album at the end of ’81, so this genuinely is the 30th anniversary year of my beginnings as a recording artist. I thought, “It’s valid,” and I just wanted to do it. It took me a couple of days, but it sunk in on me, and I thought that it would be a really cool thing to do, so that was it.
RR: It is the 30th anniversary of your first single, and when I think of the recording industry now, there is definitely an emphasis on the single, again, in terms of the way the listener either acquires their music, or listens to music. What is interesting is that when you got into music in the beginning, you were going back to an age when there was more focus on the song as a singular force with your own music. You were returning to pop melodies as a song structure because at that time, music was becoming a little abstract, and losing the point. Is any of that true?
MC: Yeah, it’s true. I had this notion in my mind of a retro futurism thing. I grew up in the Detroit area, and it used to disturb me a lot to see how quick people were to throw things away, and tear buildings down. It just seemed like for so many years in the Detroit area people just loved to blow up buildings, and get rid of old buildings, and put up McDonald’s in their place. I remember seeing that happen many times in the Detroit area.
Now, this sounds crazy because every single thing you can think of is available at the touch of a button. You can go on YouTube and you can see anything you can think of like the earliest known film footage is right there in front of you. Any song from the whole history of recorded music—boom; I went on iTunes a while ago, and I bought some recordings from a guy called Billy Murray who was one of the first recording stars back in 1906.
But when I was in my late teens, early 20s, I was just trying to find my way in the world. I was just trying to construct some kind of worldview, and find things to feel connected with, and I always felt really strongly connected with the music I had grown up with. It was real fresh in my mind. I don’t know; it’s just a mental quirk of mine, but music is something that my mind can process really well.
That is where I was coming from back then. I think there were a lot of other people who had the same thought. Maybe, there was some kind of a whole movement right at that moment to try to say, “Let’s preserve the past and still go forward with our culture.” That was like a new idea at that time. It isn’t anymore. That’s how people think now, but in the beginning of my recording career, that was like a fresh idea.
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