Marshall Crenshaw

Live at Johnny D's, Somerville MA, December 12 2001

Chris Dahlen

If Marshall Crenshaw had played during the fifties he would have been a smash hit. While the pop fans of America have moved on to more sophisticated music such as repetitious techno, brainless teenie pop, and the brooding hard rock of Creed, Crenshaw keeps writing three-minute masterpieces with meaty hooks and straightahead lyrics. His angst-free songs are often just about getting or not getting the girl—but isn't that the most important thing in life? As the sold-out crowd at Johnny D's last week would agree, Crenshaw should be huge—but at least we get him to ourselves.

Crenshaw has been touring recently without a band. He accompanies himself on acoustic guitar, and at his show at Johnny D's last month he was joined by Dave Richards on upright bass. The largely middle-aged crowd enjoyed the pop sitting down, but that's not to say that he couldn't have turned this into a sock hop: we were too busy digging the songs. Crenshaw's current setlist covers his entire twenty year recording career, and it's impressive to hear how well the new tunes like "Television Light" play next to his signature songs "Cynical Girl" and "Someday, Someway." He also included his obligatory cover of a '50s song: this time, it was Marty Richards' "El Paso," and Crenshaw remembered almost all of the roughly eighty or ninety verses. It was almost as good as "The Girl on Death Row," which he covered the last time he played this club.

I caught Crenshaw playing alone last year, and although that was also a strong set, he benefits from playing with other people. Richards handled the rhythm parts and let Crenshaw play more loosely on the guitar; by himself, Crenshaw sometimes wrestles with playing too many parts at the same time, or gets a little distracted by his singing. With the bass player, he turned out well-arranged, effective chamber power pop. Crenshaw's vocals worked every drop out of the melodies on "There She Goes Again" and "T.M.D." Record buyers should be warned that his recent live album, I Suffered For My Art ... Now It's Your Turn, documented him on a night when his singing was rougher and more forced; it's a good album, but it's unfortunate that it didn't capture just how good he still sounds.

Related resources

Marshall Crenshaw's main site is run by a fan, and contains tour dates, photos, and old reviews and articles.