Marshall Crenshaw
#447
On Sale Now
For $12.98

The take on Marshall Crenshaw has always been that he’s an under-appreciated master pop songsmith. But a sold out Rams Head crowd certainly sent a lot of appreciation his way during this hour and twenty minute set.

Even without his usual cracker jack band to back him up, the solo acoustic Crenshaw hit all the melodic highs of his nearly two decade long career. "Okay let’s bring on the rock," he said in his self-effacing way as he took a seat onstage with just his acoustic guitar. Newer songs from his two most recent studio records shared time with older classics that can now be heard anew on his recently reissued self-titled debut record and a new greatest hits package called This Is Easy.

The newer material was well-represented by "Television Light," "Tell Me All About It," and the funny "Dime A Dozen Guy" from last year’s #447. An encore version of "Starless Summer Sky" from 1996’s Miracle of Science was also a highlight. Crenshaw took issue with a critic who had once described "What Do You Dream Of" from that album as "forelorn as a teenager’s diary." "That’s somebody trying to project their own geekness onto me," he joked.

Of course one could argue "geek" isn’t that much of a stretch to describe Crenshaw. In his trademark hat and glasses, he still bears a resemblance to his hero Buddy Holly who he portrayed in the film "La Bamba" and whose music his is often compared to. And he talks in a voice somewhere between surfer dude and 60s hepcat. In many ways Crenshaw is the quintessential music geek, championing the pop music of the 50s and 60s he grew up with in an age in which shallow teen sensations and tattooed rap metal singers are all the rage. Crenshaw took great glee in introducing a cover of a Lee Hazelwood obscurity called "Girl on Death Row." He also worked in a couple of cocktail jazzy instrumentals, albeit one with a tape loop percussion part. The Left Banke’s "Walk Away Renee" also made an appearance during the encore. But it’s a song of more recent vintage that Crenshaw seems to get the most pleasure out of performing live, Dave Alvin’s rockabilly flavored "Wanda and Duane."

Crenshaw isn’t a virtuoso guitarist by any means and there were more than a few muffed chords over the course of the evening. But that mainly owes to the fact that his newer songs are intricately crafted pop songs with lots of chord and tempo changes and the older ones sound best played on an electric guitar with a backbeat behind them. Crenshaw’s brother Robert for many years provided that backbeat as Marshall’s drummer. He’s now a solo artist in his own right with a couple of albums to his name.

Of course it was mostly Crenshaw’s older songs that the crowd came to hear and he didn’t disappoint. The classic "Cynical Girl" made an early appearance. And he wrapped up his set with the early demo b-side "You’re My Favorite Waste of Time" and his lone early-MTV hit "Someday, Someway" which got the audience clapping along.

Opener Bruce Henderson is an Oklahoma native who, like Crenshaw, now makes his home in New York City. His well-observed songs of life on the road and the American west don’t quite have the pop hooks of Crenshaw’s work. But Henderson is at his best on songs like "Speed Rack" from his new record The Wheels Roll. A speed rack is a special shelf of potent potables behind the bar for the non-discriminating serious alcoholic. "You’re drinking from the speed rack of life/You know that all that rot-gut takes its toll," Henderson sings in a lived-in voice. The song was also included on a Henderson-produced record by the New York band The Hangdogs.

Check out some Marshall Crenshaw web sites:

www.marshallcrenshaw.com www.razorandtie.com

Copyright © 2008 ModernRock.com All Rights Reserved