Marshall Crenshaw: The 9-Volt Years
Marshall Crenshaw sings like Buddy Holly yelling, sort of lightly tortured, and he writes a melody to sing with that invariably kills. This is the man who wrote the chart hit in the early 80s Someday Someway - pure rock and roll like Stray Cats, and melodic like Elvis Costello meets McCartney.* Someday, Someway is on this record, by the way; The 9 Volt Years... is a collection.
If Marshall Crenshaw has a flaw (excuse me), it is a tendency to over-produce. When it works, it makes great radio rock; and when it doesn't, his songs wind up sounding like bad radio rock. So the fact that this is a collection of demos and live things, unreleased b-sides and radio show recordings, is a good thing. Unadorned, Crenshaw is shown for the master rock n roller he is.
Excuse me while I fawn. But it's hard to pick at Marshall Crenshaw - he's so cute! He writes with his brother and loves his wife. He sings love songs. He writes songs for the radio, but he isn't stupid, and he can really play his guitar: If music as good as Crenshaw's was what was on the radio, I probably wouldn't hate it. You're My Favourite Waste of Time, famous B-Side, is here, as is a nice redo of Vague Memory. There are two instumental pieces, which with Crenshaw is always a good thing: his solos are melodic and tasty, and one can easily handle three or four minutes of them.
Here's another dumb thing I like about Crenshaw: that he included a sound bite from a show just because he makes a good joke in it; that he even gives this a track number and title. Track 11, The Thrill of the Fight, consists of a show-closing line by himself: "...remember, it's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight! Thank you very much! Goodnight!" Is that worth a track? one might ask. Apparently yes. It's a good joke.
As you'd imagine, 9 Volt is very lo-fi. Recorded in Crenshaw's living room, a good number of the songs consist of clapping hands, guitars, a toy piano and a great sounding stolen field drum. The sound is crazy, but really agreeable. I wish Crenshaw would do all of his stuff like this.
*Weelll, like McCartney and Costello would have written if they'd met in 1979. They did write together in the mid late 80s. It was no big deal; but then, neither were they, by then.
Marshall Crenshaw: The 9 Volt Years. Razor and Tie, 1998. Review by Jeff Clayton. 3rd issue, July 2001.