appropriate
I borrowed Good Evening from the radio station archives. Despite the collaborations, Diane Warren song (later to become the huge Carrie Underwood hit), and hired guns, it's one of his best.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 26 August 2016 20:31 (seven years ago) link
yeah, i think you could interpret it as one of those songs that's (obliquely) about itself
― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, 26 August 2016 21:09 (seven years ago) link
hard to believe, but the distance between buddy holly and crenshaw's first LPs is significantly shorter than the distance between those LPs and today.
I shouldn't have written "despite." It's one of his best because he sings and plays the hell out of those tracks.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 26 August 2016 21:13 (seven years ago) link
You must have been momentarily confusing it with Life's Too Short, which does indeed demonstrate a deep dip in quality.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 August 2016 21:24 (seven years ago) link
Good Evening has that great Richard Thompson cover for one thing.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 August 2016 21:25 (seven years ago) link
and "Radio Girl"! and "You Should've Been There," with that ominous bass line.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 26 August 2016 21:26 (seven years ago) link
His work since he became his own cottage industry--What's in the Bag, Jaggedland, and his more recent recordings he put out as EPs--is really good, and for that matter I like all of #447 and a lot of 1996's Miracle of Science, which contains the absolutely stellar "Seven Miles an Hour," absolute power-pop perfection. I played Jaggedland one evening and then put on Alex Chilton's Man Called Destruction for contrast. Crenshaw won hands down--something like "Passing Through" from Jaggedland is just so measured, so musical, and so evocative. And "Someone Told Me" is a great example of a smart musician actually doing something with the blues form, unique. I don't think he like the term "power pop" very much and that's not really what he is, but whatever you want to call it, Field Day is as good as Radio City or Starting Over or Repercussion in the whatever-it-is-American-guitar-pop sweepstakes. His instrumentals are a gas. I respect him immensely.
― Edd Hurt, Friday, 26 August 2016 21:41 (seven years ago) link
I'll rep for the instrumental on Miracle of Science called "Theme from 'Flaregun'" I think.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 August 2016 22:02 (seven years ago) link
Pretty much everything he put out with the exception of the one album I mentioned a few posts up is very high quality, although I haven't paid attention the last decade or so. So yeah, you guys otm.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 August 2016 22:05 (seven years ago) link
My favorite is "You're my favorite waste of time" which is so relaxed and happy, has great harmonies and Robert pollard-like production
― calstars, Friday, 26 August 2016 22:08 (seven years ago) link
https://open.spotify.com/track/583nDURXpm8ghWofPWbViT
The chorus on Not For Me sounds like a bridge. Prettiest bridge ever.
― simmel, Friday, 26 August 2016 22:45 (seven years ago) link
I don't think he like the term "power pop" very much and that's not really what he is,
i wouldn't dare to venture a definition of "power pop," but i often think of it as fundamentally british invasion-oriented, and that stuff generally seems like just one (and not the most prominent) of crenshaw's reference points.
i think i may have unnecessarily negative associations with the term "power pop" b/c i've burned in my adolescence by too many forgettable albums that were characterized as such and championed by the likes of WXRT (chicago-area "adult album alternative" station), rolling stone, etc. stuff like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcRtlj8KXT4
― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, 27 August 2016 00:50 (seven years ago) link
er, i've BEEN burned
― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, 27 August 2016 00:51 (seven years ago) link
Know what you mean. For every band with skinny ties and jangly guitars that was supposed to be the greatest thing since Bread. Some of those acts more have had one good tune at most. But I can barely remember at this point. Dwight Twilley, was he any good? "I'm On Fire," did he have a tune with that name?
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:10 (seven years ago) link
"you're my favorite waste of time" is one of the greatest things ever put to record
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:25 (seven years ago) link
this last
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:26 (seven years ago) link
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:27 (seven years ago) link
Speaking as a relique of Ye Olden Days of Top 40 Pop, that song "Whenever I Think About You" suffers immensely from its drum machine. Its sound apart from that is perhaps a bit muddy, but it seems quite happy at its base and carries its mid-60s twangy guitars proudly. That BANG-pause-BANG-pause-BANG drum track just wrecks that. Shoot the producer.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:36 (seven years ago) link
I would have said so as well, but as a one-time acolyte of ver dean aka Xgau, I realized that that album is so full of great songs and performances that I could overlook/learn not to mind/come to appreciate the seemingly inappropriate production.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:47 (seven years ago) link
dwight twilley is pretty damn good actually -- the twilley don't mind LP is a grower.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:50 (seven years ago) link
but i like the rootsier/rockabillier side of power pop better than the faux-british side represented by e.g. material issue
Wazzabout The Plimsouls/The Nerves/Peter Case etc.,
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:53 (seven years ago) link
Pete Townshend supposedly coined the term when describing The Who's sound circa 1966, defining it as "Pop Music played with the energy/intensity of Rock'n'Roll", and while one can find easy problems with that description, it also feels like an apt take on the best of this music.
― a full playlist of presidential sex jams (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 27 August 2016 01:58 (seven years ago) link
Reminds me that some people - including myself, once- think of a Power Chord as any chord being strummed by a windmilling Pete Townshend, when really it mostly means a chord with only roots and fifths to avoid beating due to heavy distortion and volume.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:02 (seven years ago) link
Not if you're Wally Bryson!
― timellison, Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:16 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l24DFbedbJ0
― calstars, Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:27 (seven years ago) link
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:33 (seven years ago) link
Have you seen this book I just googled to, Tim, Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide, by John M. Borack?
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:38 (seven years ago) link
No, I would read that, though!
― timellison, Saturday, 27 August 2016 02:59 (seven years ago) link
Too bad. Seems out of print and currently unavailable. You can look at it through Google Books though. Guess what the top two albums are.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 03:02 (seven years ago) link
I have it (though not accessible at the moment) - worth buying for a reasonable price.
― skip, Saturday, 27 August 2016 03:04 (seven years ago) link
Mostly worth buying to help discover new stuff, though many of the albums you haven't heard of are personal favorites of the author and obscure for a reason. Every power pop fan has stuff they like that is beyond the pale taste-wise but hits the spot somehow.
There's also another book of power pop albums and singles I picked up, lovingly prepared with A-B-C grades and short descriptions and done on a typewriter, but I can't remember the title or author. Helpful, I know...
― skip, Saturday, 27 August 2016 03:08 (seven years ago) link
So the reasons Marshall Crenshaw wouldn't like to be associated with the term Power Pop are maybe that1) He feels that his songcraft and musicianship are more nuanced and draw upon a wider base and he doesn't want the stigma of "ghettoization"2) He wants to distance himself from a perhaps to him distasteful component of his audience (cf. Robbie Fulks's "Roots Rock Weirdos")
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 03:13 (seven years ago) link
I guess I'd assume that you are meaning more nuanced stylistically rather than using the word "nuance" to refer to complexity?
If it's style, I would have to wonder if it is really something more broad or if, on the other hand, it's merely its own "ghetto."
― timellison, Saturday, 27 August 2016 18:01 (seven years ago) link
Crenshaw said this when I talked to him last year--he was no doubt tired of talking about it:
"I’ve always hated that term being used when someone discusses my music, but I hate to be thin-skinned about it. For some reason, it’s always annoyed me to be put into that sub-category. I don’t think it’s fair, and I reject the concept. My stuff is popular music, or it’s rock music, you know? There’s a lot of power pop, quote-unquote, that is made by American anglophiles, and I won’t wear that label."
When you get into the Sneetches or the Shazam, it loses me, the lack of meaningful content, the formalism of it all. That's what Crenshaw is talking about, maybe. Peter Holsapple and the dB's also transcend the Anglophile label, a great band and great songwriting from Holsapple (and Stamey). James OTM about the ur-power pop chord usually containing root and fifth. Folkies need not apply.
― Edd Hurt, Saturday, 27 August 2016 18:59 (seven years ago) link
yeah the way power pop rhetoric revolves around perfection and purity, it ends up prioritizing form over.. the transcendent potential of pop/rock. despite power pop arguably being "about" recreating the ecstatic/euphoric transcendence of the beatles et al.
― brimstead, Saturday, 27 August 2016 19:11 (seven years ago) link
that's not quite right... most power pop just sounds restrained to me, it has a stilted-ness that i attribute to its rejection of certain formal/technical possibilities.. idk
― brimstead, Saturday, 27 August 2016 19:16 (seven years ago) link
marshall should change his last name to scrimshaw and exclusively record and perform sea shanties
― hunangarage, Saturday, 27 August 2016 19:31 (seven years ago) link
Has anyone seen him him do his tribute to producer Tom Wilson? He's also making a doc about him, that's mentioned on the Tom Wilson thread that's on ILe.
Crenshaw talking a bit about the planned doc and Wilson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/marshall-crenshaw-pays-homage-to-late-producer-tom-wilson/2016/08/10/b0ef4e00-5d85-11e6-8e45-477372e89d78_story.html
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 27 August 2016 21:33 (seven years ago) link
I don't think the dB's transcend power pop. I think they are not textbook power pop but I don't see how their deviation from it is ultimately more expansive.
And if Bryson is in any sense an archetypal power pop guitarist, I'm still disagreeing also with the root-fifth argument on power chords. He played thirds all the time.
― timellison, Saturday, 27 August 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
I was commenting on the confusion between the correct definition of power chords and the incorrect one influenced perhaps by the term power pop and, as is often case, confusion may have increased instead of decreasing.
― Put Out More Flag Posts (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 August 2016 21:47 (seven years ago) link
This guy is so fucking good. I will hear no complaints about the production on Field Day.
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 November 2018 02:18 (five years ago) link
Yeah "whenever I think about you" dazzles
― brimstead, Thursday, 15 November 2018 02:25 (five years ago) link
Could definitely use some more MC in my life right about now
― calstars, Thursday, 15 November 2018 03:11 (five years ago) link
hell, even MC could use more MC
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 November 2018 03:31 (five years ago) link
Love that both he and fellow smarty pants cult songwriter Robert Forster were astute enough to cover Grant Hart's "2541."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 15 November 2018 04:53 (five years ago) link
Also love how MC screwed up the lyrics ("big windows, to lay in the sun") but rolled with it anyway...
― henry s, Thursday, 15 November 2018 05:06 (five years ago) link
Does he still use the wrong lyrics when he plays it live?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 15 November 2018 13:13 (five years ago) link
Had to ponder for a second to recall what the real lyric is. “Big windows, to LET in the sun,” no?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 15 November 2018 13:26 (five years ago) link
That's right, though I have to admit I had, for years, misheard "we had to keep the stove on all night long so the mice wouldn't freeze" as "so the PIPES wouldn't freeze"...
― henry s, Thursday, 15 November 2018 14:33 (five years ago) link