Marshall Crenshaw • Field Day (Expanded Edition)
 ack when I was a
college-radio DJ, the station's music director was a huge Marshall Crenshaw fan. I
still remember the five-star review he wrote on 3x5 cards and taped to the cover of
Crenshaw’s eponymous debut album. While I enjoyed some of the cuts on that album, I
was more under the spell of Elvis Costello, The Clash and The Cure. In the intervening
years, I grew to appreciate American icons like Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison, but I never
found the time to re-examine Marshall Crenshaw, whose work is brimming with the ideas and
influences of his musical forebears. That all changed when a copy of Intervention
Records’ reissue of Crenshaw’s 1983 album Field Day arrived on my
doorstep.
In keeping with Intervention chief Shane Buettner’s commitment to restoring historically important but somewhat overlooked musical works, this edition of Field Day is a reminder that Crenshaw is a brilliant songwriter whose work deserves to be heard in the best possible light. While his commercially successful debut album was an appealing update of the early-rock‘n’roll canon, on Field Day Crenshaw decided to stretch beyond those boundaries. Working with producer Steve Lillywhite, he created a sound that he describes as "a thunderstorm in a rainforest. Real organic." While songs like the opener, "Whenever You’re On My Mind," and "One Day With You" hearken back to the great mono rockabilly records of the late 1950s, other compositions have a more complex, power-pop feel reminiscent of Alex Chilton’s best work. A great example of this muscular and melodic approach can be heard on "Our Town." Robert Crenshaw’s pulsing drums and Chris Donato’s driving bass line carry the song’s hook-laden lyrics to dizzying heights. This brings us to Intervention’s masterstroke on this reissue -- the inclusion of a 45rpm version of the rare and somewhat mysterious "US Remix EP" that contains sonic revisions of the original album’s best songs. Until now, this recording was only for sale in the United Kingdom, where it was originally released. Even though Crenshaw signed off on the remix back in 1983, he says the decision angered Lillywhite. Now music nerds like us have a chance to hear what the controversy was all about. While reasonable people will disagree about this EP, I immediately fell in love with the remix for sonic reasons: its incredible immediacy and opened-up soundstage. The original album’s mix keeps most of the instruments and voices well in the center. The enhanced bass and midrange in the extended version of "For Her Love" makes it sound like Crenshaw’s trio is performing right in my living room. Lillywhite and Crenshaw made deliberate artistic choices about the sound of the original, and the EP demonstrates just how much subtle changes can dramatically alter the feeling and impact of a recording. Even the packaging of this reissue has some twists. Crenshaw has said that he was never happy with the album’s original cover -- his photo superimposed in front of his alma mater, Berkley High School -- so Intervention used the front cover from the 7” single of "Whenever You’re On My Mind" instead. The result is a luxurious gatefold design on film-laminated heavy stock that accommodates a wide layout of lyrics and liner notes. Some reissues are an exercise in milking a record label’s back catalogue and offering little beyond quirky trivia and a slight sonic adjustment. That’s clearly not the case here. Kevin Gray’s all-analog remastering unearths the recording’s deep bass and adds a previously missing sparkle to Crenshaws’s electric guitar. RTI’s plating and pressing yield the usual dead-quiet vinyl experience. Intervention Records’ reissue of Field Day, along
with the deeply satisfying bonus EP, is a serious gift to Crenshaw’s fans -- and fans
of good old American-made rock'n'roll. |
