Monday, April 23, 2012

All I Know Right Now / Marshall Crenshaw

All I know right now is that there are only a few days left for you to be part of something pretty amazing. Marshall Crenshaw has mounted a new project on Kickstarter which will allow music lovers to help underwrite his new baby:  a series of EPs to be released on vinyl over the next year or so, featuring a mix of new original Crenshaw songs and dynamic cover versions of other people's songs.  (Because, as you know if you've ever seen Marshall live, he really digs performing other people's music too.)

Click here and Marshall himself will tell you all about it: Marshall's Kickstart campaign

I signed up.  You should too.

One of the cool things about this Kickstarter project is that it will allow you to sample many facets of this multi-dimensional artist. There's the romantic spirit, full of yearning and emotional vulnerability, that breaks through the lush 80s-style wall of sound on his 1983 album Field Day. "All I Know Right Now" is a song that literally stops me in my tracks everytime I hear it:


But anyone who thinks that Marshall Crenshaw is only about bright and bouncy power pop deserves to listen more. He does dark and brooding and edgy perfectly well -- like this song, "On the Run," from his 1989 album Good Evening.  I have this track on my favorite workout playlist, and everytime it cycles up, I feel a burst of power.


And lest you think he's a relic of the 80s, just listen to the powerful stuff he's doing today. "Stormy River" is . . . well, I was about to say it's one of my favorite tracks from Marshall's most recent album, Jaggedland, but that's crazy talk:  I love the entire album, just love it to death. Because the real great artists don't stop growing.


Now as you know I'm a besotted fan of this guy, and I've written about him a lot: Here and here and here, just for starters.  Oooh, and I can't help throwing in a link to this post, either.  And maybe just one more YouTuber, because the accompanying video is just too much fun:


So now that you've spent your afternoon listening to all this Marshall Crenshaw -- isn't it time you went and got yourself a little piece of the action?  Marshall's Kickstart campaign

6 comments:

Mythical Monkey said...

Field Day -- boy, I played the grooves off that record back in the day. One of my very favorite records of the 1980s.

I think signing up in advance for a record is the near future of music, if not its present. Cut out the record companies, cut out the middle man, put the money right in the artist's pocket.

Holly A Hughes said...

Amen, brother!

wwolfe said...

Thanks for the link - this is a terrific idea. I signed up, and sent it to one of my best friends on the other side of the country, who's a huge Marsh fan, too.

Holly A Hughes said...

Yay! Thanks for helping out. Some day we'll all be sitting around enjoying those vinyl EPs and others will be scouring eBay trying to get their copies...

Paul Wilson said...

Thanks for your Marshall Crenshaw Posts. I've been a long time fan of his and living in Uk sadly never seen hime live.

Your posts capture so well how I feel about his music sadly very underated.

Jaggedland has been on in my work van all week.

Thanks again,

Paul

Holly A Hughes said...

Hoorary! Marshall met his Kickstarter goal -- let the EPs begin!