John Crawford (musician)

Crawford attended El Dorado High School in Placentia, California.^{[citation needed]} His career as a musician began in junior high school after he broke his leg during a basketball game. While recovering, he picked up a guitar and began taking lessons in nearby Fullerton, California, where his teacher put him in touch with future Berlin band members Dan Van Patten, Chris Velasco, and Tyson Cobb.

They formed a band named The Toys with Ty Cobb as vocalist. Crawford and the others were influenced by punk rockers like the Sex Pistols and synth-pop band Ultravox, and Crawford has also cited Kiss as an early influence.^[2]

After changing their name to Berlin, the band stayed together for about three years. Cobb was discharged from the group and replaced with Terri Nunn. In 1980, Berlin released the album Information on Zone H. Records, with Virginia Macolino fronting the group. The band signed to I.R.S. Records briefly in 1980, releasing the single "A Matter of Time", before disbanding in 1981.^[3][4]

With Berlin on indefinite hiatus, Crawford worked with another Orange County–based band, The Videos, with Craig Sibley on vocals and guitar, Rich West on keyboards, Ken Dudley on guitars, and John Benson on drums. He also worked as a vocalist for Fahrenheit, a synthesizer pop quartet in the style of Depeche Mode and Ultravox, also playing occasional bass and acoustic guitar.

In late 1981, some time around the formation of Fahrenheit, Los Angeles-based independent label M.A.O. Records released a new Berlin single, featuring the songs "The Metro" and "Tell Me Why", with Terri Nunn on vocals. 1982's platinum-selling Pleasure Victim gained Crawford's music an audience. Crawford part-wrote all of the album's songs except "Masquerade," which was written by guitarist and original Berlin member Chris Ruiz-Velasco.

After the success of Pleasure Victim on the independent Enigma label, a bidding war ensued, with Geffen's label eventually offering the band and their British expatriate manager, Perry Watts-Russell, the opportunity to release the record to a wider audience. The disc, recorded at the Casbah recording studio in Fullerton, California for around $3,000, included the controversial hit single "Sex (I'm a ...)" as well as "Masquerade" and "The Metro". Guitarist Ric Olsen and keyboardist/guitarist David Diamond helped to re-create a synth-driven sound of early 1980s techno pop. The follow-up to Pleasure Victim, titled Love Life, went gold in 1984, with a hit single, "No More Words".

With personnel changes, the band's third album, Count Three and Pray, was released in 1986. It was produced by Bob Ezrin (producer of rock superstars including Kiss, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and Alice Cooper) and featured guest appearances by others, including Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Ted Nugent, and Elliot Easton of The Cars. The album's chart-topping single "Take My Breath Away", written by Giorgio Moroder, featured in the film Top Gun.

Crawford and Nunn argued, Berlin again disbanded, and Crawford formed another band, The Big F. He said in an interview in 2005 that they were going to "focus on just making music, and let the rest of the stuff go away." ^{[citation needed]}

With Crawford on bass and vocals, The Big F's self-titled debut album for Elektra in 1988 represented an experiment in anti-commercialism, with dark themes and an aggressive, hard rock sound. Before courting the attention of record labels, Crawford and Brill concealed their identities to avoid any association with Berlin.^[5] Crawford took the name John Shreve and Brill became Rob Donin. Mark Christian joined the trio as guitarist, and they contributed a cover version of the MC5 song "Kick Out the Jams" to the 1990 Elektra compilation Rubáiyát.

The Big F's second album, Is, was released on Chrysalis in 1993, and like the first, failed to find a large audience. For the Is tour, the band hired a bassist, allowing Crawford/Shreve to concentrate solely on vocals. In 1995, they called it quits.^[6]