Maybe my favorite Red House Painters album besides "Songs For A Blue Guitar", this was the (for a while), the long lost Red House Painters album, "Old Ramon" got lost in the shuffle after they signed to a major and then some kind of bureaucratic red tape meant they were essentially without a label and Mark Kozelek basically had to buy back the tapes from Island records and Sub Pop graciously put this out. RHP were contemporaries of Low, Codeine, Galaxie 500, etc. I always felt they were so much better than their fellow San Franciscans American Music Club, who were around a bit longer than Red House Painters, but nowhere near as good. "Wop A Din Din" opens the album and is one of my favorite songs from RHP, an ode to Mark's cat and how much he loves her, a sentiment that hits home for any pet owner dedicated to their animal friends. "Michigan" is also top shelf song writing too, but really there isn't a bad cut on here; some people I knew didn't like this record, claiming it's just a rehash of all their previous ones. Fair enough, I suppose. But really, what did you expect? A prog rock inspired album? Metal? Funk? When you do a sound like this, it's pretty unlikely that there is going to be a dramatic change here. If you aren't familiar with The Red House Painters at all, this would be a good album to start with; the sound is fairly slow, jangly strummed guitars, brushed drums, sleepy vocals. A great record for a autumn afternoon. I found this at Easy Street used for $3. And it seems like the used bins all over the city, so I can assume that would be the case all over the country, there's no reason not to get into the Red House Painters now....10 songs makes the count at 17593....
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