Red House Painters - Old Ramon
(Subpop)

My experience with Red House Painters started back before either of their self-titled albums came out, back when their debut Down Colorful Hill came out on 4AD. Somehow my name ended up on the label's fan list, and the label sent me a sampler cassette featuring three songs from that album along with songs from two other bands. That cassette contained what became and still is my favorite Red House Painters song, "Michael," which is sort of the perfect encapsulation of the high school best friend. Songs like "Michael" have that rare, visceral ability to touch you almost every time you listen to them which Mark Kozelek and the rest of the band can amazingly achieve with little more than a guitar and Kozelek's voice. Kozelek's voice is definitely one of the best in rock music. Needless to say, I wore that cassette out in less than one summer.

My experience with full length albums by Red House Painters, however, is less than stellar. While the band certainly has the ability to craft amazing songs, when put into a lengthy album with high points and low points, it can be hard to sustain interest. The band's style is set in stone--little has changed since that first album--so sitting through seventy plus minutes of more of that same old bag can be tedious. It almost makes more sense to make your own sampler cassette, capturing the 3 or 4 most moving songs, and putting the CD off in a lockbox, never touching it again.

Old Ramon suffers from the same ills of the band's previous albums. At almost 72 minutes long, it's easy to point to the four songs that are so beautiful that they will add tinder to the fire in the soul, but it is also easy to point to the few songs that would be better left to the bonus disk on Retrospective II.

So let's concentrate on those four great songs, first. The album starts off with "Wop-a-din-din" which through the first half dozen verses seems like another open-hearted love song ("when we lock eyes there's so much love I want to cry") until you realize the girl with the "big green eyes" and a "long Egyptian face" sleeps at Kozelek's feet and loves a scritch behind the ears. This love song to Kozelek's cat seems to be the perfect compliment to "Michael" from their debut album; the same purpose--a plutonic love song--only sung by someone five years older and in a totally different place in life. In your early 20s, no longer the free teenager, you may reminisce about friends that you can't seem to find anymore; while in your late 20s, living in an empty apartment, sometimes the thing closest to your heart isn't a human being.

The other three great songs are of the epic variety, all lasting over 8 minutes. "Void" is an incredibly beautiful song, although the lyrics are a little vague except for the straightforward chorus of "Fill the void in me now." The song makes a great use of a processed guitar tone that sounds very high and bluesy. The chorus is repeated so many times, that the soothing tones drift your mind away, creating a peaceful drone. The great use of guitar effects continues on the next song, "Between Days." Since Old Ramon was recorded, Kozelek has concentrated on covering John Denver and AC/DC more than writing his own music, and "Between Days" could very much be a cover of some old 70s guitar god (Stillwater?) or some 90s band like Dinosaur Jr. The guitar sound is very crunchy, and much like J Mascis, Kozelek sings in a higher than normal voice to accompany the piercing rock guitar sounds.

Combine these songs with "River," another excellent use of rock guitar sounds and the fourth great song on the album, and you've got enough music for a full length album by most people's standards. However, there are six other songs on the album--some okay, some a little dull. "Cruiser" is an ode to an Asian sex "toy" with a simple, light guitar part and vocals that show up in bursts, ruining the momentum of the song. "Golden" also has little music other than Kozelek's voice; sometimes it's more than enough but here it just sounds like a baby's lullaby or coffeehouse fodder.

Red House Painters fans will love Old Ramon. It has so many great songs--enough to fill a 30 or 40 minute album--that it ranks with the band's best. It's too bad, though, that the band's motto for use of album space is "use it or lose it." The second tier songs do little more than ruin the album's flow and make it near impossible to sit through all of Old Ramon without a few fast forwards or a short nap in the middle.

jim steed 2001 apr 13