September 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Ron House, ex TJSA, releases lo-fi solo debut 6 September 2002
This week saw the release for the US of Obsessed, the enigmatic debut solo album by Ron House, former front man with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Great Plains, and some obscure bands including Ego Summit, Twisted Shouts, and Moses Carryout. The new 34 minute, 12 song set is a darkly humorous, ultra-low-budg indie film of a record, whose ad-hoc, shambolic, and childish feel belies its emotional power and sly, faux-naive sophistication. Obsessed—featuring guitars, keyboards, banjo, and violin, but no drums or bass—chronicles, in very personal terms, an episode of mental illness. It initially hit me as an all-too-honest, autobiographical vomiting-up of a private crisis and its destructive effect on a circle of lives. Heavy shit, delivered with off-key vocals and offhand playing. It’s more than enough to evoke pathos and distress, where the listener becomes the gawking spectator at a tragedy. Victims suffer unaware of the objectified spectacle they become in onlookers’ guilty, voyeuristic eyes. But in a brief conversation with House I discovered that Obsessed wasn’t conceived as emotional pornography by any means or by any party involved. Despite the first-person presentation (“...for all the usual literary reasons”), the album is about someone else. A real person. This is nonfiction pop. House’s close friend Jay, suffering an intense bout of mental illness, had moved in with him after getting booted from his longtime partner Nancy’s place. House told Rockbites “I had to listen to the same stories over and over again. Jay was such a nut at the time that I thought he could get some therapy and I could get some pleasure if I wrote some songs about it. “We had been in a fuck-off band [together] before. So we did it again but as he spiraled he bailed after four songs. I finished [the record] with my usual buds [members of Moviola, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, and Black Swans] plus Judas Dannemiller.” House continued, “I don’t feel I used his pain gratuitously. [The song] "Doors Finally Open" really happened to me; I watched him threaten to kill himself and I had to run out of the building thru cops with shotguns drawn.” The album also served to some extent as a catharsis for House, who told us “...it was a period in my life when more people than Jay were going crazy. [There were] things I couldn’t write about directly.” Ultimately, Obsessed is sad, compassionate, and beautiful. The music here is pretty sparse, but the arrangements are just about perfect. Yeah, it sounds like some guys fucking off, but repeated listening reveals subtlety and delicate balance. Meanwhile, House delivers his tragicomic lyrics with a tragicomic voice. In a mood to laugh or a mood to cry? It’s all here for you. Tracks are My Heart (“My heart is a moaning organ/in a mortal romantic fever”), Dick (“I’m a dick without a leg to stand on/a multi-horned beast unshorn”), Seven Years, Restraining Order, Call Her Up (“Fat Midwesterners are not/To this flexible Yogi’s taste”), Fossil, Triangular Obsession, Puritan Sex (“The girl sitting next/ asked if the men’s room/is big enough to have sex”), Out Of Couches (“God, you’re not deaf now/ Don’t pretend that you can’t see/ What my soul looks like in the mirror/ In the morning I’ll be free”), Door’s Finally Open, Breezewood Serenade, and Implicated. Ron House has seen a lot go down in Columbus since moving there in 1974 to attend Ohio State University in English and Political Science, including musical friend Jim Shephard’s suicide in 1999 and House’s own Used Kids record store burning to the ground last year. He has kept his perspective and nurtured a dry and razor-sharp sense of humor, which shines with joyful hope through the dark stories on Obsessed. Four bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. You can pick up Obsessed direct from the label by mail order—check the Moses Carryout Website. Depending on sales, House may be putting out more solo work. He told Rockbites “I’m thinking about custom-writing cds for people. Very 21st century eh?” Ron House at Moses Carryout records | Ron House at Used Kids record store | | RH writes about Jim Shepherd | | Great Plains | | Rockbites review of Great Plains CD | | top of page | |
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