What’s Next To The Moon

RED HOUSE PAINTERS

Ramon [Sub Pop]

MARK KOZELEK

What’s Next To The Moon [Badman]

And the moral of the story is that sensitive American guitar bands shouldn’t sign to major labels. Having been given the bum’s rush in one of those frequent record company reshuffles, Ramon has been sitting on a shelf in a basement somewhere for three years before seeing the light of day on Sub Pop.

Joyous pop was never really the Painters’ bag, but Ramon is a particularly long seventy minutes. ‘Wop-A-Din-Din’ (an ode to singer Mark Kozelek’s cat) and the powerchording ‘Byrd Joel’ promise much but the effect begins to wane as guitar swathed eight minute lament follows guitar swathed eight minute lament.

Ramon suffers doubly in comparison to Kozelek’s solo What’s Next To The Moon, oddly given a simultaneous release. More misery certainly, but the concept alone – all acoustic AC/DC covers – merits investigation. While Kozelek’s minamalist delivery would probably make a Tweenies song sound like an example of gothic urban American folk, he does bring out a hitherto untapped poetry to Bon Scott’s lyrics – ‘Bad Boy Boogie’, ‘Up To My Neck In You’ and ‘If You Want Blood’ never sounded quite so sad. Perhaps his band could just do with a few tunes of the same calibre.

Phil Udell