Consumer Guide Album

Great Plains: Length of Growth 1981-89 [Old 3C, 2001]
Every goddamn drone and whine Ron House and his Columbus friends ever released, 50 songs that evoke both the punk that set them off and the alt-country they spied coming down the road. Quick, kids, where do the Great Plains start? Well west of Columbus, right? And by the way, who was this Mark Hanna guy? Pol behind four presidents fROMOHIO, two of whom were assassinated and one of whom Great Plains did a song about. Other subjects include Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Dick Clark, the fate of the family farm, how bad onetime Voice crit Don Howland has to piss, and, most famously, why punk rock boys go out with new wave girls. Not all of it is great, some of it is barely good, and I doubt even his thesis advisor would listen to House caterwauling 50 straight songs. But he knows that, and he wants you to hear them all anyway--surely you don't think he's in it for the money. A single album by Canton's own Marilyn Manson will cost you more than both CDs. B+