Consumer Guide Album

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments: Bait and Switch [Onion/American, 1995]
Formerly leader of the slovenly folk-rockers Great Plains, among whose achievements was the best song ever written about Rutherford B. Hayes, Columbus lifer Ron House demonstrates on this $800 debut album that punk and youth need have nothing to do with each other anymore. First five tracks rush by in a perfect furious tunefest, climaxing with a bar song called "Cheater's Heaven" that's ripe for total rearrangement by anybody in Nashville with some guts left. After that recognition is less instantaneous except on "RnR Hall of Fame," which comes with liner notes to match: "TJSA proudly accept the honor of being indicted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . . . " If indie scenes are so full of wordwise ne'er-do-wells like this, how come they never put it on tape? A−