Red House Painters-Songs For A Blue Guitar (1996)

 


Artist: Red House Painters

Title: Songs For A Blue Guitar

Label: Supreme Recordings/Island Independent

Format: CD

Catalog Number: 162 531 061-2

Year of Release: 1996

Country and Year of Edition: US 1996

Sell Price: $5.87

Sell Date: 8/30/26

Condition: VG+/VG+

Discogs Last Sold: 10/30/25 VG/VG+ $5.39

Low: $2.75

Median: $4.00

Average: $4.80

High: $8.62

Current low price: $20.00

Curren Number on Sale at Discogs: 1

Have/Want: 55/50

Where Sold:Austin, TX

Time It Took To Sell: 3 years

Where and When Bought: Facebook marketplace

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go: No

Uniformly excellent album from Mark Kozelek as Red House Painters. This was still a "band" at this point and kept going until 2001 with one more album recorded in 1998 before Kozelek recorded solo and then started up Sun Kil Moon.  The legend had it that 4AD rejected the record for it's heavier sound and guitar soloing.  Unfortunately, the entity that took over, Supreme Recordings, went belly up and couldn't release the follow-up until Kozelek could buy and out and put it out through Sub Pop.  

Listening to the album however, you don't need to know any of that.  This is just a great songwriter album in the tradition of Neil Young and climaxes with a triad of expansive 70's classic rock covers encompassing New Wave (The Cars "All Mixed Up), McCartney (Wings "Silly Love Songs") and Prog (Yes "Long Distance Runaround").  All hits rendered nearly unrecognizable in slow and meanering reimagining.  Dylan does this to his own stuff, but not this way, so I would no way call this approach Dylanesque.  But there does seem to be a Crazy Horse veneer.

Kozelek escaping 4AD is more like someone like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye escaping Motown where the imprint and it's sound and image superseeds the individual artist.  Someone like Mark Kozelek has no use for those kind of shackels that a corporation or society itself might impose on him.  He'll take "Silly Love Songs" all the way to the near 11 minute mark and you'll like it.  

I really can't think of any peers to this.

FOR FURTHER REVIEW:

Old Ramon (2001)

Yes-Fragile (1972)

The Cars-The Cars (1978)

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