Know Yer Band: Great Plains

Band: Great Plains

Members:
Vocals/Guitar - Ron House
Guitars/Vocals - Matt Wyatt
Keyboards/Vocals - Mark Wyatt
Bass - Hank O'Hare (Don Howland), Mike Hummel, Paul Nini, Bill Bruner
Drums - Robert David Green, James Castoe

Releases:
1983 - The Mark, Don & Mel E.P. 12" (New Age)
1984 - Born In A Barn album (Homestead Records)
1985 - Naked At The Buy, Sell, And Trade album (Homestead Records)
1985 - Slaves To Rock 'N' Roll Live! album (Not On Label)
1987 - Sum Things Up album (Homestead Records)
1987 - Dick Clark 7" single (Shadowline Records)
1987 - Before We Stop To Think 12" single (Shadowline Records)
1989 - Exercise 7" single (Homestead Records)
1989 - Colorized! compilation album (Diabolo Records)
2000 - Length Of Growth 1981-1989 double compilation album (Old 3C Records)
2008 - Live At WFMU album (Old 3C Records)
2012 - Directions To The Party DVD (Old 3C Records)

Newcity Music: Quotas System - Mike Rep and Tommy Jay’s Creative Life is Best in a Basement

True Believers wasn't the last time Mike "Rep" Hummel and Tommy Jay played and recorded together, not by a very long shot. This article at Newcity Music from 2013 digs into their history, here's a snippet:

The music whizzing around Rep and Tommy Jay eventually found itself synthesized in scores of recordings—the overwhelming majority of which remain unreleased. What got set to tape during those formative explorations didn’t become immediately available. 

And when “Rocket to Nowhere” showed up in 1977, it seemed like no one was listening.
“We were more influenced by our isolation than by being part of a scene, pre-’78,” the multi-instrumentalist says of his first few years tinkering with recorded songcraft. 

Rep, though, was undeterred and continued recording at a prodigious rate, woodshedding in basements, goofing off with his friends but only emerging later in the decade as a member of the True Believers—a group orchestrated by Tommy Jay. 

The band issued its lone recording, “Accept It” on Rep’s fledgling New Age imprint. It was 1980. The three songs toss off a surprising range of music, considering the players seemed wrapped up in punk concerns. Even the title track reveals a gentle melodicism alongside the genre’s quick pacings. 

Rep, again deferring to Tommy Jay’s talents, says the album ranks as an UR-recording and that his companion’s recognition is usually glossed over by virtue of the Quotas using Rep’s surname. 

By the time the True Believers were kicking around, though, Rep says a concerted scene had begun to coalesce around groups like Ron House’s Twisted Shouts and Jim Shepard’s Vertical Slit. There were even a few venues daring enough to host performances. Rep and Tommy Jay persisted, this new enclave serving as proof that what they were blindly pursuing had pent-up meaning. And someone cared, somewhere.

Agit Reader: Ego Summit - Summit Talks

Veteran Columbus writer Stephen Slaybaugh wrote about Ego Summit for The Agit Reader back in 2008, here is some of that article:

When the annals for the rock scene of Agit hometown Columbus, Ohio are written, there are certain names that will stand out, their direct input and/or influence sewing a thread that cuts across decades and perhaps generations. Taking their cues from the “anyone can do it” ethos of punk, but losing some of the urbanity for distinctly Midwestern accents and skepticism, a close knit bunch of book-fed and alcohol-bred minds formed the nucleus of the indie-genous scene in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s. Don Howland, Mike “Rep” Hummel, Jim Shepard, Tommy Jay, Ron House—among others, the contributions of these five to the Columbus pantheon (if there is one) can’t be overstated. Gibson Bros., Great Plains, V-3, Quotas, Bassholes, Slave Apartments—Columbus’ musical DNA can be traced directly to these bands. 

But despite crossed paths in various combinations, it wasn’t until a weekend in 1997 that those five all got together so that, as Hummel put it, “some documentation to that fellowship (would) be recorded on tape before the participants doddered off into old age.” With Jay, Hummel and friend Jerry Wick (of Gaunt) manning a four-track, the group convened at Jay’s studio barn in the rural suburb of Harrisburg and recorded over two days. The result was The Room Isn’t Big Enough, an album released on Hummel’s Old Age/No Age label under the fitting moniker of Ego Summit. While the contributors’ credentials spoke for themselves, the album received little attention when it was released.

Know Yer Band: Ego Summit

Band: Ego Summit

Members
Don Howland
Ron House
Mike "Rep" Hummel
Jim Shepard
Tommy Jay

Releases
1997 - Ego Summit album (Old Age/New Age)

Donewaiting on Mark Eitzel (2012)

There aren't many write-ups specifically about the Naked Skinnies, probably due to the fact the band last just over a year and managed just one seven inch single, and Mark Eitzel (as mentioned in more than one article) isn't particularly interested in talking about it. Still, whenever he puts out new material, it occasionally gets mentioned, like this 2012 entry at Donewaiting.com:

Mark Eitzel and Columbus go way back. At one time Eitzel wrote for Tim Anstaett’s The Offence, and his early, Joy Division-esque band Naked Skinnies began here. They were the “hero band” of Ron House, who played lots of shows with Naked Skinnies and helped put out the band’s first 7-inch, “All My Life,” on “Naked House Records” in 1981. Eitzel formed the Skinnies, his precursor to American Music Club, with Greg Bonnell (AMC, Moviola), John Hricko and Nancy Kangas before heading out to San Francisco. Though Eitzel doesn’t recall the period with particular fondness and has yet to permit digital dissemination of the aforementioned 7-inch, it’s better than he remembers it to be and a fascinating look into how Eitzel started out.

New Additions: All My Life single by Naked Skinnies

Some Columbus releases going back thirty or forty years ago are still fairly easy to come by, thanks to plenty pressed and distributed. Then on the other hand, you have something like the Naked Skinnies lone seven inch single, All My Life / This Is The Beautiful Night, released in 1981 on Naked House Records. Fronted by a young Mark Eitzel, the band featured future Log/Moviola member Greg Bonnell on drums, and was (according to a chat with Ron House) released on Naked House Records thanks to a few bucks Ron provided to help get the single pressed. Knowing the career Mark Eitzel would carve house, it's interesting to hear his earliest recordings and musical output.

Video: Ron House live at Carabar in 2007

Noisy: Straight to Vinyl, Finally: An Interview with Ron House of Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments

Interesting interview with Ron House with Noisy from back in 2015 regarding the vinyl release of Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartment's second album Straight To Video, which was originally only released on compact disc. Here's an excerpt:

Noisy: It could be argued that you’re a main influence behind Ohio acts and the Ohio-esque beyond such as Times New Viking or Psychedelic Horseshit...is this a source of pride, embarrassment? Do you listen to the (ugh) Lo fi music that came in your wake? Or do you see it all part of a larger lineage including Electric Eels and other Ohio freak scenesters? None of the above is also an acceptable answer. 

RH: Ohio music has a great lineage and I am very proud to be a part of it. Electric Eels are getting well deserved attention and I hope it cheers John Morton up! Columbus punk history has yet to be adequately rediscovered and people better not wait for me to do the grunt work.

New Additions: Obsessed by Ron House

Although Ron House had two compilations of material release in prior decades, along with all of his recordings with Great Plains, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and Ego Summit, 2002 saw the release of his first official solo album: Obsessed. I recently picked up the compact disc (no vinyl version has been released) and was surprised at the quiet restraint. For the most part, gone are the buzzsaw guitars and bombast replaced with introspective lyrics and acoustic guitars.

Know Yer Artist: Ron House

Artist: Ron House

Bands
Great Plains
Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments
Ego Summit
Psandwich
Counter Intuits
Moses Carryout
Twisted Shouts

Releases
1986 - Blind Boy In The Back Seat compilation (Old Age)
1997 - New Wave As The Next Guy compilation (Spare Me Records)
2002 - Obsessed album (Moses Carryout Records)

614: High Times on High Street

At 614 Magazine, back in 2015 Kevin Elliott penned a piece called "High Times on High Street," chatting with Ron House and Bob Petric about Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and more. Here's a bit:

In retrospect, Bait and Switch was the coup de grace of TJSA. It contained House’s most infamous commentary against the (then under-construction) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and his most requested anthem—“Down to High Street”—but Straight to Video seems both calculated and loose, as is the Columbus motif. There’s also an urgency that screamed “this is our ‘major label’ record.” “Rump Government” is House’s poppiest moment by far, “Petty Thief” solidifies their allegiance to simpler, punkier vibes, and “Where the Entertainment Ends” is his most pointed, epic diatribe.

Magnet: Lost Classics - Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments "Bait And Switch"

Magnet Magazine used to run a pretty regular column called Lost Classics, in which they'd follow-up on buzz bands that are no more. In this edition, they revisited the 1995 debut album Bait And Switch by Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments:

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments “singer” Ron House (formerly of Columbus, Ohio’s Great Plains) bellowed and wailed—even occasionally carrying a tune—on this razor-sharp-yet-unrefined debut LP from arguably Cowtown’s best band. Writing songs equally charged with humor and vitriol (“Blow it up before Steve Albini makes a speech,” he ranted on “RnR Hall Of Fame”), House, serving as a cantankerous Mick Jagger to guitarist Bob Petric’s surly Keith Richards, created an incendiary near-masterpiece.

Know Yer Band: Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments

Band: Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments

Members
Vocals - Ron House
Guitar - Bob Petric
Bass - Keith Baker, Craig Dunson, Philip Park
Drums - Nora Malone, Bruce Saltmarsh, Elliot Dicks, Ted Hattemer

Releases
1990 - 7" split single w/Monster Truck Five (Datapanik Records)
1991 - 7" single Career Interruption Code (Datapanik Records)
1992 - 12" single You Can't Kill Stupid (Datapanik Records)
1994 - 7" single Negative Guest List (Siltbreeze Records)
1995 - 7" single Punk Rock Secret (Bag Of Hammers)
1995 - 7" split single w/Monster Truck Five, Moviola and Gunshy Ministers (Anyway Records)
1995 - Bait And Switch album (Onion Records)
1997 - Straight To Video album (Anyway Records)
1997 - 7" split single w/Fat Day (Ratfish Records)
1997 - You Lookin' For Treble? compilation album (Year Zero)
2000 - No Old Guy Lo-Fi Cry (Rockathon Records)
2011 - 7" single Burning Trash (Negative Guest List Records)

CMJ Magazine 1995: Localzine - Columbus, Ohio by Ron House

Back in 1995, CMJ (the College Music Journal, if you're not familiar, had Ron House of then Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments profile the city in the August edition. Ron walks you through the music, food and drink retail and media of the time in a pretty nice time capsule of the era.