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http://www.theotherpaper.com/articles/2008/08/07/music/doc4899fb06ec3cb394794989.txt
THE OTHER PAPER, CD REVIEW: Like a course in music history
A re-released piece of Columbus’s past: Ego Summit’s "The Room Isn’t Big Enough"
By RICK ALLEN
Published: Thursday, August 7, 2008 7:24 AM EDT
About a decade ago, five of Columbus’s finest sat down and recorded an album’s worth of material, ostensibly to document their friendships “before the participants doddered off into old age,†according to the liner notes of Ego Summit’s The Room Isn’t Big Enough.
A decade later, it is amazing to listen to the recently re-released album and learn that it’s more than just a jolly collaboration by a group of pals. Instead, it stands as a codebook for the DNA of the Columbus music scene.
The guilty parties include Don Howland, formerly of the Gibson Bros. and Bassholes; Jim Shepard, the fractured, unheralded genius of Vertical Slit and V3; and a trio of guys you can still catch around town from time to time: Ron House of Great Plains and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, and Mike Hummel and Tommy Jay of Mike Rep and the Quotas.
Each songwriter sang his own songs, for the most part, stamping a bit of individuality to each track. What is more interesting, however, is how each man’s collaborators take the song from his comfort zone and make it a group effort, showing some of the overlapping connections among the careers of the five players.
Ego Summit, for example, takes House’s “Beyond the Laws†far beyond the Midwestern post-punk that is his usual bread and butter, injecting a lo-fi, shambling sloppiness and a heavy dose of Jim Shepard blotter-acid psychedelic.
Even a song like Howland’s “Wife Blues,†which structurally doesn’t stray far from pretty much any of his other works, is given a new, weird life, punctured by squalls of white hot guitar abuse, which somehow makes this simple little ditty stand out even more.
While not among his finest efforts, the Shepard tracks stick out the most, as the original release date was so close to his leaving this vale of tears. The art-damaged Skip Spence-isms of “Novacaine†and noise-rock squalor of “We Are the Underground†do not do justice to his skewed vision and passion, and should only send you digging through the crates to unearth any one of the gems he left behind.
In short, this re-released album is an invaluable piece of Columbus history. Just be thankful that Old 3C Records has made The Room Isn’t Big Enough available again, and shone a little light on where all of the pieces of the local music scene fit together.
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http://www.columbusalive.com/?sec=music&story=alive/2008/0807/m-spin.html
COLUMBUS ALIVE: Spin Cycle, Local album reviews
Ego Summit, "The Room Isn't Big Enough"
A common complaint Alive heard about our list of the top 100 Columbus albums of the last 30 years was the exclusion of local supergroup Ego Summit. Ron House, Don Howland, Jim Shepard, Tommy Jay and Mike Rep are the Traveling Wilburys of Columbus underground rock, true movers and shakers of the Used Kids set. In 1997 they banged out this slapdash set of rickety rock 'n' roll. It's solid for sure, full of ramshackle indie-rock tunes, sleepy folk dirges and rambling trips to the dark side, all encased in the marvelously murky production that continues to dominate this city's rock underbelly. Should The Room Isn't Big Enough have made the list? Probably. But it's preposterous to proclaim this the greatest Columbus album of all time when most of these performers made better records under other guises. All the same, Old 3C Records' CD-R reissue is essential listening for those curious about Columbus music history.
—Chris DeVille
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Available via Old 3C Records - http://www.old3c.com/order.html + Lost Weekend Records (Clintonville) + Used Kids Records (Campus).
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