Skip to main content

Grandaddy

 125

Grandaddy

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump 20th Anniversary Collection | UNCUT
 

Grandaddy

His falsetto as forlorn as Neil Young's, Jason Lytle emanates the wry pessimism of a guy who only sulks reluctantly into town when he needs new guitar strings. The band's first release was a self-released cassette from 1994 titled Complex Party Come Along Theories. Other than an EP in '96 (of mostly songs already released on the cassette) it wasn't until Under the Western Freeway that we got the proper debut album from these Modesto, California, indie rockers. Grandaddy's music is a hidden fortress of hot-wired Casios and antique drum machines, with an uneven acoustic strum at its foundation and dissonant guitar fragments looped around like chicken wire. The regrets yelped in lyrics like "Everything Beautiful Is Far Away" are both callow and moving, as if the feeble protests spray-painted on the Northern California overpasses of I-5 had been composed by the world's smartest teenage burnout. The Sophtware Slump could be America's answer- its halting, quizzical answer- to the sculpted crystalline grandeur and nail-biting technophobia of OK Computer. Make-do Yanks that they are, the Granddaddy boys employ shimmering synthetic surface to nearly conceal a rickety acoustic infrastructure, in contrast to the Brits' chilly precision. Creeping amid a "Broken Household Appliance National Forest," stranded on the moon and gazing earthward, eulogizing a paranoid android named Jed who drank himself to death, Lytle recognizes that the future has already come and gone here, leaving him to root among its detritus. As a reward for the many plaudits Sophtware Slump earned, the band saw some sketchy early material released by an old label. Some of the tunes are just fine, but the sonic support system that allows Grandaddy to thrive isn't yet in place. There's a lesson for arty pessimists in there: Fear the future all you like, it's the past that always turns to bite you in the ass. Sumday was more modest in its lethargic weary optimism. Lytle's structures were more conventional, resulting what sounds like a homemade, slacker E.L.O. The band would go on to release 2006's Just Like the Fambly Cat, a personal favorite of mine mainly because it was the first album they release after I had jumped on board as a fan. The band took a hiatus and returned with their last album: 2017's Last Place. Unfortunately, bassist Kevin Garcia passed away from a stroke that same year. Five albums, four E.P.'s, & one amazing band. Go listen to this amazing band and be a good laddie...

It's...

Grandady


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grouper

 131 Grouper  Grouper Reverb. Echo. Effects. Acoustic. Droney. These are some words you could use to explain Grouper's earlier work. Grouper is the solo project of Liz Harris. Her first album was self-titled & self-released. Grouper's second album was 2006's Way Their Crept . There was something special about that mid-ought's droney-underwater sounding indie. Grouper would go on to release five (!) more albums before I came on board as a fan: 2006's Wide , 2007's Cover The Windows & The Walls , 2008's widely acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill & 2011's double-album (but separately released) AIA: Dream Loss & AIA: Alien Observer ... just to be followed up by 2012's double album: Violent Replacement Part I and Violent Replacement Part II . It wasn't until Grouper's more structured-releases that I became a full fledged fan. It was with 2013's The Man Who Died In His Boat that I finally jumped on board as a full-fled...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cake

43 Cake Cake What you need is some CAKE. The late 90's were primed for CAKE. When the emotional hangover of the grunge scene was too much, we got CAKE. This isn't a gag joke. In fact- your gag reflexes are in need of some CAKE.  Despite CAKE's quirky surface, singer John McCrea's deadpan delivery and Vince Di Fiore's mariachi trumpet playing, CAKE is as real as it gets. And with more than 25 years as a band and still going strong, they have nothing left to prove. It all started with 1994's Motorcade for Generosity with the single " Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle " which mocked trust-fund rebels. Then came 1996's Fashion Nugget with the all-time classic " The Distance ." 1998 gave us Prolonging the Magic, a high-water mark. I got on board in 2001 with Comfort Eagle . I was big on disco at the time and their cover of " I Will Survive " caught my attention, and then I saw the " Short Skirt, Long Jacket " video o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billie Holiday

27 Billie Holiday Billie Holiday The first jazz singer to really incorporate blues & move peoples hearts, Billie is immortal. I didn't get into her with her traditional music but rather the 2007 album Remixed and Reimagined . Even through the chops & screws- one thing was unmistakable- that voice- so beautiful, so unique, so pure... She said she tried to sing like a horn & it's evident. She is one of the most accomplish vocal performers of all time. A half-a-century later & her style is still mimicked. Billie is as American as apple pie. In 1935 she was singing at the Apollo Theater. She hopped around labels- Columbia to Decca to Verve- until finding her home. She would battle personal problems (drug use & the like). She would pass away on July 17, 1959. Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington... there's certain artist that are almost as important to American history as they are to the progression of popular music itself. Billie is one of...
Post a Comment
Read more