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

The Band

19 The Band The Band First known as the Hawks, the Band got their initial fame as Bob Dylan’s backing band. Remember when Bob Dylan sold out and went electric, angering fans so much that they called him “ Judas ”? Well, you can thank all of that to the Band. For a band that sounds so fucking American (seriously- no band has done the whole Americana roots music better than the Band) it’s pretty funny most of them were Canadian. After finally branching out on their own in 1968, the Band would release some of the best music ever recorded… and if you thought the Beatles had a hell of a run- check out the Band’s discography: 1968’s Music From Big Pink , 1969’s self-titled The Band , 1970’s Stage Fright , 1971’s Cahoots , 1972’s live-album Rock of Ages , 1973’s Moondog Matinee , 1975’s Northern Lights -Southern Cross , and 1977’s Islands. Lynard Skynard may have taken the crown for greatest southern rock band, but for a band full of Canadians and Americans, the Band really embraces a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Crystal Castles

61 Crystal Castles Crystal Castles If you ever wondered what it would sound like if the video-game character Mario was catapulted through a plate-glass window- you'd get close to describing Crystal Castles. Cut up vocals and soothing waves of synth, live shows known for "fan riots, crowd surges, and metal barriers destroyed" Toronto electronic-punk-bleep-pop duo Crystal Castles is music that could only be made in the post-modern / post-millennium era, with a fan base that remembers the 8-bit era. Some dance music is meant to be played in the dark, but few dance bands bring their own darkness. This is dance music for sociopaths. Crystal Castles is the brain-child of Ethan Kath. The band began as a Kath solo project in 2003, but the producer recruited a 15-year-old Alice Glass to add vocals. Glass recorded rough soundcheck vocals for five tracks, which were secretly recorded by an en engineer, and Kath uploaded the material un der the name Crystal Castles. After rele...
Post a Comment
Read more

FKA twigs

99 FKA twigs FKA twigs FKA twigs is the brain-child of Tahliah Barnett. Under her stage-name of FKA twigs (which I'll just refer to her as twigs from here-on-out) she has released three EP’s (2012’s EP1 , 2013’s EP2 , and 2015’s incredible M3LL155X EP )  and two albums (2014’s LP1 & 2019’s Magdalene ). With someone with such a small catalogue, it's amazing how dense and rich this music is. Before Billie Eilish made the whole whisper-singer mainstream last year, twigs was already releasing down-tempo-trip-hop-whisper-sung music back in 2012. That is when she released her debut, EP1 . twigs hqd been studying dance since the age of six, but deep down, she knew she always wanted to be a recording artist so she eventually left the dancing behind (in a way [dance has always been a big part of her project]) to focus on her music project. However, limiting to just a music project is doing it an injustice in labeling. It’s more of a visual-dancing-art project. Ever ev...
Post a Comment
Read more