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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Grandaddy
Wednesday 30 July @ 12:53:12 |
 by Sean McCarthy
The first time I listened to the new Grandaddy CD, Sumday, I was trapped in a traffic jam on 94 on my way to see the Twins. We crawled past several puzzled teenagers standing next to their brand-new truck and boat, both of which were jutting perpendicularly into two lanes of traffic. By the time we got to the parking garage, all the spots were taken, so the attendant instructed us to “just take one of them handicapped spaces.” The Twins won over living-embodiment-of-evil Bud Selig and his Milwaukee Brewers. It rained so hard on the way out that I had to sit in my car for 10 minutes just to dry my T-shirt enough so I could clean off my glasses. By comparison, Sumday seemed underwhelming.
It’s been three years since Grandaddy’s previous effort, 2000’s The Sophtware Slump. The long delay, according to keyboardist Tim Dryden, was due to the group’s extensive tours across the country. “We had a really tough time making this record,” admits Dryden via telephone on a rare break from Grandaddy’s rigorous touring schedule. “We got really burned out with music by the time we finished up touring for The Sophtware Slump, it felt like we had been on the road forever. When we finally got back to Modesto we just sat around for four or five months before we could get excited about the idea of making another record. Then it was still a pretty slow process because we had bought a bunch of new equipment and really had to learn how to use it and iron out all the bugs before we could go about actually recording.” At least they didn’t get bored and decide to kick out their guitarist as some sort we’re-so-famous-and-artistic move, as some recently critically-acclaimed rock bands have been known to do (that’s right, I’m talking to you, Mr. Tweedy).
The Sophtware Slump saw the group alternating upbeat, synthesized rock songs with slower, sorrowful ballads. (Perhaps sorrowful isn’t the right word, but remorse is all that comes to mind for an alcoholic robot.) Numbers like “Crystal Lake” showed off slick synth skills and shiny guitar licks whereas cuts like the near nine-minute epic “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s The Pilot” were an altogether trippier affair. On Sumday, however, that contrast is absent. The first six songs have more bounce than a model in a Ja Rule video and feature instantly hummable melodies. Frontman Jason Lytle has a real knack for transforming common phrases into clever lyrics (“and the used up Krylon cans that the farmer found/were used to paint the foothills brown”), and this time around, his witty wordplay is set exclusively to readily digestable running times (the bulk of Sumday’s tracks hover around the four-minute mark).
The transition to the last third of the record—with the exception of the cloying “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake”—is noticeably abrupt, as the closing songs are far more downbeat and subdued. The climax to the album should come after “O.K. With my Decay,” but instead the album overstays its welcome, painfully limping along for two more songs.
After listening to the CD in the safety of my home and away from stranded pimply suburbanites, I found it impossible to recall a specific song in detail; I was simply left with the impression of a 30-minute happy song followed by one hell of a downer. While the arrangement of the tracks on the album is an artistic choice (or, more likely, an A & R choice), the running order of Sumday only contributes to reducing Grandaddy to a two-trick digitalized pony show, even if those two tricks are well written and a blast to listen to.
Recent press has pitted Grandaddy against the Flaming Lips under the pretext of the two bands battling it out to see who can be Commander Supreme of “Songs About Technology.” This strikes me as tremendously stupid. While Grandaddy’s songs might namecheck such hi-tech terms as e-mail, faxes, and cell phones (whatever the fuck those are), the deeper focus of the lyrics lies in loss, displacement and anxiety. When Lytle pleads that he wants to get back home on “El Caminos in the West,” he isn’t talking about his homepage.
The decision to litter their songs with computer carcasses probably stems from the impact of Grandaddy’s hometown, Modesto, Calif., on their consciousness. As Dryden explains, “Modesto is just a really strange place; it’s still kind of a cow town. Modesto was sort of a farming town with a lot of canning plants. Then when the whole dot com thing happened, everybody just started moving here from the Bay Area because housing was still relatively affordable. Now the dot com thing has kind of crashed. It’s a big bedroom community; there’s really not a whole lot going on. It’s getting a little bit better, but it’s always been this way. Modesto is just sort of a little town that’s always striving for something better and fizzling out before it can get there.”
The three bonus music videos that come packaged with Sumday almost justify the cost of the entire album by themselves. The videos feature confused scientists, an elderly boy scout and lots of prancing men in oversized animal costumes (which, thanks to MTV’s “Sex 2K2: Furries” simultaneously terrified and aroused me). Grandaddy has a wicked sense of humor—the last time I saw so many thumbs up, President Clinton was leaving office—that comes across clearly in their music, visual representation and stage presence. “A lot of the stuff you have to do being in a band,” admits Dryden, “is pretty boring, pretty much everything that leads up to getting up on stage. The best part of the day is really that hour and a half that you get onstage and communicate directly to the audience and just enjoy each other. The other parts of being in a rock band are basically just silly.”
Grandaddy plays Thu., July 31, at 6 p.m. at First Avenue. With fellow Californians Earlimart and Patrick Park, $10 adv/ $12 door. 21+. 701 First Ave. N., Mpls. 612-338-8388.
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