Track Listing

1. Gentle Spike Resort
2. Wretched Songs
3. Levitz
4. Away Birdies With Special Sounds
5. Kim You Bore Me To Death
6. For The Dishwasher
7. Pre Merced
8. Sikh In A Baja VW Bug
9. Lava Kiss
10. Fentry
11. Egg Hit And Jack Too

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10591 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

Fantastic rarities collection.
There's a definite mood running through this one. Best summed up by the sample at the start of the instrumental, 'Fentry'. Two, well hicks is the only word that comes to mind (a man and a woman, man sounds real grizzly) , exchange pleasantries, "sure has been a cold winter" kind of thing. However, it's at the very end of this conversation, where the Grandaddy template is set. The woman stumbles, and the man asks, "can you make it", to which she replies, "yes sah, i kin make it". This undercurrent runs through quite a few of the songs on this record. The mundane conversation representing the mundane life, from which we can escape from through our dreams ("oh to sleep, perchance to dream", from "Levitz").

Not just the mundane but the downtrodden also. "For the Dishwasher" all about a..dishwasher, riding home after his day's work. He is told "it will be alright, just go to sleep tonight", again release through our dreams, the focal point.

Lyttle's lyrics move the listener all the way through. Immediately, following the above couplet, the consolation, "you'll get another chance some day" is offered, adding unbearable poignancy to proceedings.

It also offers an insight into the often child-like and utterly charming insights offered by the band's singer and songperson, Jason Lyttle.

For all the often sentimental value his lyrics hold throughout, the romantic side of things is painted as tragic on the final track and on 'For the Dishwasher' it is firmly rejected - "F**k that subject love". This is beautiful, encapsulating brilliantly the frustration and anger the rejected among us feel.

There are also lighter moments, the opening track, "Gentle Spike Resort", comments on angry teenage punk rockers. There is brilliant wordplay to be found here also. Rightly never favouring the direct approach, Lyttle points out their Whitesnake riffs dressed up like...not Sid Vicious, but Sid Viscosity.

Then there's 'Kim, you bore me to death', the homage to the Pixies. With an absolutely killer Pixiesesque guitar break, and a bizarre narrative concerning Frank Black's? first meeting with Kim. Where she "explains her theory" with her room mate behind her "playing bongos", expertly playing up Kim Deals' suspected kookiness.

Lyrical themes vary wildly elsewhere, with a general sense of sadness underpinning each song. A black heart definetly beats beneath all this. In particular, the hidden track, which concerns Lyttle killing a man "again and again" whom his girl cheated on him for. The fact that all this is set against a traditional rootsy chord progression works well, giving the piece a real confessional feel.

Dark but beautiful music, that manages to transport you to some place else, like all good music should.

Grandaddy's Best Songs Hidden On Here!
Alright, so about 25 percent of these tracks are filler and justified B-sides. But what about these: Gentle Spike Resort - hilariously melancholic attack on sportz-metal kids (The Offspring etc). For The Dishwasher - achingly desolate and poignant. Lava Kiss - just momentous music and sad,sad singing.

Try and get hold of thier EP called 'Signal To Snow Ratio', it has the first installment of the Jeddy 3 'trilogy', one great should-a-been single 'Hand Crank Transmitter' and the essence of melancholia in 'Protected From The Rain' (a song about a kinda 'Lenny' figure who has poetry left on his windshield wrapped in plastic to guard against the bad weather by a mysterious presumably female figure). Top sad stuff.

One of the best CDs I've ever bought!
I started listening to Grandaddy recently (I'm always too late they broke up last year!). I got hold of "Under the Western Freeway" and thought it fantastic. Then I got to hear "The Sophtware Slump", not quite as good but still an excellent record. Finally I got to this. Ostensibly this is an amalgamation of two of Grandaddy's early EPs, "A Pretty Mess By This One Band" and "Machines Are Not She EP". On that basis, as has been written below, I may have expected this to be a bit of a mish mash, some good, some mediocre, some bad tracks. On the contrary - this has to be one of the best CDs I've ever bought (and I've bought a lot!).

This is much more Lo-Fi than either of their first two albums in my opinion and is all the better for it. Even though I think "The Sophtware Slump" is good, I do feel its a bit too slick for my liking. I'd prefer it if it was a little less Flaming Lips and a little more Neutral Milk Hotel. But this, this is fantastic! Right from the brilliant opener "Gentle Spike Resort" to the end of the long but never boring "Egg Hit and Jack Too", this is Grandaddy at their best.

There are some weird diversions on the way though. The track "Away Birdies with Special Sounds" is about as weird as they get with its overdubbed voice of a hillbilly (by the sound of it). "Sikh in a Baha VW Bug" is also pretty mad and "Kim You Bore Me to Death" is very grungy, but great. There isn't a bad track on this collection.

Excellent CD. If you like Neutral Milk Hotel and any of the Elephant 6 stuff then you'll love this. Definitely one of the best CDs I've ever bought!