A Pretty Mess By This One Band

I just watched the video for Gradaddy's "Where I'm Anymore" over at Aquarium Drunkard. It features Jason Lytle riding a bike through California, but not in the trans-state adventure sense. It's generic California, a grove of lemon trees and a suburban street, no clouds in a high, flat sky. He's singing to the camera, or rather lip-synching, cracking a smile at times and at one point laughing. His hat fell off when he ducked under a particularly low branch - it wasn't scripted (if indeed any of this was) and he couldn't help it. There's something bittersweet about seeing him without his trademark trucker's cap, the way he looks so old and a little resigned. But there's also something in his laugh, and how he grins to his friend behind the camera. Lytle, we get the sense, is exactly where he belongs and exactly where he couldn't escape: the deathless suburbia of Modesto, CA. He's a boy on his bike, probably bored but eternally all right, all too relatable. And what's more, watching this video makes it clear that Grandaddy is done. Done being a band, done touring the world, and mostly done trying to be what they could have been. Embracing their irrelevance, showing us that these sunny anystreets are where they belong, and that they will be and have been fine without us.

Grandaddy - Kim, You Bore Me To Death [mp3]

Grandaddy - He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot [mp3]

However, lest we forget, there was a time when Grandaddy really was important. The Sophtware Slump remains a brilliant record - for all its paranoid, ridiculous tendencies it betrayed remarkably human concerns. Songs about poet robots, broken appliances and lost pilots were as affecting as they were witty, raising interesting questions and meditating on them with a uniquely pretty sadness. "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot" is perhaps the standout track, asking an adrift 2000 Man, "Did you love this world/ And this world not love you?" Unfortunately, sometime during the ensuing three years the band must have either answered or forsaken their questions, without letting us know. Their next album was mostly just ridiculous, songs like "O.K. With My Decay," summing up (ha) the group's intentionally laughable Luddite leanings. Sumday, understandably, suffered somewhat under its ineffectiveness, however charming it sounded.

Grandaddy - O.K. With My Decay [mp3]

Grandaddy - Where I'm Anymore [mp3]

Now, with their swansong set for release, it becomes clear what Grandaddy's so cleverly done: tried to convince us that they were never relevant to begin with. Gradually, the band has lessened the weight attached to each release until we're left with shells of Grandaddy songs (the Todzilla EP), but by the time we notice it's tough to recall if and when their songs actually did matter. And now? They've got a music video that looks like the one you made with your friends that one hot, unexciting summer, but whereas yours only managed to display your boredom, Grandaddy's shows something altogether more bittersweet and significant. They're lost and found, as hard as they tried to leave, Modesto remains home. In fact, it's so much their home that we wonder how it was we could have expected anything more from them. From this man on a bicycle who looks more like your neighbor than the frontman of a band who, at one point, made you question why you owned a computer. I'd like to chalk it up to a simple mistake on my part (seriously, no computer?!), though it soon becomes clear that the truth isn't so kind. In typical Grandaddy fasion, Lytle asserts that "I don't know where I'm anymore," though it's heartbreakingly clear that he does, as he rides off through the grove, presumably toward home. And I, like many of you, will let ride my frustration, however understanding - I think they mean it this time.

Farewell, Grandaddy.

Grandaddy - Where I'm Anymore [mov]

Grandaddy - Goodbye [mp3]

Visit Grandaddy online, and buy Just Like the Fambly Cat here, available tomorrow.