Watercooler — Grandaddy
#365Songs: January 31st
I’m old enough that bands who defined my indie taste are now coming back with albums after many years of absence — Slowdive, Camera Obscura, The American Analog Set, Blonde Redhead, Spiritualized. And then there are the prolific artists that never went away, but continued to surprise me with their resilience and innovation — Low, Yo La Tengo, Damien Jurado. And somewhere in the middle are the bands that were once prolific, faded out, then came back prolific once again. And that leads us to Grandaddy.
Frontman Jason Lytle has been pouring great music into the world since the early ’90s. A punk skateboarder from Modesto, California, Lytle’s Grandaddy released two truly great albums, 1997’s Under the Western Freeway and The Sophtware Slump in 2000. Then two albums later, their best album to date, Sumday, in 2003, a tech weary end-of-times masterpiece — to celebrate its 20th anniversary last year they released the original demos. At their worst, they can remind you of The Flaming Lips; at their best, a bit of the spaciest and most skeptical Radiohead tracks, perhaps even Neil Young if he fell off a skateboard a few too many times.
To hear a new Grandaddy release feels like an old friend visiting from the past — shades of Pavement, but most definitely one of my favorite artists ever, Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse), whose 2010 death rattled me for weeks. The upcoming Blu Wav is certainly one of my most anticipated albums of the year, and the first three releases have done nothing to ease my optimism. The Blu pays homage to Bluegrass, the Wav to New Wave, and we hear a little of both genres in each of the songs.
In Watercooler, we hear Lytle playing a pedal steel guitar for the first time, a fact that he seems quite proud to express in early interviews. The song contrasts the mundanity of office work life against the free-wheeling, road-tripping artist life. As with any piece of art, our interpretation is filtered through personal experience. For far too long, I sat in offices staring restless out the window, avoiding forced lunches and awkward happy hours, counting minutes on a clock, and then later, jet setting to film shoots in search of stories to tell. The restless, dreamy worker waving at his more adventurous self, reminding him to never stop chasing the career he desires.
Wave to me on your way to the watercooler
Just don’t wait for me ’cause we won’t work
Please wave to me on your way to the watercooler
Cross the break room just the way you always do
And you cry in the bathroom stall
’Cause I won’t call although I know you hurt
And you cry in the bathroom stall
’Cause I don’t call, it’s not what you deserve
Wave to me on your way to the watercooler
I’ve never been a prolific writer. I’m too particular with my words, too at odds with myself, questioning every line, rewriting every paragraph. Starting, scrapping, starting again, scrapping once more. That imposter syndrome voice egging me on, flipping the computer off the desk, distracting my attention. And then, for too many years, nothing. Now, this project has me writing daily, and it feels good, as if the start to something bigger, more meaningful, an embrace with that unmet potential that looms large in the back of my mind. Perhaps this is me, at the water cooler, meeting up with the sort of writer I’ve always wanted to be.
Tell your boss you’re clocking out and gotta go
And you cry in the bathroom stall
