Constantly wishing Paul did more work as Grandpaboy.

[folker]

I find myself coming back to Mono and Dead Man Shake quite often and just letting them play out. I especially love the guitar work on Mono, PW uses alternate tunings incredibly well to produce some very catchy riffs that I find are stuck in my head for hours, if not days, after listening. Silent Film Star has got to be the highlight of the album for me, closely followed by High Time or Footsteps, or even Let's Not Belong Together. I'll Do Anything deserves an honourable mention for its main riff, I love it. The entire album is some of PW's best work in my opinion.

I have a similar opinion of Dead Man Shake, songs like Natural Mean Lover and Mpls, if I crank the volume up, give me the vibe of sitting in smoky bar with a glass of expensive whisky and taking in the music.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the lead guitar work. We know PW as mainly playing rhythm but he shows he is more than capable of holding his own through the solos and little guitar fills he plays on both albums.

But I digress, I'm of the opinion his work as Grandpaboy wasn't finished and I sorely wish we had received more of it. Hell, any new PW content surfacing would be like Christmas.

What do you guys think of the aforementioned albums?

[curmudgeonman]

Mono is one of the few Westerberg albums I still listen to these days, I never tired of it like some others. My favorite songs; AAA, High Time, and I'll Do Anything, a song I always thought The Rolling Stones should have covered.

[currympeople]

Agreed! I really love Vampires & Failures as well as the others mentioned above. I thought I read at some point in the press tour for Mono/Stereo that Tommy played bass on Mono. Makes a lot on sense to me as each's best stuff seem to come when they are in each others orbit.

[curmudgeonman]

^^^^^^^^^^^

The Stinson story I think was a "purported" rumor on Pop Matters or Pitchfork, or one of those rock music sites. Another site had claimed a real band played ("Grandpaboy", "Elrod Puce", "Zeke Pine", "Henry Twiddle", "Luther Covington" ). But everything according to past Westerberg interviews and such, indicates that he played all of the instruments (including drums), and produced and engineered the album in his basement over a two year period before signing with Vagrant at the start of 2002, Stereo/Mono released a few months later.

[twicks1]

Mono is "top of the heap" for me as well. Dead Man Shake is at the bottom, unfortunately.

[mudbacktodirt]

Not to throw some nonsense out there (but I will anyway). One of Paul's online releases came with a photo of what looks like him and his brother as kids with a note referring to them as Henry Twiddle and Zeke Pine. It made me think he was saying his brother had helped him on the record (since he gave him one of the nicknames of the Grandpaboy band members). He does have a brother (although I have no idea if he plays any instruments).

All in all, I'd agree that the likely scenario is that Paul played it all himself. I do really enjoy the Grandpaboy releases (with the partial exception of Grandpaboy's Last Stand where he sings 'let's go to White Castle' to the tune of La Bamba - funny but not really funny enough).

[con]

A little bar in a little nowhere town installed a newfangled digital jukebox a decade or so ago. “High Time” was on the thing, incredibly. No one ever seemed to recognize the tune—I’d play it every night I went, which was often then—but I got a secret thrill out of hearing it blast through the place.

[con]

And his take on “What Kind of Fool am I?”—one of my all-time favorite PW recordings. Best interpretation I’ve heard of it. Period. Captures the essential melancholy of those words and chords. Better than Sinatra. Better than everybody.

[mudbacktodirt]

For one more Grandpaboy tidbit, I remember an interview with Paul from 2002 where he said he had a clause in his contract saying he could have future releases under that name if the first release did well sales-wise.

I think he was saying that if Mono did well upon the February 2002 release then Stereo might go out under that name too in April 2002. That doesn't make a lot of sense though since it would take a while to manufacture the discs and cases. Maybe they could if the initial run wasn't that big.

I remember him saying that he had been having trouble writing new songs. Under the Paul Westerberg name, he felt an obligation to be a serious artist. As Grandpaboy, he could goof off and let loose a bit (which helped him get going again by not taking it so seriously . . . that and buying a new red guitar).

These are my recollections from 2002 interviews (as best as I can recall). There is a lesson in there that could apply to anyone really about lightening up and not taking things so seriously to where it's hard to get anything done . . . applies to me for sure.