Grandaddy

Rock bands with beards are a dying breed, but Californian band Grandaddy seem set on reviving facial hair as a fashion item. Three of the five band members sport fine, flowing bushes, and the singer, Jason Lytle, proudly displays a Quaker-style growth on his lower chin.

Grandaddy hail from the hick town of Modesto, and when they came onstage at the Mean Fiddler last Saturday night, they showed an unassuming modesty which bordered on bashful. Shucks, guys, we ain't gonna bite ya.Tired and jetlagged from their transatlantic trip, they performed a laid-back, 45 minute-long set, giving us little time to assimilate their quirky, off-the-beaten-track style. Sometimes they sounded like rural relatives of The Eels, or a dirt road version The Beach Boys, but their barnyard grunge was probably closer to Sparklehorse, with whom they share a slightly crooked, lo-fi approach.

The album, Under The Western Freeway, has had the critics rubbing their beards and nodding sagely, and songs like A.M. 180, Summer's Here Kids and Everything Beautiful Is Far Away are swarming with itchy little melodies and niggling hooks which dance around your head like flies on a porch. Grandaddy's rockin' chair philosophy seems to be encapsulated in the line: "Here I sit, play my guitar, drink some beer, out in the country." Good, old-fashioned, beardy rock 'n' roll values - Neil Young would approve.