Get all 7 Grampfather releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Laugh Lines, 666G, Gramppappies, Magnum Grampus, The Gramp Stamp, Gramps Of Wrath, and Pipes.
1. |
Para Ti
06:20
|
|||
|
Para Ti
You, you don't even know what you do
to me--but, baby, I want to try and make you see.
I don't know what you've been told
but, baby, lovers like us, we ain't meant to be alone.
Don't listen to what your friend said
no, not what your stupid friend said.
She don't know any flame grown old,
she only knows the flicker and the flash
only what's beeping on the dash
but, baby, I've got that kind of love that lasts
that stuff you thought was just a thing of the past
but o no no.
O, fire, don't die soon.
I just want to bask in this bliss honeymoon.
Let us maintain. Yes, let us refrain
from any unnecessary drama
let us not strain.
And I'm feeling like you feel the same.
Cool like the breeze and warm like the hearth.
Had to have lost to know what it's worth.
So enter the onslaught of corny clichés,
but if it's true then it's true--why shouldn't we
do what we do.
Well I'm in love with you
and I don't care who
tries to sway us with their blues.
If they're self-righteous, they can't see
no, they're comfortable in their misery.
If they were happy, their beady, blinking,
pity-seeking eyes would not realize.
So frightened, so numb,
never realizing what they've become.
So jaded, mistaking
age for wisdom.
Well I've seen some young prodigy babies
and I've seen thick-skulled old men and ladies--
it makes no difference as long as what they say is true.
And it's true when I say, I'm in love with
YoOOOoooOOuuuUUU
I know, I know, you don't have to say it--
I know: "What's a story without a conflict show?"
But I don't need an elaborate conceit
to tell you how I feel because you know what I mean.
Well the conflict is that we'd think that we'd even need
a conflict at all.
Well I can finally read the letters
written clearly in your smile.
Well I can see much better
with these lenses over my eyes.
O you're my prescription
because you dissolved my conviction
that what I saw before you
was anything important.
Now I know, now that those shadows are gone,
that you're the fucking sun
and the day has just begun.
I'm so elated.
I don't believe in much but this feels fated.
From the depths of my apathy
you saved me.
Feels like I can finally breathe with this new life
you gave me.
O, my little love,
you're my light of day.
I thought I'd never find you,
thought I'd lost my way.
Well you're the prettiest plum
I ever saw.
How do you do it fill me with constant
awe.
O, my little love,
you treat me so sweet.
All my past loves
cannot compete.
You are my best,
you are my peak.
Better than the rest
it's 'cause you
set my heart free.
|
||||
2. |
Good Mo(u)rning
05:35
|
|||
|
Good Mo(u)rning
It's so nice
when the air is just right
when you can see
your breath mist freeze.
I know you don't like it
you say you might just
stay inside
layered up this whole time
until it all melts away.
Well I don't mean to be
a devil's advocate you see
but what would give shape to your days
without the cold?
And I know
that my heart is warmer
having been through these storms.
And I can't complain
'cause living these days
is nice and easy
just you and me
we're sitting real serene
just drinking good bean juice
and fine wine from the discount aisle
squirreled away in our nook
devouring the last of our books.
But there are times
when my mind becomes idle
and there arises
something inside me
that reminds me
of how feels to be
alive/a lie--
when you feel dead inside
you can't hear
anything else
but your own
youthful, illusory self--
no you can't drown it out
the voice that cries
the muse that tries
to quell your doubt
reminding you
what brought you to
this path in the first place:
to take all the seemingly
meaningless things we face
every monotonous day-to-day
and replace the emptiness
with the meanings that we create.
It doesn't matter much to me.
You can call it "pie in the sky"
but I still think it tastes sweet.
I don't know, maybe I've lost it
maybe I've gone and sold my soul
without knowing the cost of it.
But I don't know, maybe I've still got it
it's just lurking in the depths
just waiting for an offer.
I know I've grown lazy
but I won't let these comforts
tame me.
It's too damn easy
yeah, it's too damn easy
to play the victim--
there's nothing noble
in giving up.
I'm done with the illusion
because I decided I would
make the decision to override it.
I feel fine, I'm not wasting
half my life inside.
Okay, it's cold,
so put on your coat
open up the door
let in sunshine.
See how the rays
spread about the room
illuming the dust
that we've accrued.
We'll never know
just what we've got
if we just sit around and
rot.
I know I grow
from my pain.
If you don't engage
you don't get a say.
Because there's substance
than there's clutter--
don't mix one with the other.
I don't mean to offend
I just want to bend
the agenda or just end the
stale convention.
I don't care for the words
or what they purport to mean
'cause the marrow of the matter
is in the silence underneath.
And there's no need
to try and fool me
because I can clearly see
straight through the vernier
of such fickle convictions.
'Cause it's so damn easy
to tell the difference
between truths
and convenient fictions.
I know I've grown lazy
but I won't let these comforts
tame me.
|
||||
3. |
Roach Motel
03:49
|
|||
|
Roach Motel
We were just some dirtbag kids
getting high on the sly.
We lived in a tent
in the thick of the woods
where no one could find.
We lived in our own world
we made our own worlds
in our heads.
When I see it in my dreams
I can see that fire again.
I met you down by the pond
where the swans and ducks
and muck all mingled.
We covered our tracks
as we trekked through the trail
and we kept our spot
good and hidden.
Whenever we'd feel like
we'd had just enough of it all
we'd meet by the trees
the ones that made your sister sneeze
and soon enough we were free
just you and me, you and me, we--
while the other kids were loitering
down by the mall
you and me, king and queen of the woods
had it all.
We never had much
but we conserved what we had.
We'd make it last a week
that last pinch in the bag.
We've lost the woods
and we've grown old
blunted by the rigmarole--
but I'll never forget
the soul, and that sweet, rank smell
of our dirty roach motel.
We lived in our own world
we made our own worlds
in our heads.
When I see it in my dreams
I can see that fire again.
We lived in our own world
we made our own worlds
in our heads.
When I see it in my dreams
I can see that fire again.
|
||||
4. |
2% Juice
06:27
|
|||
|
2% Juice
You’re a bad liar—
I can see what you feel
through your eyeballs—
don’t ya know
they’re the windows to the soul?
so they say say say. . .
Don’t ya know what’s disclosed
by the twitching of your lips
or the crinkling of your nose
even though it might seem like
nothing at all?
Nothing at all.
You think you’re sly
but you and I
both know what the deal is—
don’t assume that only you
know what it is you’re feeling—
it’s all about the room,
I feel it too—
seems like everyone’s aware
that everyone’s aware
besides you.
You can save it—
your tinted language,
keep it simple:
if what you’re saying
is meaningful then say it
in a way that’s accessible
to the common being
so they don’t need a degree
to see what you’re saying—
you better believe
that such elite phrasing
is not conversation
but just pretentious masturbation.
All’s been done
under the sun.
How can we break free
from the monotony?
How do we express
amidst all the excess?
What do we mean?
How do we proceed?
You’ve got to take the combinations
that make the amalgamation
that makes you who you are
and what you do is what you are
and what you produce is your art
but it’s all determined
by your intention from the start.
So what do you want?
Do you want to discuss or just flaunt?
Put those flashy tricks on the shelf—
you’re like everyone else who
felt the urge to
be original, driven by some self-endowed principle—
well, maybe you’ve got something after all
but I wouldn’t feel comfortable
calling what I pass along
mine, for I must’ve gotten it from someone
who got it from someone
and so on into
time immemorial—
I’m calling for a funeral
of the ego—it’s like a cyst on the mind;
instead, I see my contemporaries
as catalysts for new designs.
No, nothing exists in a vacuum
so I’m content with the potential truth
that, of all the imported ingredients,
I possess at least 2% juice—
and all the rest are not my competitors
but my friends who I’m indebted to.
You’ve got enough on your own plate—
I don’t mean to help you self-deprecate;
I just want to help to eradicate
fruitless templates that only complicate
the primal instinct that first inspired you to create—
that simple desire just to have minds relate.
And hopefully we'll leave this place
a little brighter than when we came--
the sentiment's nothing new,
but it's all about attitude.
I don't care for the What as much as the How.
It's too easy to just turn things down
and harshly criticize
but it's hard to realize
that what I see
as beautiful might seem
awful in your eyes
and that your sunset's
my sunrise.
Hey, why's it so hard to say
anything that's cliché.
No, don't leave a trace
or else your image
will be defaced.
No, your muse is not yours
but something you picked up
from the lot, of course.
I wouldn't blame you
if you wanted to debate it
but I find it kind of liberating to
remove the source from the self--
and if it's true
that it comes from somewhere else--
than who's
to say it's fake if you feel it?
So let it pass through
so I can steal it.
|
||||
5. |
GOREgonzola!
03:50
|
|||
6. |
Vultures Eating Vultures
05:28
|
|||
|
Vultures Eating Vultures
He was old and mean
blood dripping from his beak—
whenever I remember him
I can hear him speak.
He says, “Let go. Lie down.
You won’t hear a sound
next time I come around.”
He dug his talons deep
into the deceased
rendering its tendons
undoing his own kind’s seams.
Then the whole pack
dug in their masks
to their brother or their mother
or whoever was fixed for the feast.
“Lie down. Let go.”
Whenever I see him
I swear I see someone I know.
When I die, would you mind
picking up the scraps
off my spine and back?
I’ll have had a body to live through
and now it’s my gift to you
and I’ll course through your heart
a pulse that knows not time.
There is no time—
when your tomb is the womb
and the womb is your food;
you’re imbued through and through
with a lust to renew
with a thirst to consume
the waste of the wasted
and erase death from the face
of the pavement.
I’m just a bloody mess—
take this burden off my chest:
skin and veins, nerves and tissues;
come undone these fibrous sinews
lay to rest these incessant issues
save me from such common misuse.
You’ve got it right—
there’ll be no decay tonight:
the old are dead and the young are fed,
ancestors reunite.
When I die, would you mind
picking up the scraps
off my spineless back?
I’ll have had a body to live through
and now it’s my gift to you.
“Let go. Lie down.”
Someday we’ll meet again
but I won’t know how.
I remember the first time
I saw you rummaging around in my yard—
you were all huddled round the freshly discarded
carcass of a soul just departed
and flown off to who knows where—
you don’t care, just as long as there’s somewhere
to drag it off to and clear it out
and feed those awful, greedy mouths. . .
but in a dream I saw the scene in reverse:
it was obscene how serene you all conversed
like surgeons hovering above your patient
like masked craftsmen so diligent
gently piecing each rib to each knob
beaks, like tweezers, ease in to do the job
finishing the frame of the ship
feeding her meat as if she were your chick
and tucking her in with a nice, warm pelt.
It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,
thought my heart would melt.
You hoist the mast
now that death is past
and nudge your fledgling
on to set sail
You watch your daughter rise
as you hiss your goodbyes
and cry your mo(u)rning wails
as you prepare for her retreat
for summer is coming
and the sun is setting in the east.
The lyrics of this poem are inspired by/reworked from a poem I wrote a long while ago:
Turkey Vultures
All huddled about the skull
and spine of a squirrel,
gently piecing each rib
to each knob—
their beaks like tweezers,
the masked craftsmen finish
the frame of the ship,
easing their way through
the mouth, feeding her meat
as if she were their chick
and tucking her in
with a nice warm pelt.
When the mast is hoisted
they nudge their fledgling
on to set sail,
hissing goodbyes
as they prepare for their retreat,
for summer is coming
and the sun is setting in the east.
|
||||
Grampfather Kingston, New York
Grampfather is an indie-psych rock band based out of Kingston, NY, whose material traverses a variety of rock genres, such
as indie, garage, punk, psych, chill, and thrash.
James Kwapisz: vocals, guitar, synth
Tony DiMauro: drums
Andrew Blot: guitar, keys
Jake Offermann: bass
Follow us on Facebook,
Instagram: @grampfatherrr,
or Twitter: @GRAMPFATHER.
Also on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc.
... more
Grampfather recommends:
James's other stuff.
go to album
James's early instrumental stuff.
go to albumIf you like Grampfather, you may also like:
A slow drip of Tropicália-infused psychedelia from New Orleans rock outfit Blue Basin: balmy one moment, aggressive the next.
go to album
These two singles by Fime live up to the band's self-described "cool ass boy rock" vibe.
go to album
The debut LP from Kioea is dreamy psychedelic surf music that calls back to the '60s while feeling remarkably contemporary.
go to album
Dazzling guitar work forms the centerpiece of the new EP from Kioea, featuring exploratory songs that hold a tight grip.
go to album
