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Grandaddy Expands Sumday In Honor Of 20th Anniversary

New edition includes rarities, B-sides, and cassette demos of each song
Photo: Chugrad McAndrews

Long-running California indie rock outfit Grandaddy has beefed up its 2003 album Sumday for a 20th anniversary reissue, which will arrive on Sept. 1 from Dangerbird Records in a four-LP set. Sumday Twunny includes the original album in remastered form, a four-track cassette demo version of each song, and Excess Baggage, which features rarities and B-sides.

The Cassette Demos is now available on streaming platforms, and will be available as a standalone vinyl release alongside the remastered Sumday on June 30.

“Revisiting this material and reflecting on those times has been a double-edged sword,” says Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle. “Bittersweet is an apt word, I suppose. Twenty years after the fact, I’m just grateful to be alive and kicking [and] celebrating that moment in time by re-releasing the original album, b-sides, and extras of that era, and even some raw cassette demos of the album itself — a sort of sketchbook/rough draft of the LP in cassette form. So be it then. ‘On the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ This is what all of that sounds like. I’ll take it.”

Sumday was Grandaddy’s third album and was the follow-up to its 2003 breakthrough, The Sophtware Slump. SPIN‘s contemporary review declared, “On their third album, Grandaddy shake off their more obscurantist tendencies for a warm and deeply engaging snapshot of fractured relationships and existential dread. It’s not a bid for mainstream acceptance by any stretch, but it’s a moment of clarity along the lines of Dark Side of the Moon or OK Computer — the sound of art-rock lifers finding beauty in the inscrutable.”

“After many years of hammering away at writing and recording as Grandaddy, Sumday seems to be the center of it and where it all peaked. To the journalists we were ‘on the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ It was a tumultuous and exciting time for us for sure — also very exhausting.”

Grandaddy broke up three years after the release of Sumday, but reunited in 2012 and released a comeback album, Last Place, in 2017. Founding member Kevin Garcia passed away at age 41 that same year. Lytle said earlier this year that a new Grandaddy album was complete, but no release date has been announced.

Here is the track list for Sumday: Excess Baggage

My Little Skateboarding Problem
Now it’s On (Recorded for the Colin Murray Show on BBC Radio 1)
Derek Spears
Gettin’ Jipped
The Town where I’m Livin Now
Dearest Descrambler
Build a Box
Trouble with a Capital T (muzak version)
Sure It Worked
Running Cable at Shiva’s
Emit Anymore
I no how you feel
The Rugged and Splintered Entertainment Center (a gospel hymn)