Monitor And The Merrimac: Grandma's Old Couch (2007)

New Wax


Besides being a Civil War reference, Monitor And The Merrimac also serves as the moniker for Dave Grazinski's one-man banjo project. One listen to his new album Grandma's Old Couch, and you'd expect Grazinski to be about 30 years older and 100 pounds heavier. In actuality, Grazinski is from Connecticut rather than the deep south, and he's merely a 20-something rather than a world-weary old man in a tobacco-stained flannel shirt and worn overalls. That doesn't mean that Grazinski is incapable of creating timeless front-porch ditties built on intermingling banjo and rootsy acoustic guitar strums. In fact, he does so rather convincingly. With an unabashedly bluegrass sound and enough of a punk rock aesthetic thrown in to keep all the indie kids intrigued, one spin of Grandma's Old Couch is effectively like stepping into a time-warp that transports you straight to a middle-of-nowhere-mountain-town where the townspeople find their entertainment by gathering around the local tunes-man and listening to him pluck away at his banjo and sing at the top of his lungs. Production-wise, the album is rough enough around the edges to ring authentic, while being polished enough to impress. As a matter of fact, Grazinski recorded the tracks with equipment belonging to his friends in Mates of State. The resulting album is ironically refreshing considering its throwback roots. -- Capt. Obvious

Listen:
MP3: Monitor And The Merrimac - Grandma's Old Couch
MP3: Monitor And The Merrimac - Where Are You Now, James Durden

Tags: Monitor And The Merrimac, Grandma's Old Couch, Review, Captain Obvious