Friday, May 30, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.
Who: Grandaddy (opening for Pete Yorn).
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.
Tickets: $30.50.
Information: 693-5066.
Jason Lytle never dreamt of being a professional musician.
Far from it, the Modesto, Calif., native grew up with aspirations of a completely different sort: He hoped to earn a living skateboarding.
"It consumed my life. That's all I wanted to do," Lytle said. "I'd pretty much gotten to the point where I was skating with all the people that I'd looked up to. I'd befriended my heroes and I was making my way up the ranks."
But before Lytle -- a sponsored amateur specializing in vert skating -- could go any further, he tore up his knee, putting an abrupt end to his budding extreme sports career.
So how did Lytle get over that disappointment? By forming a rock band called Grandaddy with two of his closest friends.
"My life had totally been consumed by this thing, and then all of a sudden there was nothing, so I knew I had to do something," the 32-year-old singer, guitarist and keyboardist said in a phone interview from Grandaddy's tour bus before a recent show in Boston.
"There was like a big void that had come about, and I had a bunch of stuff that needed to go somewhere. I ended up just channeling it into music."
Eleven years later Lytle's second love still burns. Now five members strong, Grandaddy has developed into one of the indie rock scene's true mainstays.
The band opens for singer/songwriter Pete Yorn at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel on Saturday night at 8. Also on the bill is Los Angeles quartet Year of the Rabbit.
With third studio album "Sumday" set for a June 10 release, Lytle's outfit is preparing to head out on its own headlining tour later this summer. Grandaddy is also no stranger to the opening slot, having toured with the Flaming Lips, Coldplay, Yo La Tengo and Elliott Smith, among others.
"This time -- and this was also the case with Elliott and Coldplay -- they requested us, which is always nice," Lytle said. "It wasn't like some management thing. It was basically the artists actually seeing if we were available because they were fans of ours."
Lytle said he has also been a fan of Yorn's since he first heard "Strange Condition," the hit single off Yorn's 2001 debut, "musicforthemorningafter."
"That's the one song that I've ever heard on mainstream radio that I can remember that actually made me go out and buy the album," Lytle said.
Grandaddy's own story began modestly enough, with Lytle, bassist Kevin Garcia and drummer Aaron Burtch self-releasing 200 copies of their first recordings in cassette form.
Two fellow Californians -- guitarist Jim Fairchild and keyboardist Tim Dryden -- soon signed on, and the quintet drew widespread acclaim for their 1997 debut album, "Under the Western Freeway" and its follow-up, 2000's "The Sophtware Slump."
Somewhat reminiscent of mid-1990s Pavement, both of those discs vacillate between laid-back, wandering cuts such as "Laughing Stock" and "Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)" and all-out rockers such as "A.M. 180" and "Chartsengrafs."
The same holds true on "Sumday," so much so that Lytle initially considered splitting its 12 tracks over two separate CDs before settling on a final single-disc format.
"Back in the days of vinyl, a lot of times side one would have a completely different type of mood than side two," Lytle said. "I was thinking in terms of that, because I thought I was going to have a difficult time mixing the upbeat stuff with the more mellow stuff.
"But luckily, it turned out I was pretty comfortable with it and I ended up not having to do that at all. That was kind of a relief."
Perfect for a lazy summer day, "Sumday" has a slightly earthier feel than its predecessors, despite its occasional bursts of synthesizer. In his trademark fragile vocal style, Lytle spins cryptic tales with such fittingly enigmatic titles as "El Caminos in the West," "Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake" and "The Final Push to the Sum."
A sample lyric from first single, "Now It's On": "Now that the lake's in place, where the Dead Sea used to be, seems that I'm seasoned to be, in the season of the old me. I wouldn't trade my place, I got no reason to be, weathered and withering, like in the season of the old me."
Lytle writes Grandaddy's music and lyrics. He also fills the role of "producer," recording and mixing all of his band's tracks in his home studio, known affectionately as Central Heat and Air Studios.
"Songwriting and production to me are just totally dependent on each other, especially in terms of creating a feel and getting just the right mood," Lytle said. "So for lack of a better term, I've produced all the albums to date.
"I just want to make sure these are all songs that I can live with and be proud of for as long as my hearing holds up to listen to them."03
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