Paul Westerberg will release another pair of albums this year, with a summer due date for the blues album Dead Man Shake planned under his Grandpaboy moniker, and a proper solo LP, Folker, due out by the end of the year.

Creaking to life six years ago, Grandpaboy serves as an outlet for songs that might otherwise go by the boards. After issuing an EP in 1997, a full-length album, Mono, was released last year as a companion to Westerberg's fourth studio album, Stereo. "I've created a confusing nut for them to crack," Westerberg said of the alter ego. "It's not like, 'Paul's back and he's an adult and he's acoustic.' It's like, 'He's back but he's also playing this dead character who plays rock & roll.' It seemed like this is a perfect extension of taking a lot of drugs and being wasted and swinging from chandeliers. This is just as daring and stupid and redundant."

Westerberg is currently knotting up the loose ends on Come Feel Me Tremble, a film/DVD comprised largely of fan footage, documenting the singer/songwriter's solo tour in support of Mono and Stereo last year. The film will play in art house theaters and at film festivals before being released as a DVD, along with a soundtrack CD of all new and unreleased tracks.

COLIN DEVENISH
(May 7, 2003)