If it's hard to believe that 10 years have passed since the Eels first came onto the scene. That's probably because most folks didn't find out about them until later in the game. "Any time is a good time," bandleader E -- aka Mark Everett -- tells Spinner, good-naturedly.

The Eels are celebrating their decade-long existence by releasing two separate career compilations in January. The first one is the obligatory greatest hits retrospective, called 'Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Vol. 1, 1996-2006.' The second release -- a 2 CD/DVD rarities collection, titled 'Useless Trinkets' -- offers lots of unheard gems even for long-time fans.

"It's by no means a graveyard of crap," E says.

E considers many of these tracks to be among his best -- they just weren't perfect fits for his albums, which he tries to make thematically cohesive. The compilation shares its name with one of the collection's tunes. "I thought it was kind of a funny name for a bunch of wayward children that had no home," E says. "But they're really not useless."