walking upstream…
Modest Mouse
photo: thomson200 · cc0 ↗Modest Mouse
sourcesWikipedia · Far Out Magazine
Modest Mouse formed in 1993 around Issaquah, Washington, when singer-guitarist Isaac Brock — then eighteen and living in a shed behind his mother's trailer — teamed up with bassist Eric Judy, a co-worker from a video store, and drummer Jeremiah Green, met at a Seattle-area metal show. Their early Sub Pop and Up Records output, culminating in 1997's 'The Lonesome Crowded West,' set Brock's yelping, philosophical drawl against jagged, start-stop guitar and sprawling, start-and-veer song structures, turning suburban Pacific Northwest sprawl and strip-mall despair into something both feral and literary. 'The Moon & Antarctica' (2000) refined that chaos into their most acclaimed record, and 2004's 'Good News for People Who Love Bad News' — anchored by the hit 'Float On' — carried the band to mainstream rock radio without sanding down the strangeness underneath.
the sound in question
2004
Float OnModest Mouse
walk the tributaries ↓
Pixies1980s · Alternative rock / Indie rock
Brock has said discovering Pixies' 'Doolittle' in eighth grade gave him everything he wanted from music — 'it's hypnotic, it's fucking weird, and I can read into the lyrics in so many different ways' — and that Frank Black's vocal performance on 'Debaser' shaped 'pretty much every' vocal performance he's given since. The quiet-verse, screamed-chorus dynamic and surreal, non-sequitur lyricism became a direct blueprint for early Modest Mouse.
listen: upstream & heresource: AllMusic ↗
1989
DebaserPixies
1996
DramamineModest Mouse
listen forSet 'Debaser' against 'Dramamine': both let a murmured, almost-spoken verse coil tight before snapping into a cracked, shouted hook, the vocal doing more to signal danger than any change in the music underneath.
Talking Heads1980s · New wave / Art punk / Post-punk
Brock has repeatedly named Talking Heads among the bands that 'got me into music,' alongside Pixies and the Clash, and AllMusic's account of the band's formation lists Talking Heads (with Pixies and XTC) among the acts Modest Mouse's 'nervy sound' draws on. The influence surfaces less as genre than as an angular, rhythm-forward guitar vocabulary and a talk-sung vocal delivery that treats melody as almost incidental to the groove underneath it.
listen: upstream & heresource: Something You Said ↗
1980
Once in a LifetimeTalking Heads
2000
3rd PlanetModest Mouse
listen forLine up 'Once in a Lifetime' with '3rd Planet': both ride a tightly wound, arpeggiated guitar figure that functions like a drum part, over a half-sung, conversational vocal that sounds like it's thinking out loud rather than performing a song.
Pavement1990s · slacker rock / indie rock / lo-fi
AllMusic's account of Modest Mouse's formation credits Pavement's lo-fi aesthetic and clever, off-kilter wordplay as a direct model for the young band's DIY ethos and lyrical approach, one of the trio of acts (with Pixies and XTC) it says shaped their 'nervy sound.' It surfaces as a loose, drawled vocal phrasing that trails just behind the beat and a preference for a ramshackle, unpolished guitar tone treated as a feature rather than a flaw.
listen: upstream & heresource: AllMusic ↗
1994
Cut Your HairPavement
1997
Trailer TrashModest Mouse
listen forCompare 'Cut Your Hair,' where Stephen Malkmus half-mumbles around his own melody, with 'Trailer Trash,' where Brock's loose-jointed vocal drapes over twangy, unhurried guitar — both sound like they could fall apart at any second and don't.