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MODEST MOUSE
Strange sounds for strange times
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At least a month before Epic released its second big-budget album by a little band from the tiny town of Issaquah, Washington (not, as so many reviews have stated, from Seattle), on April 6, I mused in these pages that Modest Mouse’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News was almost certain to be a commercial flop that would be embraced by critics far and wide. I was, in a word, wrong. Not about the critics. They’ve been quick to credit the band for taking chances, pushing aside the guitars that have been front and center since Modest Mouse began releasing CDs on Northwest indies like K and Up in the mid ’90s in favor of an eclectic mix of everything from horn arrangements and mellotron chordings to banjo and accordion. But so have alternative-radio programmers, who’ve made the album’s upbeat, guitar-driven, yet no less quirky single "Float On" a big enough hit for Epic to take out TV ads for the album. In other words, what at first listen seemed to be singer-songwriter Isaac Brock’s kiss-off to Epic — his way of saying, "Since you’re going to drop us after this album stiffs, we might as well go out of our way to make something unmarketable" — has become a commercial success. As if to rub my nose in it, a capacity, ass-to-elbow crowd of more than 2000 fans who knew all the words to "Float On" came to Avalon last Saturday evening to show their support for one of several unfortunate bands who thought they’d be doing the Lollapalooza main stage this summer instead of trudging through clubland. Brock and company haven’t toned down their eclecticism one bit since "Float On" hit. Banjo, bowed bass, an actual mellotron (they’re delicate, pre-synthesizer instruments that use analog tape loops of various instruments to create sound), and two drummers were grafted onto the more traditional rock instrumentation of electric guitars, keyboards, and electric bass. Dressed in the same simple jeans-and-T-shirt ensemble the rest of band wore, Brock sounded like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown for most of the set, as his lyrics free-associated paranoid fantasies about post-apocalyptic "Mad Max bullshit" and delved into his own confused feelings about "My friends, my habits, my family." The one playful moment came at the start of the encore, when he emerged wearing a large pair of butterfly wings and joked, "When I was a larva, I thought I’d do it all . . . " The wisecrack fell flat, but the version of "Float On" that followed soared effortlessly. Sometimes it’s nice to be so wrong.
BY MATT ASHARE
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