BLOWIN INDIE WIND

Author: Alison Lacivita

Before "Float On", Modest Mouse was an eerie indie trio from the Pacific Northwest whose depressing, Americana-inspired lyrics helped many an early 90's hipster make late night drives on the interstate. Modest Mouse was formed in Issaquah, Wash.by singer Isaac Brock, bassist Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green in 1993, during the height of the post-grunge world of Sub Pop and K records. Their first practice space was a shed (aptly nicknamed "The Shed") alongside Isaac's mother's trailer and, from here, they moved into Calvin Johnson's Dub Narcotic Studios to cut their 1994 self-titled debut single released on K records. In 1996, Modest Mouse released their first two full-length LP's: "This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About" and the now unattainable "Interstate 8".

"This is A Long Drive" begins with "Dramamine,,"which is an ode to the over-the-counter motion sickness drug and is a fitting opening track for an album that literally, takes you on a cross-country trip, forces you to be alone with yourself and makes you face all the things that maybe you didn't want to. The track opens with a simple riff that creeps along until Brock begins to sing "Traveling, swallowing Dramamine/ Feeling spaced breathing out Listerine," and you slowly forget where you are or what you were doing. There is never really any climax to the song. The tone varies only slightly as Brock's anger builds but then fades away again into a mournful resignation. When Brock asks, "Why do we kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeve?" his naïve indignation really makes you ponder. The song is one of the most perfect in Modest Mouse's history, using sprawling instrumentation to capitalize on the emotional and geographic isolation that defines all of their earlier works. The next track, "Breakthrough," is as harsh and angst-ridden as Brock gets (second maybe to the fourth track, "Might"), but then the mood becomes more complacent and lethargic as the record melts into "Custom Concern" which really drives home the theme of isolation. The middle of the album is a little more disjointed. "She Ionizes and Atomizes" is a staccato testimony to the lack of real connection felt in our society, and this is painfully expressed with Brock's lyrics.

This album is more or less one band's attempt to paint the emotions that their own consciousnesses, projected upon the landscape in which they live. Washington State was never just a place, but it was a sentient being that moved and grew with them, that felt their pain, but caused it too. They blame their home while simultaneously embracing it. They blame America and popular culture in the same way, but in the end realize they create their own misery. The washed-out artwork on the cover of the album is a lonely portrait of power lines stretching across a vast expanse, a stereotypical depiction of the postmodern ennui so common of Americana.

No, the album does not cheer up at all. In fact, it gets even worse. However, Modest Mouse's "worse" is one which I believe nearly everyone has experienced, and while their music doesn't make you feel any better about it, it may make you understand where you are in your own head, at least for a moment. In their epic, "Talking S--t About a Pretty Sunset," Brock articulates how he believes it is often too painful to admit feeling: "And I claim / The truth is it's myself / And I'm trying to understand myself/ and pinpoint where I am / I've changed the whole damn plan") in a way that makes us able to come to terms with ourselves. On a long drive with nothing to think about, that's a pretty good first step.