And that sound - loud and weird, like the early Pixies, but also searing like Hardcore. They looked so young, more like teenage misfits than college kids. And, of course, I would have been wildly incorrect.Īnd yet, I could not deny that there was something about them. I’d have wagered that they’d be only barely remembered as a messy, occasionally brilliant kissing cousin of Built to Spill.
MODEST MOUSE FLOAT ON FRANZ FERDINAND TAKE ME OUT FULL
But, if I had been forced to predict their outcome back then - before “This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About” - I would have guessed that they had a couple of seven inches in them and maybe one full length. I simply presumed that they would soon flame out or mutate again - just like Lync and Heatmiser and every other great footnote from the scene. In 1994, I had the incredible fortune of seeing them play live and though they were vital and electric and intermittently astounding, they were also sloppy, off kilter and abrasive. Vegas would not have put out odds on that proposition. That they might become famous Rock stars was ludicrous.
The idea of taming them seemed impossible. You wouldn’t actually try to invite them into your home. And Isaac Brock was their feral frontman. In the early 1990s, Modest Mouse seemed like a mutation. And though they loved - and were beloved by - Calvin Johnson, they were not precious enough to fit into the K Records stable. They were too alpha to be part of the Grrrl Punk scene. They were not cool like the Portland bands. And though they were from the Northwest, they bore no relation to Grunge. They dared to co-mingle Hardcore with Folk music. From the outset, there was no doubt that the trio was inordinately smart and sensitive - possibly even “touched.” But they were also noisy and unkempt.
Their lead singer grew up in trailers and communes and cults (depending on which story you’ve heard). And though they appeared “college aged,” higher education was far from their plans. They were teenagers from the wrong kind of suburb - just a little too far from Seattle. They came from smaller cities and landed in the big city. But, for nearly a decade, they were platinum selling Rock stars.Īs unlikely as The Talking Heads ascent was, it seems positively ho hum compared to the rise of Modest Mouse. They were art school kids, produced by Brian Eno, who made white Funk music with synthesizers and African beats. By almost any any standard, The Talking Heads were unlikely winners. And Richard Hell was probably the coolest. Television were handsome critical darlings. Patti, meanwhile, was iconic and musically simpler. I mean, the Talking Heads were genuinely odd. That last question, however, may have been a fair one. And he’s certainly not asking why he and his band, and not Patti Smith, Television, The Ramones, Blondie or Richard Hell, became international Pop stars.
He’s not asking how his American mother and Scottish father met and married and conceived him.
He’s not wondering how he and the band got from their home to the studio or the concert. The line is both a provocation for the chorus as well as a suggestion of a certain kind of ennui - that feeling of having everything you thought you wanted but realizing that you feel empty nevertheless. Though he partially answered himself in the preceding lyrics, he was drawing a character more than he was genuinely inquiring. When David Byrne famously asked “how did I get here,” the question was mostly rhetorical.
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