Modest Mouse “Everything that keeps me together is falling apart.” Issac Brock pops out one-liners like he pops pills: in a tangled jumble that reflects maybe a little too much of ourselves. Each is a little nugget of truth, a turn of phrase that turns your head inside out if you let it. Meant for long drives throughout the desert with nothing to think about (smoking joints, drinking cough syrup, taking swills of whiskey with the window down), Modest Mouse touches those sick sad parts inside us sad sappy suckers. Icky existential crises: “It’s hard to remember/it’s hard to remember/We’re alive for the first time/It’s hard to remember/We’re alive/for the last time/It’s hard to remember/it’s hard to
MODEST MOUSE
7pm
Saturday, July 26
Stubb’s BBQ
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remember/To live before you die.” Depression: “And I claim I’m not excited with my life any more/So I blame this town, this job, these friends/The truth is it’s myself.” Monotony: “On this life that we call home/the years go fast/and the days go so slow.” Underweaving and interwoven thoughts – Modest Mouse pumps out formaldahyde, pickling our brains as they preserve it.

Indie rock snobs often claim that they can’t pull off a show live – that the magic has more to do with sampling, feedback, and other studio goodies that the band themselves are just too drunk to pull off live. To a certain extent, this is true. But performance perfection, my friend, just isn’t the point. We’re all going to die. The parasites will be excited when you’re dead. And meanwhile, we’re all living pointless, empty, consumer lives. So yeah, maybe they’re a little too drunk on stage to capture all the nuances. I think you’re missing the point. •

This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2003.