So I am listening to Thursday's "John in the Morning" KEXP show as I often do on slow weekends, and Modest Mouse's "A Life of Artic Sounds" came on. I realized how much Modest Mouse's music means to me and needed to share.
I first heard "All Night Diner" in a fraternity brother's room as a sophomore at Stanford. This was 2002 before Modest Mouse had achieved mainstream popularity. I started downloading their stuff and gradually got more and more into it. I think I was drawn to it because its so honest. I was mainly listening to Building Nothing Out of Something, This is a Long Drive For Someone With Nothing to Think About and The Moon and Antarctica back then. The songs on these albums could be crazy and excitable but equally sad and deeply felt. I think that by being honest in their songs about their fear and frustration and disappointment and loneliness, Modest Mouse allowed me to be honest about mine. After school, I moved to Seattle, near where Modest Mouse is from (Issaquah, WA). During the ~3 years I lived there, I began to see life painted in their colors. I ate and drank (a lot) in the informal, often wild establishments of the area. I took in the beauty and the isolation of the Cascade Mountains and the Puget Sound. I suffered the numbing depression eight months of cold and rain and overcast skies will bring on.I eventually left Seattle but I know I will return someday. Somehow in the same way Modest Mouse's honesty reaches right to the core of me, living in the Pacific Northwest shows me the joy and pain of life in their purest forms.
Alright, enough of that. Enjoy these songs from Building Nothing Out of Something. Maybe in some later post, I'll explain why I like Band of Horses so much.