Christoff's Full Review: Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse
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Modest; (adj. 1. to be aware of, but not advertise ones enviable qualities, 2. in an adequate amount, or, not expressive in an exceedingly vane manner.)
Mouse; (n. 1. a small, furry rodent, belonging to the genus mammalia , 2. (v. to procure in a manner that is not immediately noticeable, or to take in small quantities so as not raise suspicion).
Hypocrites. Modest Mouse exude few of the qualities that their namesake suggests. Occasionally austere and sometimes cryptic, this Seattle-based trio has made a (8 year) career producing a musical stew of rock, jazz, and hip-hop, that is both direct and obvious. Unaware of any humble mice who display such an in-your-face attitude, the experience of first listening to this band, one can’t help but feel a bit betrayed by their shear lack of convention. Isaac Brock, the ringleader of this travesty, provides the ideal focus for study.
An apparent art-school drop-out, Isaac Brock has parlayed his angst with series of angular and disjointed genre-splitting offerings that beg for the steady guidance of convention. I mean, who does this Isaac Brock fellow think he is? You can’t combine hard-driving rhythms with angular time signatures and mode changes, and expect anybody to hum along or dance to it. Conventions are there for a reason, and it would seem that this Isaac Brock guy justasoon pretend that Tin Pan Alley or The Hit Parade never even existed. This “Art Phag” wields these juggleries rhythms as a vehicle to display his circumferal lyrics, which do nothing to help teach me what to think or how to feel.
Case in point: 1994’s, The Lonesome Crowded West (the title being yet another great dichotomy—oxymoron—incantation—whatever). Having already established a blatant disregard for the tangential, this album (their 4th) is a perfect crystallization of their ambiguity. The rollicking Cowboy Dan, for example, exudes all the class and style of your local trailer park tramp after one-too-many High Balls. It’s like she’s dancing a samba, Carmen Miranda-style, all-the-while “waxing” and “milking” some funky-fresh eulogy that’s supposed to make us empathetic—I don’t buy it—maybe she did have “a bad go of it”, too bad, I say, you shouldn’t of done that four-way with the former members of Soul Coughing. Cry me a river.
Folks where i come from listen to radio; good ‘ole clean mass marketed radio. It’s an environment that broadcasts content already deemed “safe” for my consumption by a consortium of programmers paid to act in the best interests of me; J.Q. Public. They only play a few songs in a row, too, so I don’t miss out on the special notices describing the new products that I’ll need. In fact, humanity as a whole is served, and equality reigns, as just a few of “the best” radio providers have established a product that need not differ from coast to coast. I feel “so part” of the community when I know we all can get and want the same things—it’s special.
While the music of Modest Mouse may be of interest to both scholars and street people alike, I doubt I’ll ever find their enigmatic blend of hooey gracing the modulation of my FM. And if it ain’t good enough for regular folk, then it must be trash. Modest Mouse, indeed.
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Great music to listen to while: tuning in, turning on, and dropping out.
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