No Filler Music Podcast - This Is A Lonesome Crowded Antarctica: Modest Mouse's First Three Studio Albums
Episode Date: October 18, 2021We chat about Modest Mouse before Float On put them on the map. From the very first track on their debut album, Isaac Brock and his bandmates blended any and every genre with their alt rock roots to c...reate a sound all their own. And Brock carried on the loud-quiet-loud dynamic that the Pixies created just a few years prior to weave in sporadic outbursts into each track. By the time we get to Float On, Modest Mouse had laid a solid foundation for indie rock that so many bands would build on in the years to come. Tracklist: Gravity Rides Everything Dramamine Lounge Talking Heads - Making Flippy Floppy Doin' The Cockroach Cowboy Dan Perfect Disguise Tiny Cities Made of Ashes This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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And welcome to No Filler.
The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms
that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records.
My name is Quentin.
With me as always is my brother Travis.
And this is one of those times, dude.
Another episode that was inevitable.
I feel like it took us way too long to cover this band, dude.
I am super excited to dive into these guys.
guys. So we are covering modest mouse today. And we're going to dive into their first three
major record label albums, which you were not familiar with, Drav. Is that right?
That's right. Yeah, that song that was introed in right there, never heard of it. I would have
had to like think hard if someone were to ask me who that was. Because to me, it doesn't really
sound like the modest mouse that I'm familiar with. You know what I mean? And so I'm like,
you know, I'm in store for, I'm in store for some treats here. And here's the thing, man.
And this is why I'm so excited about today and what's happening right now, dude. If you thought
that song didn't sound like modest mouse, just wait, dude. I mean, what that tells me is, I don't know
modest mouse, you know, because they have been around for so long prior to the album.
where they caught on, the one that everybody was introed to.
Yeah, they've been around since mid-90s.
And last week we covered the Pixies, and right here, dude, at the top of Modest Mouse's
Wikipedia page, strongly influenced by pavement Pixies, XTC, and look at that, dude, talking
hands.
Damn, dude.
We couldn't have planned this better.
I don't think.
I know, man.
But, no, so I've always felt that Modus Mouse and the Pets.
Pixies were like kindred spirits, you know, like they go so well together. And you're going to,
dude, you're going to love these tracks that I'm bringing today. So we're playing six songs today.
We're going to cover two from each of their first three full links, which is, this is a long drive
for someone with nothing to talk about, which came out in 96, the lonesome crowded West, which
came out in 97, and then the moon in Antarctica, which came out in 2000. That intro song was what
I think is a pretty, pretty popular Modest Mouse song.
Like, if you're a Modest Mouse fan, you love this song.
It's one of my favorites.
The song is called Gravity Rides Everything.
So, Trave, you're familiar with Floodon, right?
And from that point onward, that's what you, that's the Modest Mouse that you know.
Well, I got to be honest, I've never really given them a fair listen.
Like, I know the singles, basically.
That intro song, that album, which is Mooning,
in Antarctica is when they started to change a little bit from what they were doing previously.
So sometimes we do this when we cover, you know, a huge band that, that like if you don't realize
you know, you probably do, or at least you know one song of theirs. So let's play the, the,
probably their most popular song to date, I'd imagine. I don't have numbers in front of me here,
but let's play a little bit of float on,
which again came out on their album,
Good News for People Who Love Bad News,
which came out in 2004.
So this was the album right after the three
that we're going to cover today.
So let's play just a smidge of float on.
I mean, I think that's a defining song
of the early 2000s, dude.
Totally, totally.
Such, and it holds up, and it's such a great track.
Really.
And for some reason, this is a random thought,
but I always pair this song in my head with Take Me Out by Franz Ferdin.
I think they must have been on like TRL at the same time or something like that.
Yeah.
You know, but that's the thing.
A lot of those garage rock bands and stuff like that were putting out songs that kind of
sounded like this.
And that's what's interesting about modest mouths is that they had been around for so long prior to that success, you know.
And so they kind of inserted themselves into the.
garage post-punk revival
scene, right?
As far as like the bands that they were
that they were grouped with.
But they're not that, you know, they're not that kind of band.
No, and I didn't really look into
to that single or like what happened
to finally, you know, like how did that song
blow up? Was it just one of those like, it just happened
to be, you know, certain.
I mean, it's probably the, it's probably due in
to just the TRL effect or whatever, right?
I mean, all those bands that had a successful song on TRL had some success, you know,
like that's how you had bands like corn make it into the mainstream in some small way
because their videos were hugely successful on MTV.
So like it could be part of that.
Another thing too, man, this is, I believe their first release on Epic Records,
which is, I mean, a massive record label.
So that could have been part of it.
All right, so enough about good news and enough about Floodon.
Let's dive into the oldies.
I'm not going to get into any history, dude.
We're just going to go get right into it.
The three founding members are Isaac Brock.
He's the lead singer.
He plays guitar as well.
Jeremiah Green on drums and Eric Judy on bass.
So they do bring in additional musicians on these albums.
But yeah, that's the founding members.
And they all met just outside of Seattle back in the early 90s,
and they just started making music together.
I feel like the only way to get into this dude is just to play our first pick.
I want to hear your reaction to it.
And the song that we're playing is going to be the very first track on their debut studio album.
Okay, awesome.
This is 1996.
That's really important.
So this is very important.
Monous Mouse in the 90s.
the grunge movement already happened, right?
So like we're right on the on the,
on the tail end of that.
We're in that alt rock post grunge scene.
Now again, they made, you know,
tiny little seven inches and stuff before this,
but this is technically their first full length.
Sure.
This is when people started paying attention to them,
at least locally in, in Washington State.
All right, dude, so here we go.
So I'm going to, dude, I'm going to be cheating quite a pit on the,
on these tracks. A lot of them I split up into two so that, you know, so we don't get any
knocks on our door from any record labels, but we're basically playing the whole song.
Okay.
Again, this one is the very first track on their debut album. This is a long drive for someone
with nothing to think about. Came out in 96. This song is called dramamine.
I love that song, dude. So much. I will always be one of my favorite Monous Mouse songs.
Yeah, really, really solid track.
I feel like I've heard that song before
but yeah
so you know
it kind of follows the
Pixies template
a little bit of like a really straightforward
and melodic
clean guitar tone
melody and stuff like that and definitely his
vocal delivery too like and then the vocals
right the like the loud quiet loud
stuff but like yeah
in the accentuating certain
parts of the lyrics
and and yeah I mean
beautiful guitar melody in the background too.
Really kind of a somber song.
Yeah, and the main focus of the lyrics throughout all these songs on this album,
you know, goes along with the name of the album,
Traveling by Automobile and the loneliness associated with rural life.
And yeah, dude, if you have a long drive ahead of you,
stick this album on and press play.
And dude, this drama, I mean, it's such a great driving song,
And this whole album is great for that.
To the name of the album, this is a long drive.
Yep.
His lyrics are great, too, dude.
I'm going to read some lyrics from here.
You know what?
Let me just say right there since you said lyrics.
You know, float on, like, the cleverness of the lyrics and like, and that other song that I'm familiar with.
Dude, there's some other song names are hard to freaking remember.
But it's called The Ground Walks with Time in a Box.
The lyrics are so damn clever.
Oh, and that one came out not that long ago, dude.
dude.
2015, yeah.
Yeah.
So, sounds like that's just been his thing the whole time here.
He's a very clever songwriter.
And apparently he has been just jotting down his thoughts forever, like, since he was a really young dude.
So lyrics, he says, traveling, swallowing drama mean, feeling spaced, breathing out Listerine.
I'd said what I'd said that I'd tell you.
and that you'd killed the better part of me.
This part down here did I really like.
He says,
we kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves,
traveling, swallowing, drama.
So clever, dude.
It's such a, like, we're close enough that we kiss on the mouth,
but we still coughed on our sleeves.
Like, we're passing the same germs here, you know?
Yeah, that's the thing.
His lyrics are always, like, very, like, commentary on, like,
humanity and stuff like that.
Oh yeah, dude.
Especially with these first three albums.
All right, I got another clip here.
Again, this is dramine.
So this is like a major part of what I want to focus on with these albums.
They used to be much more of like, kind of like a jam band.
You know, and not like in the fish or Grateful Dead kind of way, but like they have a lot of their songs, you know, pick up steam and then drop back off.
and change up completely.
And they have a lot of these great little instrumental bits throughout a lot of these
songs.
I mean, some of these track lengths are like seven or eight minutes or over 10 minutes long
on Lonesome Crowded West.
This is what I love about early Monous Mouse, is the jamminess of them, you know?
Yeah, and, you know, we've talked about this quite a bit, but, you know, it always makes
you wonder if these moments in the early.
stuff where they kind of got to explore and stick with the melody and stuff like that and
like let it kind of play out speaks to a more independent label, you know?
Right.
Maybe when they got to float on and they're making TRL videos and stuff, maybe the pressure
of the larger record label had them kind of stick to the format, you know?
The more I like dive into bands, you know, and albums and look into the history behind them,
yeah, dude, it's so much of it has to do with the producer.
the studio, you know, of course, the record label.
It's just, yeah, it has so much to do with how an album and like a sound of a band evolves
and sounds over time.
Yeah, totally.
All right, dude, so believe it or not, two of my favorite modest mouse songs are on this album,
and I'm going to play one of my other favorites here, dude.
This song is called Lounge.
If you'll permit me, I think it's time to play a talking hit song, but I'll say why.
I feel like this is the perfect blend of the Talking Heads influence and the Pixies influence,
like right here.
Dude, let's hear it, man.
All right.
This is unplanned.
Well, hang on now.
What were your thoughts on this song, brother?
Yeah, I love it.
It's great.
It's such a, you know, it's a very, it's a very kind of like, yeah, I mean, like, like I said,
I heard the Talking Heads influence.
I would love to know what you heard out of that that reminded you of Talking Heads.
Well, I'll play a song, Q.
Dude, this song gets me every goddamn time, dude.
Oh.
Yeah, I mean, that melody is kind of like a, not jazzy, but I mean, a little bit jazzy.
Well, dude, okay, here's what I thought of, man.
So when it switches up and he starts, like, screaming, it reminded me of, like, early red hot chili peppers.
Okay.
Yeah, it's his voice a little bit for sure.
Yeah, and the strummingness of the guitar and the bass.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, you're right.
Because it is, it's kind of funky, kind of jazzy.
Yeah, yeah. All right, dude, let's hear this talking hands track, man. Okay. Now, this is, you know,
sometimes I'm reminded of something and then I listen back to the song and I'm like, eh, I don't know
what I was thinking. But we'll see what you think, Q. So this is a song off of their 1983 record
speaking in tongues. Tell me if you think that I'm way off here, Q, this song is called
Making Flippy Floppy. Everybody, get in a...
Nothing can come between us
Nothing gets you down
Nothing strikes your fence
Nothing turns you on
So it's really more the melody
Not the singing
But do you see what I'm saying?
Yes with that like funky
That was like the Minneapolis sound dude
You know like what Jesse Johnson
And the time was doing
Just with that funky synth
You know like in place of the
Traditional bass
Right
But yeah dude you're right
Like I was saying, like it's, the song that you played is, is a good, a good mashup of the Talking
Head's influence that Modest Mouse had, uh, plus Pixies.
Yeah, absolutely.
His vocals, obviously, is that the Pixies part of that equation.
But anyway, that's right.
That's what made me think of that.
And what I love about these early albums, and I don't know if they do this on purpose,
but they're, they're pretty sloppy, like, especially the drummer.
Um, and I mean that in the, as a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's,
a huge compliment. As a drummer, I've never liked pristine technical drumming. I've just never
have. And he, you know, they kind of, like they kind of speed up in tempo a little bit sometimes.
He kind of lags behind sometimes with the rest of the players. I love that about it.
All right, dude, so the reason I split this one up into two, and this is pretty much right as I faded
out the first clip, it's, there's going to be a huge change up. It's basically going to pull like
almost a 180 in tempo and mood and everything.
So this is a good example of what they used to do a lot in the early days.
All right, here is clip two from lounge.
You want to talk about something that would never happen on like a major record,
like a major label release.
I feel like they'd be like, come on, guys.
What are you done?
Come on, this is your first album with us.
You know, what are you doing?
Yeah.
But that's, so did they have, is there a band member that's doing that?
Yeah.
So it was just the main three guys.
But yeah, additional musicians show up.
Brent Arnold plays the cello.
Okay.
So they brought in another guy to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
But, you know, I think it's so cool to, to, I mean, it's bold to do stuff like this.
In 96.
It's very experimental.
I mean, it's, and I think it, I feel like it's on par with like, with kind of what they're doing.
Because, you know, they're blending a lot of different genres into.
into that post-punk post-grunge sound, you know what I mean?
Because, like, he's still got the angst and the bite and stuff like that,
his vocal delivery and stuff.
But they're kind of putting themselves out there, like you said,
and kind of doing some different things that then what you may have heard on all the stuff
that came in like the few years prior to that, you know,
with the solid, heavy, hard rock grunge sound, you know.
Totally.
So I've got a good quote here from a review of this album on spudnikmusic.com
says here, there's a strangely relaxing vibe that comes out of the general nihilistic tendencies,
modest mouse convey.
As the music is often abrasive, songs tend to drag on with extended jam sessions,
and the lyrics are cryptic and confusing,
but the raw talent in terms of songwriting and musicianship keeps it all together.
And yeah, you know, it is kind of all over the place, you know,
and they're still trying to kind of find their sound, you know,
and like what, you know, they're trying to find their identity still.
But as all over the place as this album is like, like this person's saying,
you know, it really does keep it all together, like,
as a really solid album all the way through.
And again, if you've got some open road ahead of you,
stick this album on and press play, dude, sure.
And just go for a drive.
The same person here is, I love this quote.
the Smiths, Pixies, built to spill, and the meat puppets get into a car and drive off a cliff.
So that's how they describe the record?
Yeah, he's comparing them to...
Yeah, see, I think the driving off the cliff part of that is speaking to, like,
like how it feels sometimes like it's like off the rails or whatever.
Jarring.
Because there's no cohesion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If all those bands get in a car together, they're like, they're not going to agree on which direction to go.
they're totally going off the cliff right exactly let's take a quick break all right man moving on so
one year later they drop lonesome crowded west and this one is starting to get some some love now
i don't know how many of these of this love came like later on but lonesome crowded west is
number 29 on pitchfork's 100 greatest albums of the 90s and 59 on spins list of 100 great
greatest albums from 85 to 2005.
This album, it does sound a lot like this is a long drive,
but they're just kind of honing in on their, like,
on that sporadic and drawing, like,
exposition alongside those really pretty, you know, drawn out,
like instrumental tracks.
So I've got a really pretty funny clip here.
This interview from them for Pitchfork,
it was a little mini documentary that Pitchfork did
right around the time that Lonesome Cried at West was about to get released,
they kind of followed them around,
and it shows a lot of the recording process and stuff.
And these are the three members of the band,
just kind of talking about the main themes behind Lonesome Creaded West.
All right, here we go.
Lonesome Crow West, I had a lot of stuff going on in my mind
that was just bothering me about strip malls
and about the paving of, you know, the paving of the West.
It started my life out in Montana.
eventually ended up outside of Seattle.
When I got to Seattle, that area,
I was a quad of town I lived in,
started out as a cute little town,
and I got to see it very quickly,
just getting mall-fucked.
And the whole, not just the town,
like the area in general,
it happened pretty quick,
and it kind of pissed me off.
Yeah, we were just, like, seeing the landscape change,
like, you know, really quickly in front of us.
And I lived in this place called Factoria,
which was like,
a shopping mall. You know, I lived in the middle of a shopping mall basically with my mom and my brother.
Like, yeah, and I thought it was crap.
You know, it was starting to get built up, you know, and they were starting to build, you know,
build, you know, the little strip malls and, you know, you could see that happening.
You know, I think I feel more strongly about it now than I did than I did then, you know.
Seattle was, you know, having its weird, its boom.
Front row seat to watch and forests disappear.
and the urban sprawl begin,
just pointless, pointless shit getting built.
So yeah, man.
Seattle and the surrounding cities in the late 90s.
Just getting mall fucked, dude.
I love that line, man.
That's a really good quote.
Yeah, that's interesting.
You know, you know, God, what am I thinking of?
There's a, I don't know,
I feel like we've all, we all have places like that
that we've kind of watched as we've, you know, grown up.
become less and less like quaint, you know, or like whatever.
Absolutely.
Whatever it may have been, you know, unless you've lived in a city your whole life, you know,
I mean, I know for a fact that the city that I live in, we've heard stories from our
grandparents who moved here before the city really kind of got all fucked, as you would say.
And they just watched it just kind of build up around them.
And then, you know, yeah, it's just kind of.
that's the story of urbanization, you know.
And I am familiar with Issaquah, which he mentioned and Factoria.
And yet Factorias, it really is synonymous with just a huge fucking mall that's in the city.
So to him, it felt like he just grew up in a mall.
Like the city is a mall kind of thing.
I mean, basically, yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, the majority of the themes throughout this album are about just that.
And let's just dive right into it, dude.
So again, this is Lonesome Crowded West, came out in 97, just one year after this is a long drive.
So there's a few obvious picks on this album to play, especially for modest mouse fans.
I am going to skip over convenient parking, which is, I think, a fan favorite, and play one of the other tracks that I like, just to kind of show a little bit different sound that they had.
But before I play that one, we're going to jump right.
into track six.
Now I asked you last week, Trave, if doing the cockroach meant anything to you?
Not a damn thing, dude.
Not a damn thing?
Well, you're in for treats, dude.
All right, this is track six on Lonesome Crutted West.
This song is called Doing the Cockroach.
It's speechless, huh, dude?
Yeah, it is hard to know where to begin here, Q.
I like that one phrase jumped out of me.
He said, tasty but worthless.
And I feel like that's a good summary of, you know, of the mollification of America, right?
I mean.
Back of the metro, right on the Greyhound, drunk on the Amtrak, please shut up.
Yeah, dude.
My favorite line, dude, from any modest mouse song, the opening line, man.
I was in heaven.
I was in hell.
Believe in neither, but fear them as well.
I mean, ain't that the truth, dude?
The motto of an agnostic right there, Q.
But yeah, this is a good example of how great of a lyricist he is, right?
There was another line that stood out to me.
He's talking about one year, 20 years, 40 years, 50 years down the road in your life,
you'll look in the mirror and say, my parents are still alive.
Now, I don't know what that is referring to because for a lot of people, 50 years down the road,
the parents are not going to be alive, you know, ours won't.
I mean, he was pretty young back then.
but I wonder what that's referring to, you know?
I don't know, man.
We should reach out to him.
Okay.
Yeah, man, that's one of my favorites.
So there's, I don't know what doing the cockroach is.
To me, it just feels like that's a, you know, analogy or whatever for just people living in.
Like when a cockroach is like flailing about on their back, I like when you, you know, he says, and this part's not in these lyrics on this website.
But when he says, doing the cockroach, yeah, he goes, all right, not bad.
Like, yeah, you're doing the Cowcrutch pretty good.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, we're all doing it.
All right, so, moving on, we're just going to jump to the next track.
This one is something else, dude.
It's totally different.
It comes out of left field on the album.
Throws you for a loop.
This song is called Cowboy Dan.
Another great line jumped out of me when he said, I didn't move to the city.
The city moved to me.
Yeah, I love how.
That's exactly what the whole thing.
Like, that's the whole thing.
thing. Yeah, I mean, what a great idea to write a whole song about like this suburbanization or
whatever you want to call it. Suburban sprawl, I think is what they call it. Urban sprawl,
like from the perspective of a cowboy, you know? Well, maybe that's how he sees himself, Q. Yeah.
I love how he finishes each little like verse with Cowboy Dan saying something. Yeah. Well, like, to me,
like this is such an interesting like him experiencing this and then you know writing an album about it like
you know you and I were were young in the 90s but like this you know this feels like what kind of happened
to everything like you know what I mean in the 90s it was all about like consumerism you know
like buy buy and it's been like that ever since and it's just gotten more and more and more like that
you know the big box stores and stuff like that yeah right just taking over small town
and whatnot. Like that seems like it started in the 90s. And we like I said, we weren't really
paying attention to that kind of stuff back then. No, we didn't think that. But I will say,
it feels like the 90s was perhaps the last good decade to be a kid. Yeah. I mean, because, you know,
we were blissful enough to not be aware of all the shit that was going down in the 90s as well.
Well, and just not growing up with the internet. I mean, growing up alongside the internet, but not
having it be so ubiquitous, you know.
Everywhere, do you?
Yeah, and just so such a part of the day-to-day life, you know.
Like the internet was as young as we were.
You know, I feel like we went through adolescence together.
Yeah, really.
So I'm going to quote Rolling Stone writer named Jason Fine, who wrote a review back in 98, so right after it came out.
He says, and at a time when American guitar rock is so desperately lacking imagination,
the feisty songs of the Lonesome Crowded West are a sign that some real vitality can still be squeezed.
from the post-punk mold.
And just another, you know, example of how these guys will literally incorporate any
style or genre into their, into their song to fit the song, you know?
Yeah.
Because this had some elements of like, of, they were going for Twengie.
Yeah, Twangy.
And, you know, hey, we talked about, There Goes My Gun by Pixies last week.
Same kind of thing, you know.
Hey, dude, you know what?
Now, you know, we were talking about how we forgot to bring it up, but now it's time, dude.
Steely Dan with a gun.
Yeah, good call, dude.
I'm glad that you, now we get to say that on mic here.
But yeah, we had talked about that, how like...
That's my favorite thing about pretzologic is how they, the songs are shorter and they can't,
they switch up the genre to fit the song.
Yeah, yeah.
We didn't bring that up last week, but that would have been a good, a good comparison.
Dude, all three of these songs could go together.
like lyrically cowboy dan there goes my gun and with a gun i'm going to figure out a way to mash them
all together that would be awesome all right last album so the moon in antarctica this is when you're
going to start to see them change a little bit with like how i guess it sounds a lot like the
recording has to do with it i mean like that maybe the studio space that they had access to they're
still, or this is, so, okay, this is their first major label, uh, Epic records album. So I, I assume that
good news was, was the one. But no, so this, this was their first record on epic. I'm assuming that
maybe they had access to a much bigger studio and all that good stuff. Making assumptions here,
but they started to do really cool, um, and you heard that in the intro song, you know,
uh, they start throwing in, and, like, uh, post effects and stuff, uh,
you know and start kind of playing around more.
They have a lot more musicians that jump in on this album,
some lap steel guitar, keyboards.
I really like Moon and Antarctica.
Again, this was like right before they exploded with Floodon.
So we're just playing two tracks from this one,
and they're actually back to back.
So my second clip of this first track is going to fade us right into my last pick of the night.
So we're going to jump to track four.
on the moon in Antarctica
this song is called
Perfect Disguise
You've got the perfect disguise
you're looking okay
because you cocked your head
to shoot a minute down
a night
don't give a damn about you
this town no more
you need to fall down
so you can climb up some
good luck
I hope
Yeah I mean these guys are just so versatile
you know.
I love it, man.
Love it.
Love it.
Very, very talented, very talented musicians, you know.
Yeah.
I think somebody had mentioned that, right?
I feel like this is also just a huge sneak peek at the indie bands of the 2000s, you know?
Like, I feel like this is, yeah, and that's why they fit in so well with Floodon and stuff like that.
The post-rock indie stuff that happened in the 2000s is, you know, they were kind of doing that.
that thing where, you know, you're taking in and barring styles from the, from the past,
or, you know, doing the more clean, driven, jangly sounding guitar type stuff.
Right.
Like, mixing the new wave and post-punk together.
Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of what it was, the garage rock revival of the early 2000s,
just kind of hodgepodge of all the stuff that was happening in the 90s.
Definitely.
Love it, love it. You hear that banjo in that one.
Right. That's what I'm saying. They will incorporate any style into their song.
You know, that's what's what I'm learning here. And that's what's so great about them.
And I honestly can't say whether or not that continues to happen.
I don't know either, yeah.
In records that happen later, but that's definitely what's jumping out of me here.
And I like the almost like Beach Boys kind of harmonizing in that one.
Yeah. That is something different.
All right, so this is a super short track.
So I'm going to play just the very end of it.
And it's going to play right into another one of my favorites from the group.
So we're going to go straight into track five, which is called Tiny Cities Made of Ashes.
It's really cool, the kind of the dual voice thing going on.
Yeah, that's something that I feel like is the first thing.
Like this is the first time that they're starting to like dub over vocal.
and stuff. Because yeah, that's, that's him
singing the deep vocals and
the main, like, more
higher pitched vocals. That's definitely both
him. This is the first time they start
bringing in, like, like, drum
sample, not samples, but like drum
loops and stuff, you know, like
drum programming, stuff like that.
Yeah. And then it happened in this
song, and I feel like it happens
on a lot of their, it's kind of a signature,
a lot of their songs.
It was like a, almost like
the surf guitar kind of like,
whammy bar
dip that they do
with like the reverb and stuff
sounds kind of surfy
but that's that's kind of a signature of theirs
yeah they almost like bit
like they bend the strings
and yeah I think he's
it might be a whammy bar
yeah it does sound like that
but yeah he does that a lot
and they've been doing that forever
kind of like Dick Dale surf
kind of stuff
yeah dude but again like
dude there you go
another perfect example of like
any genre
but we'll take it
and and adapt it
and make it ours you know
totally
well that's it
man. This was a dozy. Man, if that doesn't prove just how versatile, wide-ranging the Modest Mouse
catalog is, like, you know, and they're still making music. They're putting on new stuff right now,
like this year. Yeah, man. I feel like they had a new record or a new single within the last month
or two. I think you're right. It might be a full album. Is it the same guys this whole time,
or have they kind of shuffled artists? No, they've changed it up. The main, okay, it looks like Jeremiah
Green and Isaac Brock are the two.
Okay.
From, you know, that have been there since the beginning.
Eric Judy, who used to play bass for them, now owns a bookstore in Seattle.
That's pretty cool.
I got to go find out which one that is, dude.
Some good bookstores in this city.
But yeah, so Jeremiah Green, who is a drummer, who, he's one of my favorite drummers.
You know, I've always felt that simple is more powerful with drums.
For drums, yeah.
Always, dude.
And he finds a way to keep it simple when,
necessary, you know. He never does anything too crazy on it. He's just, yeah, just solid,
solid drummer. So him and Isaac are the two that are still, you know, the two founding members
still there. You can't have modest mouse without, without Isaac Brock, you know. He is modest
mouse. His delivery is so unique. His lyrics are so unique. Like that, he is modest mouse, right?
And his Lisp, you know, his speaking Lisp is something that makes his singing voice very unique.
He carries, I mean, that Lisp goes along with his singing voice, too. And it's, you know,
Yeah, it's so different.
Yeah.
No, that's, that's, it's all part of the package, you know.
So yeah, man.
I hope that like you, there were quite a few listeners who really didn't dive into their older stuff that enjoyed this episode.
And I hope that there are some longstanding modest mouse fans that appreciated the tunes that I brought tonight, dude.
Yeah, you brought some good, good picks, man.
Give Lonesome Crowded West a listen to, dude.
Listen to their first two albums, man.
Like Moon and Antarctica is a great album, but their first two have always been my favorites.
So are we covering Manman next, dude? Are we doing that?
Yeah, we're totally doing that. Okay. That's going to be just a fun episode, dude.
Yeah, dude, that's going to be a blast. So did we decide rabbit habits, or are we going to split it up between?
Let's do both of them. Their first two. Yeah, so I listened through both of them the other day.
Between the two records, there's a ton of stuff we could.
So are we, so we're doing six demon bag and rabbit habits?
And rabbit habits, yeah.
Okay.
Man, this is going to be a blast.
If you're not familiar with Manman, you're in for one of the most, like, it's just so hard
to describe them.
They're just so.
They're gimmicky in all the right ways.
And I don't know how else to describe them.
You know what, dude?
The funny thing is, man, I mean, this is the time of year.
they're they're kind of a good October band as far as like Halloween and shit they've always reminded
me of like pirates and that's all I'm going to say I'll I'll dive into that little more next week
but yeah now Q you you saw them open for modest mouse right I did that was the first time I saw
him I didn't even know anything about them it's awesome it was a I can't remember the
venue but it was a like a big outdoor kind of amphitheater in Austin yeah dude it was it was awesome
it was awesome.
But yeah, they are really, really interesting.
That's all we'll say.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So that'll be next week.
And then at that time, well, by that time, I think now, well, maybe I have one more
episode after that.
I guess the next one after that will be a watcher heard, right?
Yeah.
And then I think after that we'll do, it's going to be our 200th episode, dude.
No, got a few more after that.
We're going to sneak in our annual bonus Halloween episode at some point.
We've got to record that.
But so yeah, you'll get a bonus episode.
Lots of recordings to do.
We got a super secret guest that confirmed is going to be on our show.
I'm excited, dude.
That's going to be for our 200th.
Won't go into details yet, but.
Yeah, that's going to be a blast, man.
Yeah, we've got some plans ahead of us, some treats.
All right, Q.
Thank you for bringing the tunes here.
This was another solid episode, man.
I mean, you know, Pixies, or at least the album that we covered last week, do a little.
It came out in 89, but it might as well be a 90s record, right?
So just another example of kind of what David Brown said, our guest, a few episodes back.
Like the 90s really was the last decade.
I don't remember his quote exactly, but it's something we've said as well.
Like just the last decade of really unique and creative rock.
Yeah, the young musicians that were coming up in the 90s like really breathed life into rock,
like one last time.
And then, and, and now it's, we've just been building on that.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, uh, please follow us on Instagram.
If you don't already.
Uh, we, we, we, we're pretty active on, on Instagram.
Um, if you follow us on Twitter, sorry.
Um, because we, Twitter's, it's in the rear view, dude.
Right.
You know, it's, it's over.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah.
If you're a Twitter user and you,
also use Instagram, follow us on Instagram because that is where all of our updates are going to be.
We're sharing more content beyond just the, you know, the new episode post, basically.
And we're pointing back to old episodes and stuff.
Yeah, and there'll be more things to come.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so we'll find like similar episodes and similar albums to, you know, the stuff that we've
kind of been hanging out in in the last month or so and direct you back to old episodes.
So hopefully you can find some info.
And listen to some of our older episodes that you may not have known about.
I mean, dude, we're approaching 200 episodes.
I mean, yeah, 200 episodes.
It's crazy.
There's quite a bit of episodes that you likely have never heard of.
So we're trying to use Instagram as a way to be like, hey, we talked about this band too, you know?
Yeah.
It was a long time ago, but we talked about it.
Yep.
Anyway, so follow us on Instagram.
Just search for No Filler podcast.
We'll find us.
And you can also, of course, find us on the Pantheon podcast network.
If you want to find some more great music-centered podcasts,
the Pantheon Network is the home of podcasts for music lovers.
There are dozens of other shows under that network.
So go to pantheonpodcast.com.
You'll find us there, but you'll find plenty of other great content.
We'd like to thank AKG for sponsoring the show and the network.
And, yeah, also, we have a website again.
Yes.
I'm just going to gloss over this really quickly because it's,
really, it's just a, honestly, it's just a player.
I mean, if we're being real, it's just a, it's just another way to listen to the show.
It's way paired down from what it used to be.
It's a good way to kind of see all the shows.
I also list some of the Spotify playlists, you know, the mini Spotify playlist that we have now.
So if you want just kind of one home for all that stuff, check out the website.
site, nothing fancy, but it is back in action.
So no filler podcast.com.
And that's it.
So next week, we're going to jump into the old pirate ship with man, man, and float around
for a little bit.
It's going to be fun.
Yes, sir.
So, yeah, that's next week.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
My name is Travis.
And I'm quitting.
We'll see you guys next week.
