Modest Mouse - Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks

In 2004 I made a very long journey from Lancaster, where I was studying at university, to Winchester and then even further south to Portsmouth to see Pitchshifter play in the Pyramids Centre. They were a band that we'd all loved throughout school and college, so it was nice to return to see them in a venue we'd seen them in before (on a date we'd seen them play there too) with some old friends. They were so important to us, that I took a five-hour train ride on a Wednesday after my classes finished, watched the band, stayed at my parents' house (for the last time in the house I'd grown up in - they moved a month later) and got a train back the next morning. I'm not sure I'd be quite so committed again.

Pre-booking the train meant I could travel for very little, but also meant a transfer across London. They always gave you an hour to do this, but I knew it only took about 15 minutes, so I jumped out in the middle and went to Selectadisc in Soho for a very quick shopping trip (my ticket didn't technically allow a break, so I had to plead ignorance with the guards at the gates on the tube). It was rushed, but I found some cool records, including this and Silverchair's excellent Neon Ballroom (for a stupidly cheap £6).

I'd been given the mp3s of The Moon and Antarctica by a guy called Andy in the first year of university and enjoyed them. I think the tracklisting was all twisted and I didn't get an actual copy and hear it in the right order until the Christmas after I bought this. The summer before, however, Float On had come out and I was in love with it (the fact that the 7" had a remix by John Congleton of The Paper Chase had endeared them to me further).

All that means that this record was at the start of peak-Modest Mouse fandom, an era that continued throughout university and a little into the Cardiff days. Their set at ATP was slightly disappointing - Isaac was sick and they played a set heavy in songs I don't care about (before they played I commented on how easily they could play a set of unbelievably huge songs, or they could take the 75% of album tracks that are just ok and be underwhelming; they went for the latter). At the end of The Melvins' set immediately before Modest Mouse, they wheeled out the two Modest Mouse drummers to join the two Melvins drummers for the last song, which blew all our minds - it was going to be a tough act to follow and they couldn't in my mind. That was probably the beginning of the end for me.

I enjoy this record, but it is in no way essential for the casual fan. Night on the Sun is the highlight and the reason the record exists really - it was a way of getting the Japanese-only EP out globally, along with some extra songs. It starts slowly (which makes the slow opener Willful Suspension of Disbelief feel a bit unnecessary) but Isaac's singing and the drums get it moving. There's a great almost-call-and-response moment with Isaac shouting "Well there's one thing you should no about this town" followed by a softer reply. It's a long song, but they squeeze in a lot. There are some filler tracks like the opener and The Air, but You're the Good Things is interesting and speeds up in a great way, and I Came as a Rat (Long Walk Off a Short Dock) is a welcome closer - not sure I could accurately say what the difference between it and the album version is. So Much Beauty in Dirt is a nice little song too, packing a lot of lyrics into a minute-and-a-half.

I played this record a fair amount back in the day, but not so much anymore - if I'm wanting to hear some Modest Mouse I tend to reach for The Moon and Antarctica or The Lonesome Crowded West (or even Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again, the live album which I found in the huge Virgin Megastore January sale in Lyon, France). I periodically think I should fill the gaps in my Modest Mouse collection, but I wonder if the moment has passed.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 8
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 06/10/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: None

Modest Mouse - Heart Cooks Brain / Shit Luck

On Saturday I went to the Independent Label Market in Spitalfields and ended the longest period of not buying records since I started buying records - a whole two months. My job search was taking way longer than I expected and, sadly, record shopping wasn't a priority. For a while I still picked up the occasional record here and there, but that eventually dried up. However, I now have a job, so I can begin buying vinyl in earnest to make up for the past six months. I plan to head to Banquet very soon to stock up on all of 2013's new releases.

So, on Saturday, to celebrate finally being able to blow money on music again, I went out and blew a lot of money on new music. I'd not been to the Independent Label Market before and only really heard of it from last year when I distinctly remember wanting to go, but not being bothered in the end; East London often seems so very far away. The short summary is that a lot of independent record labels set up stalls in Old Spitalfields Market, and it turns out it's very nice to meet the people who run the labels. It's like going to the individual label's websites and doing an online shop, but instead of crazy-expensive postage, you get to have a nice chat. I like it. I also ended up with a stack of free promo cds and pin-badges of bands I've never heard of. The other LPs and singles I'll write about on here in the coming weeks and months (or years, at the pace I've been going lately).

Finally getting round to this record, one of the first stalls I properly looked at was the Matador stall. They had a box of 7"s at £4 each or three for a tenner and I found a couple I liked in there. At the very back was this Modest Mouse test pressing, only identifiable by the post-it note stuck to the front. I'm a fan of Modest Mouse and, like most, consider The Lonesome Crowded West to be one of their finest albums. I bought the cd years ago and Heart Cooks Brain was certainly one of the better songs. I always adored Shit Luck too for how heavy and different it was to all their other songs. It was like a punk Black Sabbath song, and that appealed to me. So, to have those two songs on a 7" seemed like a winner. If I had the album on vinyl, I might not have bothered, but I don't (yet).

Of course, the most notable thing about this record is that it's a test pressing. I've never really been one to dabble in buying test pressings - it's like the next level of record collecting and there are still LPs I want to hear and bands I want to get into before I can start putting all that time and effort into finding test pressings. Also, I always thought it would be impossible to complete a collection if you include test pressings, since they can be pretty hard to come by. However, since I've started this blog I've spent a lot of time reading other people's similar blogs and I'm very impressed by some of the test pressings some people have in their collections. I'm not such a big Modest Mouse fan that I'll seek out all their other test pressings, but I do enjoy having this one. Maybe this will be the first of many posts on here that I tag with "test pressing"...

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3.33 new
Bought: Independent Label Market
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Modest Mouse - Float On

Although this record was my first Modest Mouse purchase, it wasn't my introduction to the band. In my first year of university an American exchange student (who we only knew as "American Andy") burned a bunch of albums he thought I'd like onto an mp3 cd for me and one of them was The Moon and Antartica (which I did enjoy, particularly the song Dark Center of the Universe. Incidently, this was the same guy who introduced me to Hum). A short while later this 7" appeared just before the release of Good New for People Who Love Bad News and I picked it up in HMV in Winchester. I'm not sure I'd heard the a-side at this point, but I was deep in my The-Paper-Chase-are-the-best-band-ever phase and seeing John Congleton's name on the remix on the b-side probably convinced me.

Float On is of course one of the most upbeat songs ever written and is basically sunny-day good-times and everyone loves it for that. It's certainly graced my turntable a huge number of times in the eight years I've owned it. The b-side however, is as dark as I've come to expect from John Congleton. Maybe it's because I've played it more often, I think I prefer this version to the original; it somehow makes the song seem like more of an event. My problem with Modest Mouse is that, whilst they have lots of really great songs, they also have a huge number of completely average songs that I can really take or leave (both live and on record they have too many songs that I'm just not that bothered by). Bukowski is one of those album tracks that doesn't really stand out, but this version strips it back a bit and we're left with something worth getting excited about.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 12/07/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no