A piece written with love for a group of local legends that deserve your time

by Zev Roschy

The 90s as a decade was huge for music. Correction – the 90s as a decade was huge for music in Seattle. The world was blessed with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden… and those are just the bands that made it to the mainstream.

It was undeniable that Seattle/Washington was establishing itself as a music capital of the country. But I’m not here to focus on Nirvana or the grunge sound right now. Another genre was emerging in the 90s and one of the greatest bands to come from it came from right here, in Washington – more specifically, the far-off land known as Issaquah.

It was 1992, and Isaac Brock was working at a local video store outside Seattle. It was there he met bassist Eric Judy, and it was with Judy that, at a heavy metal show in Seattle, he met drummer Jeremiah Green. The three of them decided to make music together.

This is where it gets complicated: Isaac Brock was not from Seattle. He was from Issaquah. He wrote songs about Issaquah. Not Seattle.

He wanted to distance himself from the sounds of the city and write songs about living in a suburb. This is very clear in the lyrics and sounds of their future records as Modest Mouse.

Now that we have their history out of the way, let’s dive into the actual sound of their music. I mentioned earlier that there was “another was genre emerging” and that lead singer Isaac Brock wanted to “distance himself from the Seattle sound”.

The genre I’m referring to is Midwest Emo. This was the phoenix rising from the ashes of Emo, which in turn, was the phoenix rising from the ashes of Goth which was the alter-ego of Post-punk.

“But wait!” you must be thinking, “Isn’t Issaquah in the Pacific Northwest?? How could Modest Mouse be Midwest Emo??!?”

To respond to you, I would say, ‘Well reader, I would argue that Midwest Emo is a sound, and despite it having Midwest in the name, it is not limited to the region’.

For further reading, check out the article entitled “What Is Midwest Emo, And Why Has It Become So Popular?” by Mackenzie Meany, or “The Unspoken Revolution of Midwest Emo” by Carson Thurman. To summarize those articles, Midwest Emo is a mixture of punk and indie rock and heavily influenced by the raw emotional lyricism and playful melodies of Emo music.

Isaac Brock utilized this sound to create music about his drug use, religious upbringing and his mental health. This is backed by a uniquely intimate sound from the rest of the band.

The guitars are muddy and not perfectly tuned; the vocals are shaky and vulnerable. The band as a whole has created its own sound of energetic and highly personal rock. They forge a unique combination of Midwest Emo, Grunge, Folk, and Indie.

But how does this sound come together into their records? Starting off with their debut commercial album, This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, you enter a world of rock, born from truly unique lived experiences. Instead of singing about girls, hard drugs, and partying, Isaac Brock sings a song about exactly what the title of the album says.

Picture driving down a desolate desert highway with nothing to think about except the road ahead of you. There’s so much in the song Dramamine that can be interpreted as depressing or nihilistic. But Brock creates a sort of romanticization of boredom: he effortlessly pushes the message that nothing matters, and that is not a bad thing.

“We kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves,” Brock sings on Dramamine, demonstrating this idea. There is something so precise and beautiful about this song’s idea that we as humans can do something small and ignore the consequences precisely because it is a small thing. A small thing that brings us joy.

Throughout the song, he repeats the line: “But I still can’t focus on anything.” He is turning boredom and the blandness of everyday life into something to be taken advantage of and appreciated.

Another notable song from their debut is Tundra/Desert, which touches on the idea of how small we are in the world, and also on that sort of hopeful, positive nihilism that I mentioned earlier. The song ends with him singing, “Every winning opinion / I wish I had on”. He admits to wanting to make an impact but acknowledges that he can’t, or he doesn’t feel like he can.

The clarification of a “winning opinion” is important in this line. What is the point of causing a scene or being loud in a quiet room when everything turns into a competition where activism and ambition is squandered by greed and people wanting to be the loudest in that quiet room?

Modest Mouse’s next EP (Interstate 8) and their subsequent album (The Lonesome Crowded West) touch a little more on more common rock and emo topics like love. My personal highlight from the EP Interstate 8, is Sleepwalking (Couple’s Only Dance Prom Night), an awkward high school love story that gives off the same honest and embarrassingly sweet vibe that you would get from Napoleon Dynamite.

I especially like the idea that, although it is titled Prom Night, it never really makes it to the dance. It’s not about the dance exactly… its more about the dance around the dance. It’s about the classic teenage combination of adoration and angst that comes with love in high school.

Another cut of that record that really stands out is All Night Diner. This fuzzy, funny anecdote is all about sitting in Issaquah’s own Triple X Root Beer Drive-In. The story it tells is not quite Lincoln Log appropriate, so I’ll let you all interpret it how you please.

Their next full-length album, The Lonesome Crowded West, was also their most critically acclaimed. When I listen to the song Trailer Trash, I think of it as some sort of canonical sequel to Sleepwalking. The children have grown up: they aren’t out of high school, unfortunately, but they are together at least.

This song is about being anxious and beating yourself up over your failures. But in the background of that depressive mentality is something you care a lot about. It’s a sweet song, but certainly a sad one.

Those three albums are their most prominent, and worth checking out. I am guessing that most people that decided to read this far have heard of classics like Float On, or We Missed the Boat, so I figured I would remind everyone of this wonderful band’s existence and older albums.

Sadly, drummer and founding member, Jeremiah Green, passed away on December 31, 2022. The band has recently put out a statement saying he was “above all… all about love.”

Modest Mouse is a band I grew up hearing. They are a staple of the northwest and listening to them is truly a unique experience. Check them out!