Everyone Hears Every Little Sound

Modest Mouse @ Webster Hall 11/15/2006
Paper Thin Walls / Black Cadillacs / Ocean Breathes Salty / Fire It Up / We’ve Got Everything / Float On / The View / Breakthrough / Bukowski / Missed The Boat / The World At Large / Lucky Me (jam?) / Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes / People We Know / Bury Me With It // Dashboard / Dramamine

Modest Mouse “Paper Thin Walls (Live, with bonus rant about “Freebird”)” – Before last night, the only other time that I had seen Modest Mouse perform was back in the spring of 1998 when they were touring for The Lonesome Crowded West and I was only a freshman in college. Obviously, quite a lot has changed for them since then. In addition to that whole sordid fiasco involving Isaac Brock getting accused of rape back in the late ’90s, the band have become one of the most influential and commonly mimicked indie rock acts of the past decade, recorded an unexpected but well-deserved mainstream hit, and have expanded from a ragtag power trio into a highly polished sextet including, somewhat inexplicably, Johnny Marr from the Smiths.

Modest Mouse has always been a strange band for me, probably in part because they were the first band that made me feel a bit out of step with the direction of indie rock in general. Whereas the indie rock of my teenage years was arty, cosmopolitan, colorful, and often self-consciously political, Modest Mouse were unapologetically blue collar and semi-rural, with a body of work that focused on the vast wasteland of depressed middle-of-nowhere towns that make up the bulk of modern America. I don’t directly relate to the places or characters in most Modest Mouse songs, and I don’t find much to romanticize in them either, and so their music has always been slightly uncomfortable for me, though not necessarily in a bad way. Either way, it is easy to see why so many people have connected with Brock’s music, and it’s also not too difficult to understand why his most recognizable vocal tics and songwriting quirks have been aped by a small legion of (mostly quite horrible) new bands.

Modest Mouse were always a tight band, but their current incarnation perform with a slick professionalism that seems at odds with their core appeal. Whereas the performances on their first two albums sounded like the work of some guys who rehearsed constantly for a lack of anything better to do, the band on stage at Webster Hall last night seemed stuck in fixed positions and unwilling to stray into anything remotely spontaneous. They nailed the songs for sure, but I get the impression that I could listen to recordings of every show on this tour and each song would sound nearly identical from night to night, which is quite a difference from that show at the Black Cat in ’98 when it seemed as though they were making it all up on the spot. The most exciting selections in last night’s set allowed the band room to expand on themes and step outside of the album arrangements — the jammy song that flowed out of “The World At Large;” the extended version of “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes;” the lonely, wandering instrumental passages of “Dramamine.”

I’m not sure what to tell you about the new songs. They were alright for the most part, and a couple of them sounded like viable singles, so it seems possible that they can hold on to a portion of their new audience. (Who mostly suck by the way — I was stuck in front of this terrible couple who insisted on chatting at top volume about inane bullshit through every goddamn song and ignored everyone else’s disapproval for a majority of the show, and there were kinda goony fratboys all over the place.) Also, if you’re expecting the new tunes to sound anything remotely like the Smiths, you’re going to be very disappointed since Marr is either playing music that Brock has written, or adding his own parts in a style that suits Brock’s compositions. (Click here to buy it from the Sony store.)

Love As Laughter “Dirty Lives” – Hey, this is a pretty cool song, right? It’s got a good groove, clever lyrics, and a bit of deadpan humor. It might lead you to believe that Love As Laughter would be a fun band to see live, but as I learned last night, that assumption is totally, totally wrong. Aside from this number, which was played with a weak country-rock state fair sort of arrangement, Love As Laughter did nothing but long, boring, hookless fake classic rock songs that mostly sounded like a Dire Straits album with all the fun and catchy parts removed. Their set was just baffling; leaving me to wonder why the hell they were actively trying to sound like the sort of obscure album cuts that inspire people to hit the bathrooms and concession stands at actual dinosaur rock concerts, and if anyone in the band would have actually broken out with a severe allergic reaction if they were to perform a song with a real chorus. (Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site and features mp3s from Colleen, Richard McGraw, and the unfortunately named duo Qwel and Meaty Ogre.