Link to our Facebook
Link to our Instagram
Link to our TikTok

Live Review: WATCH: Modest Mouse 'The Lonesome Crowded West'

29 June 2012 | 3:00 pm | Hannah Story

Modest Mouse have a documentary about their career. And it's actually a really great watch, mostly because we fucking dig Modest Mouse.

Do you have 45 minutes to spare for MODEST MOUSE and their 1997 beauty The Lonesome Crowded West? The album has an almost cult following and is my favourite; it’s so raw and energetic, full of youthful exuberance and spunk. Highlight: ‘Cowboy Dan.’

This little documentary just got released online. It’s about the album as well as their career, and is full of the band’s commentary and footage from the time.  It’s a pretty rad watch, but it’s also worth devoting your full attention to. Don’t just watch it while you’re playing Civilisation though. It’s pretty fascinating to see the way the band were, as compared to the way they speak today.

The people we hear from most frequently have been part of Modest Mouse the whole time: Isaac Brock, Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green. We also hear from record labels, producers and other musicians- the footage is old but really interesting, especially the part involving Elliott Smith. The documentary even includes footage of other bands who influenced them and of the context of the creation of this rockin’ album.

Plug into the latest music with our FREE weekly newsletter

Oh and to tide all you feminists over, here’s a fun fact about the origins of their name. It springs from this quote from Virginia Woolf’s short story, ‘The Mark on the Wall;’“I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest, mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises.”

Pretty rad, huh?

Yeah it is. Watch it over at Pitchfork.

Words by Hannah Story.