Despite three decades of sprawling think pieces and a song catalog that made him a modern alternative rock figurehead, Modest Mouse lyricist, vocalist and guitarist Isaac Brock continues to sweat under the wide Northwestern sky.<\/p>\n
Modest Mouse sprouted from the Issaquah, Wash., underground and broke through in 2004 with the double\u00ad-platinum \u201cGood News for People Who Love Bad News,\u201d propelled by the infectiously upbeat \u201cFloat<\/a> On<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Brock says that song was birthed almost wholly without intention as a faster \u201cfun ska song\u201d version of \u201cThe World at Large\u201d<\/a> before growing into a \u201creal song.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no \u2026 intention behind that,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n Ahead of the band\u2019s Oct. 10 show at Citizens Live at the Wylie in the Hill District, the only remaining member of the band to have played on that record following the 2022 cancer death of drummer Jeremiah Green at 45 sat in the sun on his Portland, Ore., porch wearing a darkened beanie.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m recovering from something, I don\u2019t have as good an excuse as a bachelor party,\u201d joked Brock. \u201cI think a solid week of self-sabotaging, real-life avoidance and just trying to fly directly into the sun. And mistakes were made, man. So here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n While both his biggest commercial hit and his latest mistakes lacked intention, the second year of his farming endeavors \u2014 driven jointly by witnessing the fragility of the food supply system during the covid-19 pandemic, impassioned environmentalism and \u201cfinding meaning in the physical world\u201d \u2014 does not.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid all the time that the food supply is gonna go and I\u2019m gonna just not know what I\u2019m doing. And it turns out I still don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing and that still might happen,\u201d said Brock. \u201cCurrently, I don\u2019t get anything out of it except for kind of a combination self-esteem boost and kick in the crotch in my self-esteem, because I\u2019m not great at it, man. I got home from tour, and there\u2019s a bunch of rotting cucumbers and store-bought cucumbers in the fridge, because my kids didn\u2019t go pick them.\u201d<\/p>\n The fruits of his labor \u2014 or lack thereof, so far \u2014 are diverse, \u201cI\u2019m keeping more alive than I\u2019m killing, so that\u2019s a thing. I\u2019m on year two with them with this batch, and the only reason I\u2019ve gotten any honey out of it is because I had a failed hive \u2014 I call it winter honey because it was such a mess. I forgot \u2014 I decided not to put it in the kind of premade frames that they could follow,\u201d he said of his bees. \u201cSo they built everything sideways, and there\u2019s no way to get (it) out without like taking the whole hive and just melting it down, dead larva and all. So, you know, nice, protein-rich winter honey. This year they did pretty good, but they only have enough honey for themselves, none for me to steal.\u201d<\/p>\n He hopes his food one day lands in community markets.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019d make me feel like I was doing something actually positive,\u201d said Brock. \u201cGrowing food for the communities is always a plus, and it feels good. But I haven\u2019t done that, so I don\u2019t know. I assume it feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, the father of three and everyman-existentialist quipper is also mulling over plans to start a soil amendment company that he can leave behind without anxiety while on tour. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know a thing about it. Luckily, the guy I\u2019m starting it with does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Self-awareness has set in amid his farming shortcomings.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s coming to terms with (the idea that) I assumed I already knew more than I do, and it turns out I don\u2019t know a thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His attempts to learn the finer points of agriculture have all recently fallen under the shadow of Modest Mouse\u2019s first independent album in 30 years and its first since Green\u2019s death, \u201cAn Eraser and a Maze,\u201d which critics across the The song laments not remembering the color of several departed characters\u2019 eyes. In addition to losing Green, in 2020, he lost another friend of more than 30 years in Sam Jayne, frontman of Love as Laughter, who was found deceased in his car.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, just a series of different types of loss,\u201d he said of the song\u2019s inspiration. \u201cI was kind of just running through a list of people that had either actually left the physical world, you know, died or whatever \u2014 just that mess \u2014 and some of it also like relationally, you know?\u201d <\/p>\n When asked how the shame present in the song might have manifested, Brock remained as far from an answer as his farming exploits.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I know yet. I think writing the song was supposed to be part of figuring it out,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I have.\u201d<\/p>\n And while quick to label a past album like 2021\u2019s \u201cThe Golden Casket\u201d as an optimistic one, he said he was still discovering the throughline of \u201cAn Eraser and a Maze.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, man,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m having a hard time seeing it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n As he awaits those answers, he\u2019ll keep working on his quarter-acre produce garden and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cThat went OK,\u201d he said of the produce. \u201cI can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite three decades of sprawling think pieces and a song catalog that made him a modern alternative rock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-291509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nranging from the products of a 5-acre hazelnut grove, to common and easy-to-grow produce like cucumbers, potatoes, carrots, onions \u2014 and even bees.<\/p>\n
\ncountry have dubbed a return to form on the back of tracks like the crushingly honest and vaguely shame-tinged \u201cThird Side of the Moon.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n