Saturday 14/08/04 Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, The Walkmen, The Ponys @ Q101 Block Party, Chicago

They’re out in droves this autumnal August afternoon, those woolly bandwagon-leapers, sheep tattooed and pierced and irritable, burning their voter registration cards for warmth and participating in communal sing-alongs of Gene’s 'Longsleeves for Summer'. For this lot, 2004 is the year of the Mouse.  Modest Mouse, that is.  After a decade’s worth of obscurity, this band have finally broken into the mainstream, chiefly by borrowing a page from the Franz Ferdinand bible of video depiction (colours drained, two-dimensional portrayal of band members). Ever mindful of broadening their fan base, the Seattle quartet did not hesitate to have the image of the sheep plastered all over their video. Sheep not withstanding, there is a free Thrills setlist out there for anyone who can detect a difference between these two videos, 'Take Me Out' and 'Float On'.  They should really make a bar game out of it, touch the screen, spot the discrepancy.

The Walkmen easily upstage our eccentrics from the Pacific Northwest. In the case of their cantankerous single ‘The Rat’, Hamilton Leithauser fumes with all the righteous fury of a teenage Julian Casablancas, recollecting that grim autumn morning when young Jules awoke out of a nightmare concerning the unjust and rapid depletion of his Swiss boarding school funds, hereby forcing our future louche frontman to glimpse an alternate reality where people actually hate you for having acne and wearing sleeveless Ghostbuster T-shirts (??? me neither - ed).  Simply put, 'The Rat' alone chews up anything Modest Mouse can offer, so you can imagine how Death Cab for Cutie feel, having to follow it.

What can you say about Death Cab for Cutie?  Two years on, this band continue to peddle their innocuous brand of ho-hum snore-rock, still content on being upstaged by the opener (Then: Camden Barfly, January 2002 - Simple Kid. Now: Chicago YMCA, August 2004 - The Walkmen).  This festival is called the Q101 Block Party, but you’d sooner expect a critical reappraisal of Stereophonics before you’d ever see Bloc Party turn up round these parts. 

No matter, this only encourages all the hip sheep to trudge over to the second stage to see what all the fuss is surrounding hometown hopes, The Ponys. There is already a backlash brewing against this band, due in no small part to a series of gushing write-ups in that bastion of the saccharine, Rolling Stone.  In their song, 'We Badmouthin’, which harangues the entire Chicago music scene, from Kanye West to Billy Corgan, rising Chicago art-punk duo Slow News Day do not hesitate to take The Ponys to the glue factory: “saddle up, Ponys, I know who you are / a borderline trite cut-rate Stellastarr*”.  Since not one of their songs even approximates the first three seconds of 'Somewhere Across Forever' The Ponys recruit few new converts to their stable.  In a world already about to implode for excess of Robert Smith-alikes, the negligent Ponys have gone ahead and tossed another Bob into the mix in the form of frontman, Jered.  No, Jered doesn’t look anything like ghoulish Bob; he’s a pogo-happy Thurston Moore in thrift-shop clothing.  But the real curiosity of the Ponys is multi-instrumentalist Ian. Gaunt and pale, this gentleman looks as though he is about to faint with every chord change. Fey and emaciated, were it not for the guitar blocking it, you could almost picture his distended stomach. Suddenly, this simple low-key open-air fest has taken on the nuance of a Stateside Live Aid, “…with proceeds benefiting the performers”: Ian needs some prime rib and a trip to the Caribbean.

Over the years, Modest Mouse has built up a cult following despite having a singer who sounds like he’s spent the better part of two decades camped out in a Pennsylvania coal mine whilst subsiding on tacos and gradually expanding.  Longtime fans of The Soundtrack of Our Lives will tell you that when the band was just starting out, lead singer Ebbot could have passed as a body double for Howlin’ Pelle Hive.  In time, however, Ebbot couldn’t help but indulge himself in a long-dormant gorge-lust toward his nation’s famed meatballs and voilà, we have our Hagar the Horrible frontman of today.  The same could be said for Isaac Brock:  one too many cheese-wheels on this Mouse’s rider. 

Modest Mouse are the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain of rock bands; nice concept, admirable motive, their hearts in all the right places... but the moment you turn on the water it all goes to hell.  The water in this case is Isaac’s voice, a shrill amalgamation of Tim DeLaughter eternally stubbing his toe on misplaced flugelhorns and Wayne Coyne whining in that unique yee-haw whine of his about having no more fake blood to smear on his ice cream suit. 

Consider your forebears, Mr Brock.  Even Danny Elfman eventually gained enough sense to shut his mouth and just score films. 

Editor's Note - is it me, or do Josh's submissions become more and more crazily confusing?? click his name at the top to see what I mean... SR.