Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read - Softcover

Goldsher, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312356013 ISBN 13: 9780312356019

Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

THE BEST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR IS SOMETIMES THE WORST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR

Unruly and antagonistic, the Washington State rock trio Modest Mouse would seem like one of the least likely candidates for mainstream stardom: Their often brilliant live performances sometimes collapsed into utter chaos. Their highly original, highly off-center songs ran as long as eleven minutes. And their leader managed to raise eyebrows among music writers, law officials . . . and sometimes even his fans.

But Modest Mouse persevered. They didn't compromise their original, compelling musical style, nor did they lighten up on the attitude. They just waited for the world at large to catch up.

In 2004, with the release of their smash single "Float On," it finally happened. And it was worth the wait. For everybody.

Journalist Alan Goldsher uncovers the strange, little-known details of Modest Mouse's rise from DIY indie heroes to platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated international superstars. Goldsher also reveals the troubled background and fractured history of frontman Isaac Brock, a charismatic, cantankerous singer/songwriter who has spent as much time avoiding the media as he has attempting to control it.

Thoroughly researched, sharply funny, and filled with more than thirty rare photos, this unauthorized biography shows how Modest Mouse trashed the Behind the Music mold and created their own unique version of the rock 'n' roll, rags-to-expensive-rags success story.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Novelist/ghostwriter/journalist Alan Goldsher is the author of the forthcoming Beatles/horror/humor mash-up Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (Gallery Books, June 22, 2010), as well as Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read, and the novel Jam. Midnight Movie, the novel he co-wrote with director Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") will be published in 2011. Written as A.M. Goldsher, his chicklit novels The True Naomi Story, Reality Check, and Today's Special were released in the U.K. and Marabout in France in 2008, with No Ordinary Girl to come in 2011. As a ghostwriter, Alan has collaborated on projects with comedians Bernie Mac and Fred Willard; actor Robert Englund, Ironman triathlete Sarah Reinertsen, and "American Idol" contestant Sanjaya Malakar, among other notable celebrities and public figures. Alan's sportswriting has been seen in ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, NBA.com, and ChicagoBulls.com, and he reviews books for Kirkus. During his 10-plus years as a professional bassist, Goldsher recorded with Janet Jackson, Cypress Hill, and Naughty by Nature; toured the world with Digable Planets; and performed at the 1994 Grammy Awards. Alan lives and writes in Chicago.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

THE BEST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR IS SOMETIMES THE WORST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR

Unruly and antagonistic, the Washington State rock trio Modest Mouse would seem like one of the least likely candidates for mainstream stardom: Their often brilliant live performances sometimes collapsed into utter chaos. Their highly original, highly off-center songs ran as long as eleven minutes. And their leader managed to raise eyebrows among music writers, law officials . . . and sometimes even his fans.

But Modest Mouse persevered. They didn't compromise their original, compelling musical style, nor did they lighten up on the attitude. They just waited for the world at large to catch up.

In 2004, with the release of their smash single "Float On," it finally happened. And it was worth the wait. For everybody.

Journalist Alan Goldsher uncovers the strange, little-known details of Modest Mouse's rise from DIY indie heroes to platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated international superstars. Goldsher also reveals the troubled background and fractured history of frontman Isaac Brock, a charismatic, cantankerous singer/songwriter who has spent as much time avoiding the media as he has attempting to control it.

Thoroughly researched, sharply funny, and filled with more than thirty rare photos, this unauthorized biography shows how Modest Mouse trashed the Behind the Music mold and created their own unique version of the rock 'n' roll, rags-to-expensive-rags success story.

Aus dem Klappentext

THE BEST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR IS SOMETIMES THE WORST WAY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR

Unruly and antagonistic, the Washington State rock trio Modest Mouse would seem like one of the least likely candidates for mainstream stardom: Their often brilliant live performances sometimes collapsed into utter chaos. Their highly original, highly off-center songs ran as long as eleven minutes. And their leader managed to raise eyebrows among music writers, law officials . . . and sometimes even his fans.

But Modest Mouse persevered. They didn't compromise their original, compelling musical style, nor did they lighten up on the attitude. They just waited for the world at large to catch up.

In 2004, with the release of their smash single "Float On," it finally happened. And it was worth the wait. For everybody.

Journalist Alan Goldsher uncovers the strange, little-known details of Modest Mouse's rise from DIY indie heroes to platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated international superstars. Goldsher also reveals the troubled background and fractured history of frontman Isaac Brock, a charismatic, cantankerous singer/songwriter who has spent as much time avoiding the media as he has attempting to control it.

Thoroughly researched, sharply funny, and filled with more than thirty rare photos, this unauthorized biography shows how Modest Mouse trashed the Behind the Music mold and created their own unique version of the rock 'n' roll, rags-to-expensive-rags success story.

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Modest Mouse

A Pretty Good ReadBy Alan Goldsher

St. Martin's Griffin

Copyright © 2006 Alan Goldsher
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312356019

Modest Mouse

1.

There's this city, this tiny city, this unabashedly American city, a city that feels it is a special place where people care. How do we know that's how this place views itself? Because it says so word for word on their Web site: "A special place where people care."

Populated by approximately fifteen thousand people and a handful of malls, this Special Place Where People Care offers a boatload of engaging activities for those seeking engagement: you can join the Braves & Square Dance Club, or the Alps Trails Club, or the city Chorale (where you'll share "the power of chorale music." And we all know how powerful chorale music can be.). You can pick up a case of homebrewed 2001 Red Mountain Reserve--a superb Cabernet, dense with aromas of ripe blackberry, cassis, and a hint of plum, which are all perfectly balanced by aromas of vanilla, cola, licorice, spice, and cocoa, with just a hint of earthiness--at the Hedges Cellars Winery for fifty dollars a bottle, well worth the price. And for those ecologically minded, sea-loving types, you can visit F. I. S. H. (boldface type courtesy of Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery). And you don't want to mess around with F. I. S. H., believe you me--they used their weight with the city to ratify a chinook salmon conservation plan, a plan that protects this almost endangered species. Tread lightly around them, especially if you're a lox lover.

So where, you might ask, is this place, this utopian place, this magical place, this special place where people care? It's in the Great Northwest, in the great state of Washington, in the great county of King.

Welcome to Issaquah.

 

Historians know that the word issaquah is Indian in origin, but they have no idea of the definition--some have theorized that it's a bird, or a snake, or a river, or a microchip, or a blender. White families began settling in the region at some point in the 1860s. James and Martha Bush--possibly related to the forty-first and forty-third United States presidents, possibly not--are considered the founding father and mother of Issaquah.

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed William Pickering the fifth territorial governor of Washington. Pickering settled in Issaquah four years later and purchased three hundred and twenty acres of land, land that is now covered by I-90 and a shopping center. After World War II, Issaquah evolved into a community; the town's population hovered around one thousand until the late 1940s, when the first bridge was built over Lake Washington. That passage brought Seattle within easy driving distance--making the drive from Issaquah to, say, the Showbox Theater, a breeze.

When Seattle become SEATTLE--java heaven, alterna-rock central, home of Major League Baseball's Mariners--local workers began to search for an alternative area to live, a place where the rents weren't obscene, where traffic wasn't a mess each and every day, where people care.

Welcome, once again, to Issaquah.

 

Here's another line of text you'll find over at http://www.ci.issaquah.wa.us: "Issaquah is committed to quality living through preservation and enhancement of the community's unique human and natural resources."

The irony about this statement is that the man who is arguably Issaquah's best-known human resource--probably Issaquah's biggest celebrity--definitely Issaquah's best-known rock star--spent a lot of time and energy not caring about this special place. At times, he seeminglydidn't care much about anything at all. Except making music. And getting wasted.

 

Oh, here's a final interesting Issaquah factoid: In the mid and late 1800s, Issaquah's dominant crop was hops, which was picked by Asian and Indian laborers and used to make beer in the breweries of nearby Seattle.

Ah. That explains a lot about our man, Issaquah's own Isaac Brock.

 

Brock has a love/hate--or, more accurately, a tolerates/annoyed by--relationship with his hometown. Back in the day, there was much for him to love, despite Issaquah's relative quaintness. "It was a nice small town, with close proximity to Seattle," he says. "It was still beautiful nature and [it had] the small town thing going on. [But] when you're alone in the middle of a nowhere hick town, you drink a lot." That being the case, it's a good thing that Issaquah's dominant crop was hops.

But as an adult Isaac became less than enamored with the area. "The Internet boom and all that shit turned [Issaquah] into a California mall," he complains. "It's not the place I liked when I was a kid. It's kind of a bummer now. It's lost all of its charm. It now has five grocery stores, all within a few blocks of each other. What do you need that for? I guess competition keeps prices down. The Targets and all that shit, I mean, that shit's everywhere and it's killing America, really. I like living in cities."

Thanks to Issaquah's distinctly Northwestern climate (read: crappy), Brock also has an interesting relationship with weather in general. "Overcast, rain clouds, that's how we do up here," he says. "I get paranoid without the clouds. Seriously, I don't need to be reminded that the sun's there. I'll visit it in tropical places or whatever, but shit, [the sun] will be there. It'll be there long, long, long after me, and you know what? [The sun and I] don't need to get too familiar."

 

"I got my religious fix when I was pretty young," says Isaac Brock, who was born on July 9, 1975, and shares a birthday with Courtney Love,O. J. Simpson, and Jack White. Following either God's word or their own personal whims, Isaac's working-class Christian family was somewhat transitory; the entire family lived on a hippie commune in Oregon, and eventually joined an unconventional church in Montana that had, according to Brock, ties with the Branch Davidians. (The Branch Davidians were a fanatical religious group offshot from the Seventh Day Adventist church, and in 1993 the so-called cult became international news when federal agents sieged their headquarters in Waco, Texas. Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, along with eighty of the church's members, were killed in the fire.) "The Branch Davidians were a crazier branch," Isaac explains. "The one [church] we were part of was crazy--but not psychopathic." Little is known about the sect, other than that their doctrine is apparently one predicated on fear of hell and damnation, and is out of step with mainstream Protestant groups. (Much of Isaac's songwriting is laden with religions imagery--he's especially fixated on the devil--but he can't avoid this, because, for better or worse, God--or at least the God he was introduced to as a child--is in him.)

An impressionable child, Isaac fell under the church's sway--or at least he pretended to. "I was speaking in tongues and shit when I was a kid, and all that jazz," he says. "I remember all their deacons laid their hands on me and started speaking in tongues. That's when the spirit of the Lord is supposed to come into me and I was supposed to find my tongue. I robbed lyrics from goddamn 'Mary Poppins'--lukididltle lungila lukididtle lungila. And they just all kind of looked away."

Isaac is tight-lipped about the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312356013
• ISBN 13: 9780312356019
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland