Modest Mouse's website has been updated with four new dates dotted around their existing festival dates this coming summer. New shows in Washington, Pittsburgh and Columbus bring the total number of dates to seven.

Most tickets go on sale on April 26. Check out Modest Mouse's tour page for more details. Thanks to Darwin and Luke for sending this in.

Source: MODEST MOUSE || OFFICIAL WEBSITE » TOURS

Another single date seems to have popped up, all by its lonesome in May. The band will be headlining what appears to be a mini-festival of sorts on Stanford University's campus in Palo Alto, CA on May 19.

Tickets on sale April 23rd at tickets.stanford.edu, available online, in the Stanford Ticket Office, and in White Plaza. Student tickets are only $20; save on each ticket with a Stanford student group order of 10 or more. SUIDs required.

The show seems to be set for 3pm and Modest Mouse will be preceded by Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Eyes Lips Eyes.

Click here to see the Frost Revival Official Facebook Event.

Source: Stanford Concert Network | SCN New

Back in June of last year, it was reported that Isaac Brock was working on a soundtrack to an upcoming film Queens of Country. Well, nine months went by and virtually nothing else was said about it. We attempted to contact the producers of the film to get more info, but didn't receive a response. Leading us to question just last week if Isaac was even still involved at this point.

The film seems to have faced a few delays, but will finally see it's world debut this coming Saturday at the Phoenix Film Festival, and with it, final confirmation if Isaac is still involved.

Tonight, the day before the film is to debut, Phoenix Music blog Up On The Sun, uploaded their latest podcast that include two of the tracks Isaac has contributed to the score.

The instrumental numbers are entitled "Trophy Room" and "Sadness", and start at around the 12:35 min mark in the podcast. Unfortunately the DJ talks, and interviews actor Ron Livingston from Queens of Country, over the first track, but the second one can be heard in full.

With the movie coming out tomorrow, hopefully more songs will come to light, and perhaps more will be shed on the subject if maybe Isaac's score will see a physical release like the 180 Degrees South soundtrack did. It will also be interesting to see if Isaac plans on releasing these under the Ugly Casanova name.

Thanks to board member monkey2000 for bringing this to our attention.

Source: Up on the Sun: The Podcast with Ron Livingston, Isaac Brock, Wanda Jackson, and More - Phoenix Music - Up on the Sun

If anyone was paying attention, you will remember that five years ago today, Modest Mouse released their last album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank.

Without trying to sound like an ungrateful fan stamping his feet and asking where that new album is (which seems to the common occurrence every time Modest Mouse makes a post on Facebook), we would like to point out that this is the longest gap so far between albums. If you don't take No One's First, And You're Next, as it's an EP and featured mostly old material.

With We Were Dead reaching this milestone, we thought we'd take this moment to recap and speculate on some of the recent activities of the band and its members, in the hopes of stirring up some discussion or perhaps someone filling us in on some news we're not aware of:

• The band as a whole: After performing a mammoth 119 known shows in 2007, the performances cut to about a half of that for 2008, 2009 and 2010, before performing only 15 shows last year. This year doesn't seem to be off to anything different, with the only dates having past and set for the future being festivals.
  
  One could be optimistic and see this as them spending more time in the studio working, or maybe they're just taking a break. I'm all for not rushing things. However with so little new material having been debuted live, I would think it's closer to the latter.
  
  While the band has been notoriously shy from giving interviews in the past few years, when they have strangely there has been mention of a new album being practically finished, only to have the same story repeated a year later. A lot has happened since, Johnny Marr did leave the band, and who knows how that may have affected any of the material that he may have contributed to.
  
  Even the sessions with Big Boi occurred almost one year ago, although it seems to have been made out that that was more of an experiment than anything.
  
  So far the only new material floating around are the songs that have been performed live. The two that have had the most oration being Lampshades On Fire and Poison The Well. Another potential song is the untitled track performed at The Warfield, unofficially titled "Mexico". Lastly there is the untitled track that made an appearance at the end of the Don't Move Here episode.
  
  
• Isaac Brock: Recently, apart from playing the few last minute surprise solo shows, the only other project Isaac potentially has on the go is the writing of the Queens Of Country soundtrack. Which was also announced about a year ago, and has since not been mentioned again. The film is finally due out at the end of this month, and while Isaac is still mentioned as the composer on IMDB, the lack of updates around this make me think he's no longer involved. We attempted to contact the producers of the film, but did not receive a reply. Hopefully with the release just around the corner, we should get some closure to this soon.
  
  
• Jeremiah Green: The once side project busy Jeremiah, has also been quiet of late. At least perhaps quiet to news sources. After multiple World Gang releases early last year, this work seems to have slowed down since releasing that live album last June.
  
  
• Eric Judy: Eric hasn't performed with the band live since 2011/07/02. Not that the band has performed that much since then. Rumours are rife that he has left the band. Personally I don't believe it, Eric does have young children, and could be taking a break from touring. We have tried to contact the band and certain members about his status, but haven't heard anything.
  
  
• Jim Fairchild: Jim will be returning to perform some dates with the reunited Grandaddy. A question to maybe ask is, depending on the outcome there, will he perhaps not return should they decide to take things further?
  
  
• Tom Peloso: To our knowledge, nothing news worthy has been happening with Tom lately (sorry Tom).
  
  
• Joe Plummer: A lot of updates lately have been revolving around Joe, now that he is with The Shins. They have a new album out as of today (coincidence?), and he will be touring full time with them. As with Jim, a question to ask, is does this mean Joe is perhaps done with his time in Modest Mouse, or when his work with The Shins calms down, will he be returning?
  
  
• Pat Graham: Lastly, Pat Graham is still awesome, and we miss him and his updates on the band.
  
  

Joe Plummer is currently touring with The Shins, who are in the process of releasing their new album Port Of Morrow on March 20 (Five years to the day, that We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank was released). They are currently at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX, where last night they performed at the Auditorium Shores Stage.

Today The Shins will be performing at the Google/YouTube SXSW Festival showcase "Live from the Lot" at 5:45 PM C. The show will also be streamed later today on YouTube, approximately one hour after the performance it seems. Check the YouTubePresents page for the start time in your area.

Source: YouTubePresents's Channel - YouTube

While it doesn't look like you'll be able to watch the live stream of Modest Mouse's performance tonight in Mexico, you can watch Joe Plummer performing tonight with The Shins on SNL.

Catch the band playing "Simple Song" courtesy of Stereogum.

Source: Watch The Shins Return To SNL - Stereogum

Modest Mouse's set tonight at Festival 72810 in Mexico might be streamed live, thanks to a link discovered by board member goinunion.

The band will be taking the stage at 12:05 am CST. We have contact the festival and hope to get confirmation on the stream and will update you if we hear anything back. The festival has already started though, and the stream is not yet active.

UPDATE: So it doesn't look like this is happening. We should have a set list by tomorrow I hope.

Source: Festival72810 - live streaming video powered by Livestream

Today's two stories are brought to us courtesy of Pitchfork Media.

The first is a brief posting in their new feature Inbox, where Pitchfork's writers and editors field reader emails.

Nik Kapetanakis writes in under the subject "Desperately Seeking Modest Mouse", asking if it would be possible to do an in-depth interview with Modest Mouse. Pitchfork writes back with a semi cryptic response, that if you like the band, and you liked the documentary Pitchfork.tv did for the Flaming Lips' album The Soft Bulletin, that something related may be appearing in the near future. This leads to the possibility that Pitchfork.tv may be doing a piece focusing on a Modest Mouse album.

It would be super awesome if you guys did an in-depth video interview with Modest Mouse-- I am a huge fan, so pardon my maybe-far-fetched suggestion. --Nik Kapetanakis

We don't want to give too much away just yet, but if you like Modest Mouse and you liked our recent Pitchfork.tv documentary on the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, you'll probably be into another video piece we've got on the way...

The second article, mentions that Jim Fairchild's former band, Grandaddy, are reuniting for some shows this year. The only one set in stone at the moment is on September 2 at Dorset, England's End of the Road Festival.

While this is more than likely a temporary arrangement, it could potentially overlap with any future Modest Mouse tour dates, if any are planned for later in the year. Not that that would probably affect anything, as Modest Mouse is pretty good with swapping out members temporarily. Jim has also stated in the past, that he doesn't seem to be too involved in the recording process, if the band happens to be recording at the time... who knows, all speculation really.

Source: Grandaddy Reunite for Shows | News | Pitchfork

The Governors Ball Music Festival announced their lineup this morning, and the hints they'd been dropping turned out to be true. Modest Mouse will be one of the acts performing on June 24, opening for Beck.

Other acts that day apart from Beck, include: Explosions In The Sky, Cults, and Built To Spill.

Because this festival has the band locked for the Sunday, this means that Modest Mouse will most likely be only performing on Saturday June 23 at the Orion Music + More festival in Atlantic City.

Tickets for this event go on sale tomorrow, February 22, through the festival's website. Watch a video of the announcement below.

Source: The Governors Ball Music Festival | Gov Ball | June 23rd & 24th, 2012 | Randall's Island, NYC

Here's something that completely flew under our radar.

It was brought to our attention yesterday, that Isaac performed solo this past Thursday evening at a benefit in Portland, OR entitled "Songs For Joel". The purpose of which was to raise money for Joel Burrows who was seriously injured last year and required funds for a special wheelchair.

The show also included Spoon's Britt Daniel and ex Sleater-Kinney members Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss.

Isaac's five song set included four Modest Mouse songs and a cover of Love As Laughter's "Miss Direction". For the complete set, check out the tour date archive.

Thanks to NovocainHurricane for bringing the show to our attention, and JB for the complete set list.

Source: Songs For Joel