Here's something interesting that turned up today. For those of you that can remember, back in January 2008, in an interview from Rolling Stone Magazine, Isaac mentioned that he was working on a project with Frank Black to recreate Lee Hazlewood's Trouble Is A Lonesome Town.

That was the last we heard of it.

The project now however, is ready for release. It looks like the project's main originator was Charles Normal, known for his work with Frank Black, Pete Yorn, Jetboy, and his brother, musician Larry Norman.

Charles Normal first heard the Hazlewood album in 2000 while living in Norway, where he picked it up in a secondhand show.

"It really made me start thinking about America, where I hadn't been to in quite some time," Normal said. "I'm a big fan of 'The Andy Griffith Show,' and that small-town Americana we grew up watching on TV and this was like the audio companion to that. It had kind of a sinister vibe, it was a little darker."

The project really got underway when he read in 2007 that Hazlewood had always intended the album to be seen as a set of demos, that would later be recorded by other artists. He recruited friends and collaborators from Portland, to begin work on the album including Isaac Brock, The Pixies' Frank Black, Pete Yorn, and members of Art Brut and the Dandy Warhols.

The project however would be shelved shortly after it Isaac gave that interview in 2008 though, after Charles Normal's brother Larry passed away.

"I just put the whole thing on the back burner," Normal says. "It was really heart-wrenching to try to sing harmonies with him; these were the last tracks that he'd ever recorded."

Eventually, after some long late night talks with Isaac, Charles decided to complete the album. Which will be released under the band name "Thriftstore Masterpiece" and will be available on July 9.

Thriftstore Masterpiece revisit Lee Hazlewood's 1963 lost classic Trouble Is A Lonesome Town and features Pete Yorn, Frank Black (Pixies), Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse), Courtney Taylor-Taylor (The Dandy Warhols), Eddie Argos (Art Brut), the late Larry Norman and more.

The album is available for order, currently in a pressing of 1000 copies on a brown and white starburst LP from Side One Dummy Records. The full track listing is as follows:

1. Long Black Train - featuring Frank Black
2. Ugly Brown - featuring Larry Norman
3. Son Of A Gun - featuring Frank Black
4. We All Make The Flowers Grow - featuring Kristin Blix
5. Run Boy Run - featuring Frank Black
6. Six Feet Of Chain - featuring Pete Yorn
7. The Railroad - featuring Isaac Brock
8. Look At That Woman - featuring Courtey Taylor-Taylor
9. Peculiar Guy - featuring Eddie Argos
10. Trouble Is A Lonesome Town - featuring Larry Norman

Right now, we are not sure exactly what tracks will feature Isaac apart from The Railroad, but we'll keep you posted as we find out. Listen to that track below.

Thanks to jplan74 and Schuno for sending this in.

Source: Thriftstore Masterpiece: Pete Yorn, members of the Pixies and Modest Mouse Cover Lee Hazlewood's Trouble Is a Lonesome Town - Speakeasy - WSJ

Pitchfork has posted an interview with Outkast's Big Boi, during which the question came up as to what had happened to the work he did with Modest Mouse back in 2011.

Pitchfork: What made you want to work with bands like Little Dragon and Phantogram?
BB: I had just finished working with Modest Mouse for their project, and after that I was like, "Man, I need to start doing this for my own shit." Just bringing people in. So we did. We would live day-in and day-out with people, go bowling, go out to eat, and then come back and record, watch a movie, record. It was like funk summer camp.

Pitchfork: What's happening with the stuff you did with Modest Mouse?
BB: It's for their record; it's coming. We actually took a trip back out there to go see them a couple months ago. I did maybe three records with them. Isaac [Brock] is cool, man, like cowboy cool. He showed me how to make a bong out of an apple and shit. For real.

Not much to go on, but it is interesting to hear that he has been in touch with them recently and that it does sound like the material will be put to use and not abandoned.

Also in the interest of keeping some conversation going (in these dry news times), Big Boi does have a new album coming out next month, of which it doesn't sound like the track-listing or collaborating artists has been confirmed. Seeing how he has been working with other bands, it will be interesting to keep an eye on it, and see if any member from Modest Mouse makes an appearance on it. Pure thinking out loud this last part.

Source: Update: Big Boi | Features | Pitchfork

Here's Luke's third and final review. He's been following the band on a string of east coast dates, but Pittsburgh has been the last one.

Once again he was able to speak to Isaac and managed to get a few snippets of info, mainly it sounds that the band is planning on lining up a few more festival dates later this year and some shows in Canada.

Modest Mouse played the third show of it's tour in Pittsburgh to another sold out crowd.

Taking the stage at 9:00 PM, they opened with Gravity Rides everything.

Donning his banjo, Bury Me With It was played, much to the excitement of the crowd.

Lampshades on Fire was played, with some in the crowd actually booing, giving the band the middle finger, and screaming "fuck the new shit." Others were grooving to the song and enjoying the "new shit." Isaac once again added a bit of a jam to the bridge.

Next, The View was played, with an awesome extended jam towards the end that I have yet to hear during this song.

Broke followed, garnering the loudest crowd response. Nearly everyone was singing along with Isaac, swaying as one.

Isaac picked up his banjo again, starting with a banjo riff while singing "I used to be an old time nothing," among other lyrics. The band then opened into Satin In a Coffin, with lots of the crowd starting to mosh and a few members crowd-surfing.

Continuing with the banjo, King Rat was played, once again with a small, but boisterous few expressing their displeasure.

Bassist Russell Higbee started into Dramamine, with the rest of the band following. The extended version was played, with Isaac borrowing lyrics from Life Like Weeds. Isaac eventually started screaming into his pickups, with the crowd going bonkers.

Dashboard followed, with, once again, many in the crowd unhappy.

Ansel followed, with what was the sloppiest version I have heard thus far. It appeared that Russell perhaps skipped a verse on the pump organ, leaving the rest of the band fumbling to catch up. Isaac appeared a little angry, but they eventually sorted it out and continued with the song.

Missed The Boat came next, with most of the crowd singing along again.

Shit Luck was next, with large amounts of head banging and moshing from nearly everyone in the crowd.

Education followed, with a truly awesome jam at the end, which appeared to fall on deaf ears. Isaac took a few power chords and turned them into a dancey, raucous outro.

Next was Custom Concern, followed by Black Cadillacs. The band then took off their instruments, and with not much of a crowd response, explained that "that's it."

After an encore break, they returned with Poison The Well, which had yet to be played this tour. The bridge seemed to be extended, with a heavy guitar riff that sounded like it could be straight off of Lonesome Crowded West.

Fire It Up came next, with a large amount of the crowd singing along.

What followed was hands down, the coolest moment of the three shows I attended. Tiny Cities Made of Ashes was played, with Modest Mouse showcasing what they are all about. The band truly sounded in sync, allowing Isaac to go off on his guitar, leading a brutal onslaught of magnificence. Tom Peloso was on the upright bass, which I am a sucker for. It truly was a culmination of all that the band is: music that makes you want to dance while simultaneously breaking everything in sight. Isaac moved about the stage, literally hitting his guitar with closed fists in a truly awesome rendition. Afterwards, Isaac joked with the crowd, explaining one could make millions of dollars off of a "non-sexual, sexual lubricant" that would eliminate the holes in his hand from playing guitar so violently.

Dance Hall was next, with much of the crowd dancing along and chanting with Isaac.

Ending the night was Bob Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, with members of the crowd booing once again.

Overall, this was a solid show. It appeared that the band was more in sync, which led to some awesome improvisation. The crowd was pretty young, and there were some truly annoying people that got in the way of the music. The fact that people were booing new songs is just ridiculous: don't come to a show if you don't want to hear new music, especially from a band that is in the process of creating a new album. A fight broke out about five feet from me because some drunk guy apparently groped some buzz-cut dick-head's girlfriend, leading to a solid 10 minute altercation that was completely unnecessary. When I was leaving the show, some guy was complaining to me how they played Shit Luck with a "bunch of 22 year olds that don't deserve to play with Isaac." I explained that Tom Peloso and Jeremiah Green were both present, who have been playing with the band for quite some time. It was also a bit disappointing to hear songs that had been played the previous two nights, with only Poison the Well being an unplayed song.

Prior to the show, I was able to talk to Isaac for a few minutes, who agreed to answer a few questions for me. I asked him how it was working with Big Boi, and he explained "it was fun, we basically smoked a lotta weed with him in the studio. He wasn't too involved, we were just testing the waters." I asked if other than Firefly, there were any other shows he could share and he mentioned "something in Toronto, or maybe Montreal." He was with Davey Brozowsky, the drummer filling in, who said "I thought we weren't doing that anymore though." At this point Isaac was moving into the gated off area, so I asked when we could be expecting a new album. He explained "when we finish it," then grinned. "Nah, we are working on it though." He moved into the gated area, wishing me a good day. So, it would appear the time spent with Big Boi was more of a time used getting inspired, and no news of a album release date.

This marks the end of my travels with the band, but shows at Orion Fest in Atlantic City, Governors Ball in New York City, and a final date in Columbus Ohio are still yet to be played, along with Firefly Festival in Delaware, later this summer.

Thanks to Luke for taking the time to write up these posts and for doing his best to speak to members of the band to get some new info.

Source: Moon of the Milky Way

Interstate-8.com member, Luke, is fortunate enough to be going to the next few days worth of shows, and has offered to share his tour journal with us.

For the next few days we will be posting his blogs, photos and anything else he may stumble upon.

Here's his first review, from last night's performance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. He was also able to speak to Isaac, Tom and their new touring bassist after the show, and get a little bit of vague insight into where Eric may be.

On a side note, Fuze.tv will be live streaming Modest Mouse's set from this Saturday's performance at the Orion Music + More Festival.

Modest Mouse opened its summer tour with the first of a two night, sold out run at The 930 Club in Washington DC.

Glacial Pace label mates Talkdemonic opened with a twelve song, 40 minute set.

Nearly an hour after Talkdemonic finished, Modest Mouse took the stage. The band lineup was the same as at Frost Revival; still no Eric. Isaac apologized to the crowd for his "bad habit of coming out so late." The band opened with Dramamine, performing the extended version, borrowing lyrics from Life Like Weeds.

They then moved into Paper Thin Walls. Belting "laugh hard it's a long way to the bank," the crowd launched into a dancing frenzy, with some members moshing.

Next, the recently debuted Heart of Mine was played. Nothing much was changed from the original heard from Frost Revival, however, Isaac did tame the "bye bye bye" part down a bit, extending it a few lines as well.

Broke followed, with what I considered one of the best performances of the night. Isaac's guitar sounded perfect; fluid and airy, with the bass churning in the back.

Fan favorite Float On followed, with nearly everyone in the club chanting along.

Next: Tiny Cities Made of Ashes. Tom Peloso played the keys, which added a genuine feeling of doom to the already apocalyptic track. The bassist held down the bassline impeccably, with Isaac adding pointed jabs on the guitar. Isaac's added "hey hey hey's" hit like punches to the gut, his words leading an assault on the crowd.

A condensed Custom Concern was played, along with Education, with Peloso again adding his flair to the keys.

Cowboy Dan, another standout of the night, was played with Talkdemonic's Lisa Molinaro joining on viola. With each chanting of "can't do it, not even if sober!" the front row was doused in Isaac's spit, flying further back as he screamed louder.

"Here's half a Bob Dylan cover I know," Isaac said, starting Bob Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.

Isaac was then handed his banjo, tearing into Bukowski, once again spraying the crowd.

Continuing with the banjo, Dance Hall was played, literally turning the crowd into a sweaty, dancing mass, screaming along with Brock.

Ending the pre-encore half was Gravity Rides Everything. Isaac played through, elongating the song by playing the feedback of his acoustic guitar. Towards the end of the song, Isaac seemed to become angry when a loud piercing noise shot through his mic. The band left the stage, returning about ten minutes later after the guitars had been re-tuned.

They opened the encore with another newly introduced song, Ansel. Again, not much was changed from the Frost Revival performance, however the pump organ almost sounded like steel drums this time around.

Isaac then brought out the banjo again. He started to play the intro to Satin In a Coffin but fumbled for a few minutes, eventually asking the crowd if anyone new how to play the song. Realizing it wasn't properly tuned, he handed the banjo over to a stage hand. As technicians tuned, the band crawled into an instrumental jam, heavy on Tom's upright bass. Eventually, the tuning was figured out and Satin In a Coffin was played, with Isaac utilizing his "static mic."

Dashboard was played, proving once again that studio versions of songs that I do not like can be played live and leave me dancing and singing along.

Rounding out the night, Fly Trapped in a Jar was performed with the crowd in full swing; dancing, moshing, screaming. Isaac thanked the crowd for listening to him talk and "sitting through the bullshit," as he glared at the sound technician.

As I was leaving the venue, a girl next to me was given the set list. I asked if I could take a peak and she allowed. For the encore, they had listed Heart Cooks Brain, with "maybe" in parenthesis.

After the show, I waited out back in the alley way, where I could see Isaac and Tom having a smoke. Eventually, I got Tom to come over and have a cigarette. We chatted about the band, with me expressing my excitement with the new material. I asked him about the status of Eric, and he said he was unsure. He told us he had to get going; his five year old and two month old were waiting in the hotel.

Isaac eventually made his way over to the few of us remaining. A few offered him weed, but he explained that he had "it covered." He signed autographs and took pictures, chatting with us. I was able to ask him about Eric's return and he replied, "uh, I think he retired."

Another fan asked why they weren't playing Philadelphia, to which he replied that he thought they were in a few months, but then corrected himself and explained that they would be added to the bill for Firefly Festival in Dover, Delaware. He explained that they had to wait until a certain date before they could officially announce this news. I asked him about the Heart Cooks Brain encore possibility, and he joked with me that he had just learned the lyrics after writing the song "18 years ago." He even said how he had the lyrics up on stage with him, but they had to skip over it when the banjo trouble started. Eventually, Isaac went back inside, getting the bassist for one of the fans that new him.

I got to talk with the bassist for a bit, asking him how playing with the band was going. He said he was extremely excited to be working with them. I asked if he would be replacing Eric and he said there hadn't been any talk of that, he was just "given the itinerary for the tour and hopped on the bus." When asked if he had been recording with the band, he said "nope, there's been none of that." I thanked him for an awesome show and bid him farewell.

Overall, it was a great show. I loved the opening with Dramamine, it really got the crowd going from the beginning. The crowd seemed to dig the new songs, most were bopping around and dancing.I also witnessed one of the coolest things I've seen at a concert: a mother and father, probably mid 40's, with there child of no more than 6 or 7 with them. The father was absolutely eating up every moment of the show, screaming along, dancing, even picking up his son and dancing with him. The kid had a huge grin on his face the entire show, vibing with his dad. I couldn't help but think to myself that the kid would grow up to have one hell of a music taste, being brought up on Modest Mouse live shows. Tomorrow brings night two in DC, which should follow suit and be another excellent show.

Luke Ilardo

Thanks to Luke for his review. We're all looking forward to your next one.

I'm not sure what to make of these comments on Eric Judy. It still sounds pretty up in the air, and no definite answer yet. Your thoughts?

Source: Moon of the Milky Way

Pitchfork.tv has, as promised, uploaded their full film looking back at Modest Mouse's 1997 album The Lonesome Crowded West.

The 45 minute film, spends a brief time detailing the bands earlier years before the release of their second album, and then spends the rest focusing on some core songs off the album. Along with stories from the band members themselves, there are also tales from Dann Gallucci, Calvin Johnson, Phil Ek and Pat Graham.

Most of the footage is taken from the original "Untitled" documentary, interspersed with a lot of Pat's photography.

It's a nice walk down memory lane, looking back at an album that is now 15 years old. Hearing tales about songs, and their live and recording history.

Watch the full film below.

Source: Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West: Entire Film | Pitchfork Classic | Pitchfork.tv

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.
  
  

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

As previously mentioned, Isaac Brock will be staring in this coming Friday's (Feb 3) episode of Portlandia entitled "Cops Redesign". In the episode, Isaac will portray an excited donor that donates his old music LPs to an elite preschool, but protective parents Brendan and Michelle question his sonic sensibilities.

The episode will also feature guest appearances by Kyle MacLachlan, Annie Clark and Sean Hayes.

Portlandia airs at 10pm on IFC.

Source: Portlandia - Cops Redesign – IFC

Modest Mouse are in the running again to win a Grammy award.

Rapper Lupe Fiasco sampled Modest Mouse's Float On on his single The Show Goes On, that was released back in 2010. The song was later featured on his album Lasers that was released in early 2011.

Fiasco has now been nominated for three awards at this year's Grammys: Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song and Best Rap Album. Should he win the award for Best Rap Song, he will share the Grammy with Isaac Brock, Eric Judy and Dann Gallucci seeing as how they are the original songwriters.

Modest Mouse was last nominated for a Grammy in 2005, when they were up for Best Rock Song and Best Alternative Music Album for Float On and Good News For People Who Love Bad News. They lost to U2 and Wilco.

Not the best way for Modest Mouse to win their first Grammy, but with these awards having become a bit of a joke in the past decade, I'm not sure anyone cares. But thanks to all the people that have been sending this tip in.

Source: Nominees And Winners | GRAMMY.COM

After a change in New Year's Eve plans, we were able to attend "Brockdemonena" last night in Portland, OR.

Isaac joined Talkdemonic on stage for the last three songs of their set. Performing Talkdemonic's Ending The Orange Glow and Revival, then doing the New Year's Eve countdown before ending with a cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams.

Bask in the awesomeness that is poor cell phone concert footage below, along with a link to equally poor audio/video from the rest of the set.

Source: 2011.12.31 - Mission Theater, Portland, OR - YouTube

Here's some last minute news if you're in the Portland area with nothing to do on New Year's Eve.

Isaac Brock will be performing songs with Talkdemonic tomorrow night, at their New Year's Eve bash at the Mission Theater in Portland, OR. Joining them also will be Menomena. The event is being unofficially dubbed Brockdemonena. Opening the show will be Deelay Ceelay and Brainstorm.

Tickets are still on sale, check the venue website.

Source: Twitter / @Talkdemonic

Portlandia is a television series on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), set and filmed in Portland, Oregon. It features Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, of the now-defunct band Sleater-Kinney and current lead guitarist/singer for Wild Flag.

The IFC announced today that season 2 will begin airing on January 6, 2012, and that it will feature Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, as well as other guest stars Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Steve Jones from Sex Pistols, Johnny Marr of The Smiths (and formerly of Modest Mouse), Joanna Newsom, and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent). All these musicians will be taking up temporary residence in the show's satirical and dreamy rendering of Portland, OR.

Source: Eddie Vedder, Joanna Newsom, St. Vincent, Johnny Marr and More to Guest Star on Season Two of 'Portlandia' - IFC Now - Blogs - IFC.com

On October 1, Broken Social Scene will be performing their last American show at The Fillmore in San Francisco, before taking an undetermined hiatus.

Pitchfork is reporting that the show will consist of a "mellow session" and a "loud session". That Feist and the members of Metric won't be there, but Stars' Amy Millan and Evan Cranley will. They are also saying that Isaac Brock will perform some songs with the band.

Isaac has performed with Broken Social Scene in the past. See November 2008, when he joined the band on stage in Toronto, where they performed material from both Modest Mouse and Broken Social Scene.

Broken Social Scene have also covered The World At Large in recent months.

Source: Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew Talks Band Hiatus, Future Projects, Apps | News | Pitchfork

It has only been performed once to our knowledge, used to close out one of the first known Modest Mouse show's back in 1995. Today, Wrong Decision, finally gets an official title: Dead End Job At The Dead Letter Office.

The track will be appearing on a compilation that we reported on earlier entitled Live From Nowhere Near You : Volume 2, being released on July 19 through Greyday Records.

As for a little history on the track, Kevin Moyer was able to share the following:

Isaac and I share a distant friendship. He is very smart, crazy, fun, hilarious, and can tell a story like no other. I think the fact that our group of friends don't overlap too much means we can often have confiding conversations with no outside concern. I can also tell that we both understand the darkness. When we first talked about the effort and him contributing, he wanted to do a cover song and for the life of me I cannot remember what it was, just that I wanted to record him doing it under a bridge or in a park near his house at night. But he got busy with doing the album "No One Is First and You're Next", so we started looking at old tracks already in the can to include instead.

Around that time I came upon some old tapes of Isaac as a 14 year old young kid playing music with friends in a shed using an old answering machine to record, and spent a considerable amount of time trying to clean those up, but Isaac did not want to use those as he felt it was "strip mining his past" and I had to agree. And just FYI on those tapes - Uncle Bunny Faces and Tube Fruit - he was just a teenager, only fourteen on some them, and he dumpster dived every tape that these were recorded onto from the MUZAK dumpsters in Seattle. Isaac tells me that these were never intended as demos, the term "demo" implies that you made the recordings to get people to become interested for a REAL record - and these were the REAL records. Isaac only gave them to close friends at the time and I can tell that he has a hard time hearing that these were for ever put up for sale by anyone. Again, with the strip mining his past.

Anyways, we decided to figure something else out and our schedules were having trouble aligning. Finally, one stormy night I was supposed to meet Isaac and his girlfriend at his house, but he wasn't there so I sat and waited on the porch for a few watching the trees bend in the storm. When the rain seemed to settle a bit I got in my car and left, only to get a text message from him on my way home saying to come back. I vividly remember the rain smearing down the windshield and the blurring green and reds of the traffic lights in the night as I turned the car around and almost got T boned by a semi truck running a red light doing about 60MPH. Finally though, I was back at Isaacs in the warmth of his house, sitting around a table drinking wine and listening to music.

The track that we finally chose is called "Dead End Job At The Dead Letter Office" and was recorded back in 1993 at Pat Maley's Yoyo Studios in Olympia, WA. This track is almost as old as the band and there is no recollection as to what this was recorded for particularly, other than just for the sake of recording music. The song features Isaac Brock on vocals and guitar, Dann Gallucci on guitar, and Jeremiah Green on drums. At the time, Isaac was sleeping in the hallway of a house with about 13 other people living in it; as was Dan, who was living in someone's closet.

By the way, Isaac was one of the first people to offer to release the "Live From Nowhere Near You" album. He had been doing A&R for sub pop and later started his own label called Glacial Pace. As far as I was concerned, with that kind gesture from him, he always had first dibs on releasing the project. But, remember, this effort took eight years to finish and he was busy with his own stuff and it kinda got to the point where I didn't want Isaac to think that the only reason I was talking with him was because I wanted something from him, so I kind of let that go. But it was always his, and the appreciation will always be there because it came at a point where I really needed someone to believe in the project and me... so it's not a stretch to say that he still had a very big part in the music on this release finally making it out of my studio and into the public ear.

Kevin was unfortunatly not able to disclose any more about which tracks were considered for the compilation, but for the most part it seems that the majority of what was, already exists in the fan community now (albeit sadly with made-up fan titles). As was with Every Mom I Know Seems To Think Its 'bout Them But It Ain't and the Babble On compilation that came to light earlier this year, this adds a few more details to the band's early history that is sadly so poorly documented.

Hear a new higher quality version of Dead End Job At The Dead Letter Office over at Antiquiet. Live From Nowhere Near You is available now for pre-order from Greyday Records (Canadians should have no problems now with shipping costs, as the postal strike is over).

Source: Exclusive: Unreleased Song From Isaac Brock Of Modest Mouse @ Antiquiet

Pitchfork is reporting that Isaac will be scoring the upcoming film Queens of Country, written and directed by Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenke. Both of whom were responsible for 2009's The Heart is a Drum machine, which Isaac starred in. The film stars Ron Livingston, Lizzy Caplan, and Tool's Maynard James Keenan.

Living in a fantasy era long gone and obsessed with old time country stars, the prettiest girl in a small Arizona town finds a lost iPod filled with songs that speak to her sensitive heart. Jolene Gillis is convinced the owner is her soul mate and she is thrust into a sexy, heartwarming and hilarious adventure of mistaken identities, ATVs, line dancing competitions, kidnappers, time machines and doppelgangers.

We will continue to report on this as more information is known, but seeing as how filming just began, that could be a few months. It will be interesting to see if this turns into another Ugly Casanova project, similar to the work that was done for 2010's 180° South.

Filming began on May 3, and the movie is slated for a 2011 release. Isaac's score is to be released in 2012.

Source: Pitchfork: Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock Composing Score for Lizzy Caplan Comedy Film Queens of Country

Isaac Brock's house (and Glacial Pace headquarters) are featured in Season II, Episode 5 of "Don't Move Here".

Isaac gives a tour of his home/studio, discusses his love of taxidermy, some home renovation tips, the bands that he's signing to Glacial Pace, and how the label came to be.

The episode ends with a short, partial performance from Modest Mouse, that features an as of yet, unreleased song. No mention though if this song is old or a new one being worked on for an upcoming album. Hopefully more will be cleared up when the band starts their short tour next month, should this song make its way onto set lists.

Source: Don't Move Here, Season II | Ep #5 | Isaac Brock + Glacial Pace | Wieden+Kennedy Entertainment

The Isaac Brock/Clay Jones produced Expanding Anyway, the debut album from Morning Teleportation, is out today through Glacial Pace Recordings. Glacial Pace is also offering free downloads of the tracks "Expanding Anyway" and "Foreign Planes" through their site (just add the tracks to your cart and checkout, note the price for those two tracks is $0.00).

Morning Teleportation formed in 2005 when Bowling Green, KY natives and lifelong friends Travis Goodwin (keyboards), Tres Coker (drums), and Paul Wilkerson (bass) met up with Chicago transplant Tiger Merritt (vocals/guitar), who had just moved to their hometown for college. From the beginning the band has built up a roller coaster of tumultuous rock 'n roll, featuring analog synths, heartfelt vocals, and sudden changes woven through psychedelia, electronica, and deep-space pickin' n' grinnin'. They've spent most of the past year on the road playing for enthusiastic crowds at Bonnaroo and Sasquatch and supporting the likes of The Flaming Lips, Cage The Elephant, and Modest Mouse.

If you like what you hear, the album is available in all formats from the Glacial Pace Store, or if you feel like supporting Interstate-8, through Amazon, Insound or iTunes.

The Bridge School News Network uploaded this video interview yesterday, taken at last year's Bridge School Benefit in October.

Hear Isaac, Eric, Jeremiah and Tom discuss some of their hobbies/down time activities and how, by my calculations, we should be getting a new album around the end of April (doubtful, but please prove me wrong).

Thanks to Matt for sending it in.

While we don't condone this, this past weekend a Portland resident/fan, knocked on Isaac Brock's front door and managed to have a short conversation with him as well as "other member's of the band".

Not much seems have been learnt about a new album, but Isaac did apprently mention that he is working on a Buddy Holly cover, and that it is almost finished. No idea what that could be for, but hopefully it will go further than the Lee Hazlewood covers that Isaac was working on with Frank Black back in 2008, which to our knowledge, were never released.

It's always interesting when something unknown to the general fan community turns up, especially when it's something really old and from a period of the band's history that is general unknown and poorly documented. That's why yesterday I was quite pleased when Interstate-8 reader and frequent contributor, Martin, emailed me in something he had recently found and purchased on eBay.

"Babble On" is a self released compilation tape from 1994 featuring mainly bands from the Seattle, WA area. Compiled by Chad Byerly, the tape has a real DIY feel to it, tracks that aren't really studio quality, and each band seemingly getting to contribute a page of photocopied artwork.

The Modest Mouse tracks featured on this tape are nothing that most hardcore Modest Mouse fans wouldn't have heard before. The first being "5-4-3-2-1... Lisp Off", which is obviously the more common of the two, having appeared on the band's first EP, "Blue Cadet-3, Do You Connect?" and "Sad Sappy Sucker". The second is perhaps a little more rare. Having always been known as the Modest Mouse demo "Follow Through", here it finally gets a home and an official title, "Every Mom I Know Seems To Think Its 'bout Them But It Ain't", labeled as "The Other Song" on the back cover. Both tracks are Isaac Brock only songs, just guitar and vocals (and astronaut voice), and are most likely both from his "Dial-A-Song" collection.

The artwork features a young Brock, probably around 18-19 years of age at the time, sitting on low brick wall. An address at which to write the band, the same one that would appear on the back of the "Blue Cadet-3, Do You Connect?" 7". And lastly, rounding up a final piece of Modest Mouse history, the phone number for his Dial-A-Song, (206) 557-0311 (and before you waste your time, I called the number, and it has long been disconnected by the phone company).

The other bands featured on the tape don't seem to have gone on to do anything else, with the exception of Tattle Tale, who were quite well known in the Seattle Riot Grrrl scene. In 2003, Jen Wood would also appear as a guest vocalist on the The Postal Service's debut, providing the female vocals for the duet "Nothing Better". She has also collaborated with Black Heart Procession and Joan of Arc.

For more information on this release, as well as scans of the full booklet where you can read Chad's story, check out "Babble On" under Compilations in the Discography section.

Modest Mouse - Every Mom I Know Seems To Think Its 'bout Them But It Ain't (aka Follow Through)

As most of you now know, back in March 2008, New York collective The Saline Project released a music video for Modest Mouse's Fly Trapped In A Jar.

At the time we described the release as "silent," mainly because no one in the community had any heads up this was coming, nor had it received any prior publicity from the band or their label. The video would be taken down shortly after, but not before being distributed amongst Modest Mouse fans, and nothing more would be said about it for almost three years.

Director/Artist Adam Toht (who also apparently lent his features to the alien in the video) was kind enough to take some time to write to us and share some details on the making of the video, and tell us what exactly went wrong.

As huge fans of Modest Mouse we were ecstatic to be offered the chance to make a video for one of the tracks from We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

For "Fly Trapped in a Jar" we kept seeing a band of identical extraterrestrials led by Isaac's alien counterpart. We loved this idea of creating a single-shot video set in a bright, tweaked take on a Seussian world. We saw Fly Trapped in a Jar as more of a performance than a standard music video, so we wrote it, pitched it and were awarded the job.

Because we had a minimal budget, we piggybacked our green screen shoot with Isaac onto another shoot Modest Mouse were doing at the time. We mocked up an alien outfit so that Isaac could play with the character and the alien's body type. It was a fun, super short shoot and we brought the footage back to New York and began what we thought would be a relatively normal post process. We shot the backup band, with their performances taking cues from Isaac's, and began building out the candy-colored world and its inhabitants. That's when we began to realize how time-consuming the process was going to be.

A full five minutes of animation equals about 7000 frames of animation for each of 25 different dancing, instrument-playing, face-making little dudes. It was an insane undertaking. Even worse, as great as the individual character tests looked to us, the label and the band, once put in a single frame, our painstakingly animated little guys seemed to cancel each other out onscreen.

It was like a black hole, the more work we put in, the more the video seemed to be sucking the life out of itself. So we asked for more time and put in what ended up being a few more months of work, only to submit a locked off camera version that everyone hated. It was brutal. So other jobs came in and we switched off between these projects and endless iterations of Fly Trapped in a Jar.

As frustrating as all of this was, we knew there had to be a great video in there. All the individual elements, the song, Isaac's performance, and our beloved aliens, were each too killer to result in something boring and static. Finally, with a version that seemed like a better video (we may have been losing a little perspective), we knew we had to put the project to bed. We re-submitted it to the label and... heard nothing.

Weeks went by, and as Adam explains, a small lapse in judgment would see the project shelved.

And that's when we did a really stupid thing.

We posted a version of Fly Trapped in a Jar to our site. We were up for several jobs with a similar aesthetic and salineproject.com serves as our main portfolio. And before we rubbed two brain-cells together and realized the kind of impact any new Modest Mouse video naturally has, Fly Trapped in a Jar was all over the web. Pitchfork posted it, bloggers blogged it, Rolling Stone wrote it up... and our production company called us to say that the record label was (rightfully) furious and wanted the video pulled immediately.

That was one of the shittiest days our group has ever had. We apologized our asses off to Isaac, the record label and our reps, and wiped the video from the web as fast as we could.

And then Fly Trapped in a Jar was sat on a shelf for over two years.

And then we decided this wasn't going to fly. And we opened up the project again and started working on the video again.

(Because we are crazy.)

And it got really good.

And years after the early version was leaked we got in touch with Isaac and talked about the possibility of releasing the video again, and Isaac was totally down and loved the idea that this was more of a short film, more of an "An Alien Musical," and Fly Trapped in a Jar was officially released!

The completed video was finally released in December 2010, and Adam, his producer/artist/brother Ben, and the other members of The Saline Project seem to be really ecstatic with their finished project.

Amazingly, it resulted in one of the best things we've ever done. People love this thing; people hate this thing. We love it and are so grateful that we had a chance to make and (finally!) release it.

To view the completed video, check out the song's page or watch it on The Saline Project's website.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOLC9gELguQ

Pitchfork: What are you working on with Modest Mouse?

IB: Songs. That's that.

Pitchfork: Are they going in any particular direction?

IB: I can't say that yet. I can't say that they are. It's pretty early in the game for me to have a clear picture of what we're doing, if it's good or anything. They're going to show up again today, and we'll keep banging our heads on it. It's way too early for me to know what direction this thing is really headed. It's just a bunch of random shit at the moment.

Pitchfork: How long have you been working on the random shit?

IB: About six months. We're not killing ourselves doing it, by any means. We just had the "Hey, we should probably buckle down" conversation last week. We just putz around and smoke a bunch of weed. It's more time spent hanging out than playing music.

Pitchfork: Will you try out new music on tour?

IB: We're going to try to. But I actually think we won't. I don't think any of it is close enough to be ready in what's essentially two-and-a-half weeks. I'd like to say we're going to, but I don't really see it happening.

Source: http://pitchfork.com/news/39217-isaac-brock-talks-i180-southi-modest-mouse-portland-mayor-portrait/

Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KUSUV8?ie=UTF8&tag=interstate8-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003KUSUV8

Source: http://www.magpictures.com/profile.aspx?id=69f442d0-8f47-46c4-ac5d-d91c11deb605

Source: http://stereogum.com/392061/ugly-casanova-lay-me-down/mp3s/

Source: http://www.victoriatheatre.org/

Source: http://twitter.com/180south/status/14387371275

1. Ugly Casanova: "Mountains of Storms"
2. Ugly Casanova: "Here's to Now"
3. Mason Jennings: "Machines"
4. James Mercer: "Doug's Theme"
5. Ugly Casanova: "Wave Goodbye"
6. Ugly Casanova: "Lonesome Blues"
7. James Mercer: "Journey Through the Past"
8. Ugly Casanova: "Hotcha Girls"
9. Jack Johnson: "Spring Wind"
10. Ugly Casanova: "Maybe We're Lost"
11. Ugly Casanova: "Corcovado"
12. Love as Laughter: "Coconut Flakes"
13. Ugly Casanova: "The Geezer"
14. Ugly Casanova: "Lay Me Down"

Source: http://pitchfork.com/news/38564-isaac-brock-james-mercer-contribute-music-to-documentary-soundtrack/

Source: http://thurop.deviantart.com/journal/30964543/

Source: http://www.subpop.com/channel/blog/defriending_cancer

And the follow-up to 2007's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank should be finished in the next six months, with the band road-testing some of the material on its current tour. "It'll take some effort," Brock says. "But that will make it more fun."

Source: http://pitchfork.com/news/35257-shins-james-mercer-spills-about-lineup-changes-new-album-other-projects/

Source: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/protestissue2008.html

Source: http://stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=935

Source: http://music.aol.com/sessions/modest-mouse-sessions/637

Due to Isaac being hospitalized, the upcoming 4 dates have apparently had to be cancelled. If you are attending any of these shows, we suggest contacting the venue to confirm. [Link]

Source: http://vh1blog.vh1.com/2007/04/exclusive_modes.html

Source: http://www.stereogum.com/archives/005045.html

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/breakfast/listen/

Source: http://www.spin.com/features/magazine/2007/03/0704_modestmouse/

Source: http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1555771/20070328/modest_mouse.jhtml?rsspartner=rssyahoo

Source: http://billboard.com/bbcom/feature/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003556567

Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/qa/story/13712527/qa_isaac_brock

Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/03/07/exclusive-audio-modest-mouses-isaac-brock/

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/zan/blog/s1821529.htm