In a few weeks, Modest Mouse’s debut album “This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About” (1996), will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The record is overshadowed by its follow ups, “The Lonesome Crowded West” (1997), which Pitchfork dedicated an entire documentary to, and their major label debut “The Moon & Antarctica” (2000). Those two albums are titans to be sure, but they unfortunately obscure the shine of “This is a Long Drive,” an album that is a classic in its own right.
As the title suggests, the record is filled with images of travel: cars, road trips, highways, gas stations all pervade frontman Isaac Brock’s brilliant lyrics. The first line of the album is “Travelling, swallowing Dramamine.” The album brings us past shrinking beaches, through Ohio and takes a bus to Baltimore. We go from northern pines to southern palm trees, shout “Carolina!” and go to a natural-sounding place called Minnow Brook that is really just another suburb.
The idea of travel on the album often ends up equating to escape and the struggle involved in that endeavor. “I can’t swim so I dog paddle,” Brock bemoans in “Dog Paddle,” with one interpretation being that he’s toiling to keep moving forward (or desperately get away from something, as other vague, ominous lines suggest: “We don’t like what we just saw.”) He comes to something of a conclusion later on the album in “Exit Does Not Exist,” when he plainly declares that such an escape is impossible. In a way that is genius in its simplicity, he relates the idea of spiritual movement and escape back to physical travel. “Take an exit,” he taunts as if it were as simple as getting off a freeway. Both songs start with Brock wheezing and gasping in the background. It is the breathing of someone drowning, the sounds of claustrophobia and the struggle of escaping a tight space. And with all the album’s loud talk about wide, open spaces (“Breakthrough,” “Head South,” “Tundra/Desert” and “Ohio” are all song titles), it never really seems like escaping the tight places and moving out into the open is even possible.
Then there’s the fact that everything on the album sounds so unique — each song totally distinct from not only the other indie rock groups of the time, but often any other songs on the album or in Modest Mouse’s catalogue up to that point. When the band first started, they made sure to say they were from the small suburb of Issaquah, Washington. They were not a part of the Seattle grunge scene exploding at the time, nor were they one of the punk bands from Olympia. They were Modest Mouse.
The rhythm section of bassist Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green is great enough in itself as it shuffles and rolls along while avoiding the typical tired beats. But it really gets interesting with Brock. Brock’s voice, unconventional but not whiny, is definitely recognizable — even unforgettable — as he shifts from folk-crooning to punk-screaming to shout-rapping. But it is Brock’s guitar playing that might be what truly sets Modest Mouse apart. Sometimes it is clean-toned, chimey and beautifully layered and other times it lurches into loud power chords. No matter what is going on, the guitar-playing is sure to be marked with little Brock-isms, the instantly recognizable harmonics and string bends that he likes to sneak into his playing.
“This is a Long Drive” is so important because of how it sets up the masterpieces to come. “Lounge (Closing Time)” from “The Lonesome Crowded West” is a lyrical and musical improvement on the “This is a Long Drive” tune, but the original sets up the funky, genre-bending music and the themes of hollowness of a club scene — “Closing Time” just perfects those elements. But “This is a Long Drive” sets the stage for later Modest Mouse in less obvious ways. “Beach Side Property” has a line that goes “Town hasn’t moved but it’s getting closer, losing ground.” This line introduces an idea explored later on “The Lonesome Crowded West”: “Didn’t move to the city, the city moved to me.” “The Lonesome Crowded West” basically perfects what “This is a Long Drive” set out to do in an effort that is loose and raw and sometimes lacking perfect execution.
But it is precisely that rawness that makes “This is a Long Drive” so great. According to Green, they started touring for the album the day they got out of high school. There is a youthfulness throughout the album that is unmatched by any other Modest Mouse record, a youthfulness that is excited but also confused, unsure and scared. For me it all comes to a head on “Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset,” one of my favorites: “Changed my mind so much I can’t even trust it / My mind changed me so much I can’t even trust myself.” It epitomizes the anxiety of youth: wanting to go somewhere and go there fast, but being unsure about where exactly you actually want to go.
“I think I know my geography pretty damn well,” Brock retorts during an argument on “Dramamine,” but he doesn’t sound so confident.
“This is a Long Drive” captures a deeply rich moment both in Modest Mouses’ trajectory and in 90s indie rock, and as the album comes up on its 20th anniversary, it’s interesting to see where Modest Mouse started and how they’ve grown.
