MIMS Watch 2007

Modest Mouse may be bringing the heat at No. 1 on the album charts, but MIMS' "This is Why I'm Hot" continues to follow me around like a circus clown that may have more sinister ideas than just turning balloons into poodles.

Over the weekend, there was a parody on "The Soup" on the E channel. It was so out of left field it was kind of funny, though.

But back to Mr. MIMS himself. In hip-hop, a great way to stay hot is a superstar collaboration (although "This is why I'm hot/ I'm hot 'cause I collaborate" doesn't flow so well). So who is MIMS working with now? Kanye? Nope, hotter. Timbaland? No, HOTTER, dammit! Behold:


Oh hells yes! Zune! It's cross-promotion that fits like a glove: Music Is His Salvation, and the Zune is the salvation for music fans.

For those of you who don't have your ear to the street, Zune is the Microsoft MP3 player that has been vilified worse than the idea of a Snow/Tag Team double-bill.

So this is why MIMS is hot this week: He's on the side of a Zune bus.


The MIMS album drops Tuesday. Will it hit No. 1? Did you ever you think I would write this much about MIMS? Nah, me neither.

To bring this post full circle, The Seattle Times contacted Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock about the band's album hitting No. 1. He (gasp!) was kinda cranky about the whole thing. Click here to read the story.

Modest Mouse coming to San Diego

A photo from rougher days, for nostalgia's sake.


Modest Mouse has been real solid when it comes to playing San Diego, and they're keeping it up with a stop toward the end of their spring tour.

They'll be at Cox Arena on May 14, a Monday, which is happy news at Heisman HQ (OK, my apartment's spare bedroom, but Heisman HQ sounds cool). The last time I saw Modest Mouse was right before "Good News..." came out and they went from indie-level veterans to the face of indie. It was a sold out (seemingly oversold) show at the all-ages hell hole that is SOMA.

A floor that feels longer than it is wide, killing sight lines. A steady stream of 14-year-olds trying to push to the front when there wasn't a millimeter to give, as though they had a right to do it. Issac Brock fighting a losing battle with the lighting operator to turn down the spotlights so he could see the crowd -- then fighting a losing battle with the crowd in a rant about voting. It was a perfectly SOMA-rific night.

No disrespect to the underage music fans. I pulled out my hair over all the bands I couldn't see when I was in high school. I'm just saying, I don't see that many 30-year-olds trying to push to the front.

The new Modest Mouse album is out tomorrow, or you can go to the Whistlestop listening party in South Park tonight and buy it at M Theory behind the bad at midnight.


Modest Mouse -- Florida (MP3) (From the forthcoming "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank")

The ship sank because it was leaking

When you trade in spitfire and vitriol, you can only howl at the moon for so long before it stops seeming authentic and starts to feel like an act. Even Howard Beale's ratings eventually fell in "Network."

Considering Modest Mouse's newfound success, the expectations that come with adding Smiths guitarist/golden idol Johnny Marr — hell, "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" is a bloated title even for a Modest Mouse record — all signs pointed to an overblown letdown of a new album.

The record leaked earlier this week and, on first listen, it's promising. It still sounds more like their star-making "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," where the fast songs are the fast songs and the slow songs are the slow songs, than their older, more experimental albums that combined the two. But they're not going to make another "Lonesome Crowded West" just the same way that Death Cab is not going to make another "We Have the Facts" and the Shins didn't make another "Oh, Inverted World."

Marr seems to add just the right spark to a band entering its second decade, and Issac Brock continues to find some dark unmined crevices of his brain for lyrical inspiration.

That said, this album isn't likely to win over anybody who gets annoyed by Brock and his band. But for Modest Mouse fans, who would have thought that a band that once screamed "I'm trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away" would make an album that sounds so ... comforting and familiar?

The album comes out March 20. Here's a couple of tracks:
Modest Mouse — Florida (feat. James Mercer of The Shins) (MP3)
Modest Mouse — Spitting Venom (MP3)
The album's first single, "Dashboard" is on the Modest Mouse Myspace