Seam,
Silkworm, Radar Bros.
Satyricon 125 NW 6th Ave., 243-2380 10 pm Friday, Jan. 14,
Cover
Modest Mouse, Wolf Colonel
Crystal Ballroom 1332 W Burnside St., 778-5625
9 pm Saturday, Jan. 15, $10 advance
The deadline for bands to enter North By Northeast,
Toronto's music-industry powwow, is Friday! Do it online at
www.nxne.com.
In the far-flung world of rock, aesthetic synergy can be hard
to come by. So mark the fact that Silkworm and Modest
Mouse both pay calls on this fair metropolis in the space
of two days. While the members of these two bands most likely
wouldn't embrace the comparison, this nugget of indie kismet
makes the weekend something of an Outback Allstars Showcase.
Both bands operate out of Seattle, but their sounds speak
of upbringings further afield--namely, the lonely spaces
of Western Montana, where two of three members of Silkworm
as well as Modest
Mouse commandante Isaac Brock logged formative
years. Both have enjoyed a varying degree of success: Silkworm
has bounced from hip label to hip label, racking up a string
of distinctive albums; Modest Mouse prepares to push a new
record on Seattle's Up imprint before swinging with
the big boys of Epic later this year.
Although Silkworm relocated from Missoula to Seattle just
10 years back, the band practically hails from a different
musical generation than Modest Mouse--though, with a clutch
of albums dating back to mid-decade on their vita, the Mouse
boys are hardly the young turks of the industry anymore.
Silkworm songwriters Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen
won their teenage rock spurs in the '80s, when "college
rock" still meant something and the New Wave had barely
receded into the sea. Modest Mouse, pulled together in the
mid-'90s in an Issaquah, Wash., trailer when Brock and his
cohorts could barely drink legally, is more obviously indebted
to pre-alt landmark bands like the Pixies and even
Nirvana, on whose heels they followed.
What the bands have in common is less tangible than their
evident differences. Call it the Territories sound--a sonic
sense of open space, heart-scouring isolation and the nagging
feeling that, despite the glorious vistas of the West, you're
trapped. Both bands broadcast from the peculiar existential
cul de sacs found in small towns and roadside attractions.
Neither delves into the distorted sludge or sound-heavy
production that bogs down most of today's rock; at their
best, both move with a spare economy reminiscent of the
old-time country of which they're the sons and heirs.
I first saw Silkworm in a dank lodge hall basement on one
of the band's frequent homecoming sorties through Missoula,
where Cohen and Midgett did their time at Hellgate High
School. The wood-paneled walls bore the branded names of
past Moose bowling champs, ladies auxiliary captains, Grand
Inquisitors, etc. As was the custom at rare all-ages shows
at the time, the mohawks were out in force--'80s punk had
yet to die.
Silkworm, years away from the bitter-old-man feel of Blueblood,
its '98 album on Chicago's Touch & Go, played
with a shirtless-rock-lad brio that's now hard to imagine,
given the group's predilection for three-piece-suits and
law-student gear. Still, it was a little sardonic around
the edges even then. In the midst of a Homeric medley of
songs, bassist Midgett slyly approached the mic and sneered,
"Hey, I think I'm the frontman. What d'you guys think?"
The years would only widen the ironic distance between
Silkworm and the rock-hero archetype. This is a band that
unleashes textbook guitar solos with professorial detachment
and pens songs based on an odd psychosexual shadowplay version
of World War II that no one else understands. With the help
of überproducer Steve Albini--another Hellgate
grad--they've shorn all extraneous noise, leaving only the
iron and steel of drummer Mike Dahlquist's jackhammer
style, dusted with Midgett's coiled bass and Cohen's brittle,
clean guitar.
If Silkworm spent too much time in the school library through
winter days, Modest Mouse visited way too many smoke-stained
rest stops and truckstop casinos.
According to one childhood acquaintance I know, Brock was
"the sort of kid you hated to play with" because he'd often
break toys. His embittered bark, always over a stripped
sound similar to Silkworm's, does indeed sound like the
testament of a dangerously alienated kid. While Silkworm
bears the curse of the podunk intellectual, Modest Mouse
is in the grip of the slowly unfolding madness of the Interstate.
The title of MM's '96 album, This Is a Long Drive
for Someone with Nothing to Think About, says more
about growing up in the country than any sociological treatise
and most novels with the word "river" in the title.
Both bands, it's worth noting, are hit-or-miss live. Still,
a straight dose of Silkworm's caustic wit chased by Modest
Mouse's bleary-eyed elixir for lonelyhearts could make a
fine tonic for the long winter blues. And, of course, the
double bill could provide Portlanders a crash course in
the emotional realities of Western Living. Get thee to the
Outdoor Store.
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 12,
1999
|
