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ISAAC BROCK
AGE: 48
BEST KNOWN FOR: The Modest Mouse single “Float On.”
It may seem strange to be doing a “Where Are They Now?” on someone who less than a month ago played two sold-out shows co-headlining with the Pixies at Edgefield. Where’s Isaac Brock now? Still famous and living the life of an international rock star, thanks. You?
We mean, sure; at this particular moment, Brock’s band Modest Mouse doesn’t have a song as huge as 2004′s “Float On” or a Billboard No. 1 album like 2007′s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. But both of their last two records (2015′s Strangers to Ourselves and 2021′s The Golden Casket) were critical successes that managed to produce at least one No. 1 on the alt-rock charts. Isaac’s career may have crested, but he hasn’t exactly gone the way of the guy from the Bloodhound Gang.
But we feel like we know what this is really about. It’s because in 2015 Brock was quoted by a Polish TV station as saying Portland was “vagrant-filled” and “a collection of human turds” (well before that opinion became mainstream). In the same interview, Brock described on two occasions chasing people with axes out of his house, which bordered Burner hangout Colonel Summers Park. “It’s a cool city,” he concluded. “But a lot of the keeping itself weird is actually just allowing people to be complete pieces of shit. And that’s exhausting.”
This disillusionment didn’t stop Brock from opening a bar with a Detroit-style pizza kitchen on Northeast 28th Avenue two years later. He dubbed the place Poison’s Rainbow and closed it in 2019.
And, in 2020, he drew schadenfreude-laden headlines around the country by putting his Buckman three-story up for sale—as if to say, “You were right, America. Portland sucks!” Ever since, the Rose City has been wondering: Did Isaac really leave? Was he right to do so? Was it something we said?
Asking “Where’s Isaac now?” is like asking a mutual friend how your ex-girlfriend is doing: You don’t care how she’s doing; you just want to know if she regrets dumping you. Similarly, we’re sure Isaac’s career is fine (or whatever); we just want to know if he still likes us. Did he actually leave Portland?
Multnomah County property records show Brock did sell his Buckman house for $1.1 million in 2020. But he owns another, way up in the West Hills (shout-out Everclear) and, while Brock didn’t respond to attempts to reach him through his manager or his record label, a close associate tells us he’s still living in Sylvan. One of us! One of us!