Night On The Sun

It was recently announced that Modest Mouse were going to be touring with The Flaming Lips this summer, with a stop in Portland Maine the day before my birthday. They will be playing at an outside venue that is right on the water, so with some nice weather it will be the perfect spot for a summertime show. I don't know anything about The Flaming Lips, and even though I've heard that they put on a great show, for me it will be all about Modest Mouse that night.

I was excited about getting tickets, and was telling my friend Alex about it. She mentioned that she really liked the band, and we got talking about favorite songs. Modest Mouse is such a unique band and it feels like ten different people could each have a different favorite song. When Alex said that one of her favorites was Night on the Sun, I was surprised... not because of her song choice, but because I'd never heard of it before.

I found the song on Spotify to check it out and immediatly I was hooked on it. I can see why it would be someone's favorite Modest Mouse song... it is so good. I started digging in to find out more about the song and it looks like it was released as a single around the time of The Moon & Antartica, but never appeared on an album. I was so excited to discover a Modest Mouse song that I'd never heard that I quickly grabbed a 12 inch single from Discogs for $14. Deal was too good to pass up.

Checking Discogs, it looks like Night On The Sun was initially release on a 6 song Japanese only CD EP in 1999, and then as worldwide 4 song EP in 2000 (with different songs than the Japanese version). The record that I picked up was a 2016 vinyl release of the original Japanese CD EP. I feel like I'm still going to need that 2000 12 inch single version too... because why not?

Colored Vinyl Like God's Shoeshine

Last year I rediscovered and became heavily obsessed with Modest Mouse. I had checked them out back in the early 2000's but they never made much of an impact on me and I quickly forgot about them. Fast forward 20+ years, and at the very tail end of 2023 I heard the song Dramamine and it sent me spiraling through all of 2024 checking out more and more from them. By the end of last year, I'd listened to Modest Mouse more than any other band, and I'd gone to see them live, but still I'd only picked up one record for them. I needed to correct that and add more MM records to the collection this year.

Last year I picked up the 20th anniversary edition of Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and that thing was so well done. So when I was thinking about adding another Modest Mouse record to the collection, I started to look around to see if other records had done similar anniversary reissues. I spent a lot of time last year with The Lonesome Crowded West, so when I saw that there was a colored vinyl 25th anniversary edition that was released in 2022... and there was one available for a decent price on discogs... I figured that I'd pick it up.

This is such a great record. Sure there are a couple of songs that may be too long or drag a bit, but it still very fills that need when I crave something out of line with what I've listened to for the past 30 years.

The packaging on this record is amazing. Great heavy weight cover, a booklet with plenty of writing, and an art print. This thing looks so good.

Good News For People Who Love Modest Mouse

Back in the early to mid 2000's, I was searching for music that was new and interesting to me. I'd fallen out of the hardcore scene a bit and was feeling a bit lost, so I was downloading anything that might catch my attention... and that included a lot of hip hop, 70's and indie rock bands... some of it hit the mark, but a lot of it was disposable and I didn't stick with it much longer than two or three spins of the burned CDR that I'd made for my car stereo. One of the bands that I was checking out at that time was Modest Mouse. There was something about them that I found interesting, but I think that I was just consuming so much new music at the time that it was overwhelming, and I never really gave them much of a chance.

So while I'd never really given Modest Mouse much of chance back in the 2000's, as we were closing out 2023, my friend Sarah shared the song Dramamine with me. I'd never heard that song before, but it was a perfect fit for the musical headspace I was in at the time. I sat with that one song for a few months before I started to really crave more from the band, and then I started to dig out more and more songs from them. Soon Modest Mouse became a full on obsession, and there was not a day throughout April and May that I was not listening to something from the band.

Because sometimes it is all about the timing, but as my Modest Mouse obsession was ramping up, I noticed that there was a 20th anniversary edition of Good News For People Who Love Bad News that was due to be released in the coming weeks... and holy shit, it looked fucking nice.

From the new design on the front cover, to the colored vinyl, and lyric booklet... this was just so pleasing to my eyes that I couldn't pass it up.

Also as luck would have it, Modest Mouse are playing a live show with The Pixies in New Hampshire this month. I don't know anyone else that would have been interested to seeing them, so I would have to go to the show by myself, and that felt a little weird. Like, I have no problem going to small hardcore shows alone, because once the music starts and I've got my place in front of the stage to sing along and get jumped on, being there by myself doesn't matter. But a big concert, with assigned seating... I dunno, it just felt weird to think about going to that by myself. In the end I just said "fuck it", and I'm gonna be weird. I bought my ticket and can't wait to see the band perform some of my favorite songs this year live.