Modest Mouse - Dramanine This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About (1996)
One of the most exciting musical journeys is one in reverse, through the back catalogue of a great band. One of my favourites was working back from Modest Mouse's Good News For People Who Love Bad News, realising this skewed pop album was born out of something more chaotic and unhinged that united '80s hardcore, Built to Spill riffing, cheap speed and trailer trash wisdom. 'Dramanine' kicks off their second full album and feels like the beginning of Modest Mouse proper, where their scrappy early experiments coalesced into a sound as bracing as a toothache, giving urgency to Isaac Brock's barked, pithy philosophy: "we kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves".
'Dramanine' is a kind of anti-road song, a further perversion of the classic rock imagery Modest Mouse draw on and subvert. I imagine some punchdrunk dude weaving across the road popping anti-sickness pills, churning over a nasty row - "I've said what I'd said and you know what I mean / But I still can't focus on anything".
