Are Modest Mouse named after Modest Moussorgsky?

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The Russian composer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modest_Moussorgsky).

It seems unlikely, but it also seems like kind of a weird coincidence.

― goodoldneon (goodoldneon), Thursday, 20 July 2006 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

eight months pass...

I like the Great Gate of Kiev! I don't care what anybody sez, that's a piece of music. Ravel orchestration, of course. And I also heard the Mouses' song about "we've got everything down to a science" on the radio on the way home tonite, and that was just as good. So I say... hasn't this been covered on another thread?

― dr. phil, Monday, 16 April 2007 04:03 (eighteen years ago)

I read that they took their name from a documentary Isaac Brock saw on the industrial history of the Pacific Northwest, where factory workers were described as "a modest, mouse-like people."

― Ben Boyerrr, Monday, 16 April 2007 09:09 (eighteen years ago)

At a forum hosted by a place called "Paper Thin Walls," surely there can't be enough Modest Mouse threads.

― Finefinemusic, Monday, 16 April 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

Didn't this thread get locked 8 months ago?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 06:27 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.giannimorandi.it/Foto/LP/Elp.jpg

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 11:40 (eighteen years ago)

I read that they took their name from a documentary Isaac Brock saw on the industrial history of the Pacific Northwest, where factory workers were described as "a modest, mouse-like people."

Oh that's disappointing, I thought we had a Henry Cow/Henry Cowell scenario going on here

― Tom D., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 11:42 (eighteen years ago)

didn't this thread used to have a lot of posts on it? i kind of remember it being a flame war. bug during transition?

― modestmickey, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 12:03 (eighteen years ago)

I've always read they were named for a phrase in a Victoria Woolf short story.

― Simon H., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

Simon's right, though the quote I referenced is right as well - it would seem the name is from a passage in Virginia Woolf's "A Mark on the Wall," which describes the poor as "modest, mouse-like people."

― Ben Boyerrr, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

This thread DID get locked, unjustifiably, and another one sprung up in its place that had the flames on it. It's called something like "A Perfectly Reasonable Query About Modest Moussorgsky" but good luck finding the damn thing. My conclusion remains that Isaac Brock got the name from "A Mark On The Wall," and that Virginia was being impishly punny concerning the composer. "The poor," though? I'll have to reread the passage but I don't remember it being anything as generalized as that.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 15:00 (eighteen years ago)

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