Modern Baseball (or Mobo, for short) is an emo band formed by friends Brend… Read Full Bio ↴Modern Baseball (or Mobo, for short) is an emo band formed by friends Brendan Lukens (they/them) and Jake Ewald in the small town of Brunswick, Maryland. Brendan and Jake both went to the same high school, yet they were in completely different circles. Brendan played sports and hung out with the jocks, always wearing a red hoodie. Jake was part of the more "popular group", made up of the more preppy kids, which he was neither.

Jake and his twin sister, Hannah, were both in a "paramore ripoff band" called "Purple Shanty Shack." At the time, Brendan had a huge crush on Hannah and went to one of their shows to try and get closer to her. Whilst they were on the way to the show, they accidentally stepped into dog shit. When Bren arrived at the show, they made a comment about it during small talk with Hannah. Jake always carried an extra pair of shoes with him in his car, so he brought them out and gave them to Bren for the time being. One day, after school, Bren and Jake decided to hang out with each other at Jake's house. They both quickly bonded over their shared love of music and started hanging out more, jamming with each other. One day, the two of them were rummaging around in Jake's basement and found a book called "Modern Baseball Techniques." This would inspire the name of the band, a majority of their branding, and their compilation cd "Techniques" released in 2014.

After the two of them saw the book, they decided to form the band, performing their first show in one of their friend's garages. The two of them graduated and both moved to Philadelphia, Bren going to Chestnut Hill College and Jake going to Drexel University. At the time, Philidelphia had a young but explosive underground punk/emo scene, and the two of them became very interested in the scene. The two of them recorded their first ep, "The Nameless Ranger" all by themselves and released it on November 11th, 2011. Jake also met Ian Farmer at Drexel, who was a massive ska nerd at the time. The three of them quickly got along with each other, performing their first major show at the "Micheal Jordan House" on the campus of Drexel. The house was named after the fact that admission for any show would be either $3, or a picture of Jordan's face. The music video for their song "The Weekend" was performed in the basement of the Jordan house.

In Autumn 2012, Jake, Bren, and Ian all went into the studio in Drexel to record "Sports", their debut album, which was released on November 27th, 2012. The lyrical content of the album mostly consisted of girls, beer, and sports themselves. Jake played all of the drum parts on the album, as they didn't have a drummer yet. For the shows that they did play, they usually had a friend of the band fill in for them on drums. However, at one of the shows, the trio met and soon became friends with Sean Huber, who was a few years older than the rest of the band and could grow a cool beard. They all got along with each other, and Sean soon joined the band. At these basement shows, many regarded Modern Baseball as one of the greats in the slowly blossoming 4th wave emo scene, also known as the emo revival. The now 4 of them soon became good friends with many members of the scene, most notably Marietta, Old Gray, The Hundred Acre Woods, & Julia Brown. They would eventually release a split with all of them, "Couples Therapy" with Marietta in 2012, "4-Way V-Day Split" which as the title implies, is a 4-way-split between Mobo (which features an acoustic version of "Its Cold Out Here" from "Couples Therapy" called "Phone Tag"), Julia Brown, The Hundred Acre Woods and Old Gray, which came out on Valentine's Day 2013, and another split between just Mobo and The Hundred Acre Woods, also released in 2013.

The band soon embarked on their first full on U.S. tour, playing basement and or bar shows at whatever venue that they could find available. Many other bands from the emo scene around then joined Mobo on tour, such as The Menzingers, Lee Hartney, Ted Nguyent, and Cayetana. Also around this time, the quartet signed to Run for Cover records, gearing up to release their sophmore LP, You're Gonna Miss It All, which soon released on February 11th, 2014. For promotion for this album, Bren said that they would shave the avatar arrow into their hair if the album got over 1,000 pre-orders. It went very much over that, and Bren stuck with the nearly bald haircut for the rest of the Mobo career. Once again the band (mostly) tackled production by themselves, and the album peaked on 97 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The band went on another tour, this time with the Wonder Years, later touring Europe with bands such as Knuckle Puck, Foxing, Crying, and Somos.

On October 23rd, 2015, the quartet released "Mobo Presents: The Perfect Cast EP Featuring Modern Baseball", their 2nd EP. The EP is extremely important to the trajectory of Mobo moving foward because of their sound change presented here. Whilst their projects before this were more snarky and lighthearted even through the circumstances and lyrical topics, The Perfect Cast wallowed in the sorrow. This is mostly speculated to be because in mid-2015, Bren was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attempted to kill themselves. The band at the time, cancelled their tour and would (for the most part) step away from touring as much as they did after this event. The band announced in late 2015 that their third LP, Holy Ghost, began development. In February of the next year, the band announced the release date of May 13th via Run for Cover in the US/Canada, and Big Scary Monsters everywhere else. In May, the record released. The concept of this record was split into half, depending on which member was writing and performing the vocals. Jake took up the songs Holy Ghost to Hiding, with his main lyrical focus being on losing a loved one. Bren took up the other side, from Coding These to Lukens and the closer Just Another Face. Their side mostly focused on depression and death.

In May 2016, the band embarked on their next tour, promoting The Perfect Cast and Holy Ghost with Joyce Manor and Thin Lips. Later in 2016, they would support acts such as The Front Bottoms and Brand New. In December 2016, Jake would start the (at the time) solo side project, Slaughter Beach, Dog. Sean would also start a new band, Steady Hands, where he would provide vocals. In January 2017, Bren would announce on Instagram that they would not be joining the band on their Europe/UK tour, to focus more on their mental health. The month after that, the band would cancel the tour all together, also citing their mental health as a reason for this.

In the meantime, Ian joined Slaughter Beach, Dog, and Sean would continue to focus on Steady Hands, releasing their debut. A few months later, the band announced that they would be going on indefinite hiatus. In a June 2017 interview with Jake, he remarked saying "let's not call it a breakup and make a huge deal about it and have a 'Last Show Ever' or anything like that. Let's just take it easy for now, and if we wake up and want to do it again, then let's do it". They performed a one off show supporting Daniel Johnston on his last US tour, which would also be their final performance as Modern Baseball. In an October 2017 interview, Jake confirmed that the band no longer had plans to perform again.

In the years following the "end" of Modern Baseball, all of the members have been doing their own thing. Sean became a father and continued to work on Steady Hands, releasing 2 albums. Jake and Ian are still working on Slaughter Beach, Dog, and currently have 5 albums and a few eps. Bren has been a different case - for the most part they have been laying low, and doing their own thing. They have been mostly absent on social media, however they did reappear on Instagram for the 10th anniversary of Sports.

@chl03k
Modern Baseball Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I'd rather spend my evenings
Than having you come over
So it'll be like old times
But I know that you don't give a fuck
Cause you're knee deep in your iPhone

But Now that you saw my tweets
You know that I'm home

Buried in my cell phone
Tryna' get a hold of someone new
Instead of hanging out with you
And your high school stories

But you sure know how to get right to me
About relationships and such
Poor grammar is a must

But I trust that you can do it
But I couldn't give a fuck
Whether you give a fuck or not
Rip my eye sockets out
Make me regret ever going out
But I know I'll make it out of here alive
As long as I don't watch your life
Unfold before my very eyes
You told this high school story
One too many times for me
You know I'd rather

I'd rather spend my evenings
Than having to look you right in your eye

Overall Meaning

The narrative in Modern Baseball's song "Note to Self" reflects the emotions of someone who's been hanging out with a friend who they no longer enjoy the company of. The singer admits that they don't want to spend time with this person, preferring to spend their evenings alone. They also know that their friend is not really invested in the situation and rather interested in their phone. The song, therefore, depicts a one-sided relationship where one person is significantly less invested.

Additionally, the singer has been trying to reach out to others to avoid spending time with this friend. They acknowledge that their high school stories no longer interest them, and while this friend speaks ill of their new partner and relationships, their poor grammar is a must to describe the situation. However, they know how to strike emotional chords with the singer, and that's their only redeeming quality. Moreover, they ended up telling the same high school story repeatedly, which the singer has grown tired of. Nonetheless, they still want to distance themselves and do not want to look their friend in the eye.

Line by Line Meaning

I'd rather spend my evenings
I prefer doing something else with my time

Than having you come over
I don't want your company

So it'll be like old times
I don't want to reminisce about the past

But I know that you don't give a fuck
I understand that you don't care

Cause you're knee deep in your iPhone
You are distracted by your phone

But Now that you saw my tweets
You know I am home from social media

You know that I'm home
I am at home

Buried in my cell phone
I am using my phone a lot

Tryna' get a hold of someone new
I am looking for a new connection

Instead of hanging out with you
I don't want to spend my time with you

And your high school stories
I don't want to hear your old stories