Harvey Danger's band shitlist/wishlist
Harvey Danger cooks up some ill will against bands they're sick of.
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The casual observer would roundly label Harvey Danger as the textbook definition of a one-hit wonder: The Seattle band rose to prominence in the late '90s on the strength of the intensely catchy single "Flagpole Sitta" off its 1997 debut Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?, and then seemed to disappear. But Harvey Danger was busy breaking away from the clichéd arc that dogs most groups that are suddenly hugely successful. It waited three years to release the arguably superior sophomore record King James Version (partially due to label acquisitions and mergers, which put it on hold) before finally going on hiatus, reuniting, and then releasing 2005's Little By Little… on a pay-what-you-want download basis—two years before Radiohead did the same with In Rainbows. But after 15 years and three albums, Harvey Danger has decided to permanently break up following a handful of farewell shows in August, including a pair at Schubas on Aug. 15. But that's nothing new—bands break up all the time. To commemorate his band's passing, Harvey Danger frontman Sean Nelson sounds off to The A.V. Club about the bands he and his bandmates would like see drop off the face of the earth forever, and which should get back together. (No band is safe.)
Should reunite: The La's
Sean Nelson: I thought of The Smiths but Morrissey said something like, “I’d rather have maggots eat my penis than reunite with The Smiths,” so I’m going to have to respect that. [Laughs.] [The La's] still had untapped potential after their one record, and that record is pretty perfect. They were 1,000 times more important to me than The Stone Roses.
Should break up: The Who
SN: How many more people have to die to make them put that thing away? It’s totally ghoulish. I saw them play two days after John Entwistle’s death. Two days! That’s just wrong. It wasn’t a terrible show, but it wasn’t good either. They didn’t even say anything about it! They had Pino Palladino, who’s a pretty famous session guy, playing bass. They didn’t even have a moment for John. You know, he was only in the band for 40 years... super cold.
Should reunite: Blur
SN: For at least two albums, Graham Coxon pretended he wasn’t in the band even though he was. He was totally the straw that stirred the drink of that band. Ninety percent of the sounds you hear on Blur albums are made by Graham Coxon. Every band is an amalgamation of people wanting to feel like they are individuals and people wanting to feel like they are in a group. That conflict is what makes a band interesting. The bands I like tend to say crazy stuff in the press, to each other, and in their music most of all. Selfishly as a human being, I admire bands that can keep that stuff to themselves and have a unified front.
The A.V. Club: But isn't that what The Who did? They kept their grieving private.
SN: The funny thing about The Who is, in the old days, Pete Townshend was the first one to be like, “You know what my problem with being in The Who is? Roger Daltrey sucks my ass—that’s my problem with being in The Who. And you can quote me on that!” That’s how they were for like 25 years. Now Pete’s like [adopts slow, mundane British accent.], “I’ve finally started to really appreciate Roger” in his interviews. You finally learned to appreciate him now that he empirically sucks?
Should break up: Black Eyed Peas
SN: [Aaron Huffman, bassist] added, "Also, spare us the solo careers."
AVC: It's hard to think of that band today without also conjuring up those images of a very "sweaty" Fergie where it looks like she pissed her pants.
SN: That picture just made me so incredibly, unbelievably happy. It’s so pleasing to think of her not having bladder control on stage. The Black Eyed Peas initially were kind of a good little hip-hop group and then they added Fergie because someone told them they needed to get a girl in there, which is true: I know a girl who tried out to be the girl in that band. They’re just toxic. They have catchiness boiled down to its most fascistic element; it wouldn’t surprise me at all if people just started killing people in the name of the Black Eyed Peas. That’s the next step. [Laughs.]
Should reunite: Shudder To Think, for a new album
AVC: Why just one more album?
SN: We’re all at the age where we still think of music in terms of albums. I know it’s a cliché that people shouldn’t anymore, but I still totally do and still relate to albums and I know Jeff [Lin, guitarist] does too. But bands just kind of stop being bands. You can always tell when the band says, “Yeah, we put out a record and nobody cared.” That’s when a band is ready to stop.
Should break up: Smashing Pumpkins
SN: Jeff and Aaron were both fans of Gish, and that was when they started playing music together, so they definitely always had a real soft spot for early Smashing Pumpkins. I was never really a fan of them and watching them turn into what they did turn into—and I’m sure being in Chicago you might have a different perspective of this—but that validated my not liking them in the first place. Both Jeff and Aaron kind of hung onto this sense of, “Well I still really like Gish,” as single after single goes by from [Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness]. There’s a certain amount of, “Dude, just stop doing that.”
Should reunite: The Clash
SN: The Clash was the last band of their kind. I like that they’re kind of the punk Monkees—they tried out to be in The Clash, got the job, and got hired. They’re still really cool and amazing, but the songs by them I like are usually the pop ones.
Should break up: Coldplay
SN: I think it’s funny that bands aspire to be the biggest band. That’s all I can think of about Coldplay. When “Yellow” came out, they were [one of the] bands that sounded like they were really inspired by the boring parts of Radiohead. They all seemed like they came out as the antidote to the weirdness of OK Computer. They came out and it was like all I ever heard about them was that they wanted to be the biggest rock band in the world, as big as U2, and Chris Martin got that faraway glaze in his eyes. Then I heard the third record and all the songs were truly generic—they could generally be applied to anyone in any situation.
AVC: But that aspiration might have been due to pressure from Capitol—they built up so much hype and were banking on that band singlehandedly putting them in the black a couple of years ago.
SN: You do ultimately have to participate in that when you’re at that level. It’s one thing if Sir Giles Cricketbat from the MI says, “We’re expecting big things from you, son!” But it’s ultimately what you say at that position as a pop figure that matters. I would never know what it would be like to be in that position, so it’s hard to say. But I agree [with guitarist Jeff Lin, who chose them], what is the point of Coldplay? That’s a much simpler question to answer.
AVC: What is the point?
SN: There isn’t one. They serve no need. Anyone could sort of do what they do. And I just don’t think it’s worth doing either.
AVC: What's the point of Harvey Danger?
SN: [Laughs.] I don’t think that Harvey Danger has a larger relevance to pop music at this moment. I think our songs are good. They’re well-written, they’re about things that are real or just amusing. It’s completely a band with a conscience about making good, meaningful, solid, classical kind of pop music. I feel like we’re sort of out of time in every respect. I feel like we don’t fit in the landscape of music today. Out of deference to the landscape of music today, we’re not going to be in it anymore. There’s no self-pity in that at all. We had a good run. We had more success than most bands, to be sure. I just don’t want to sully what was good about us by pulling on those old leather pants one more time as we hurtle into our 40s.
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