October 7, 2024 • 53 mins
In the latest episode of Columbia House Party, hosts Jake Goldsbie and Blake Murphy finally get around to an album Jake has been wanting to discuss since the podcast's inception, Harvey Danger's Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? It is, the hosts hope, worth the wait, as both find Harvey Danger to be criminally under appreciated and miscast as a one-hit wonder. Find out more about the curse of Flagpole Sitta's success as a lead single, the band's openness about their process and reception, and whether Merrymakers holds up as well as the guys envisioned on this week’s podcast.
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See you next week for another episode of CHP.
Sick of hearing all the ads? Subscribe to Soda Premium on Apple Podcasts to get rid of them!Follow @ColumbiaHP on X!
While you're there say hello to @BlakeMurphyODC and @JGoldsbie.If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store: http://bit.ly/chpmerchOr reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@columbiahouseparty.com
If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Columbia House Party 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
See you next week for another episode of CHP.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Jimmy Stewart follows Kim to where your portrait hangs on
a wall. You're such a haunting vision. He forgets his
partner's fall. You jump into the latest episode of Columbia
House Party. Jake, what's up man?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Not much? I'm excited for today's episode. As you have
teased out.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Immensely, very very early on in the planning spreadsheet, one
of I won't say it's part of the origin story
of the podcast, are one of the ones that we
laid out when we first when you first conceived of
this idea, but it was definitely one of the ones
that we identified immediately as like, Okay, we'll do some
popular albums and some popular stuff within our main genres,
(01:06):
and then occasionally we'll do some lesser known stuff and
we'll pull out albums like today's.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I feel like this was an early agreeing about music
album from Yes as well.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, this a little bit of a deep cut of Oh.
Actually the one hit wonder part of this is not
even the most interesting party. They're actually really good. Unfortunately,
as we're going to talk about, this is the first
where you can't find the album on Spotify to prepare,
so I have something planned for us at the end
to try to get around that a little bit. But yeah,
(01:39):
you might have to go the YouTube or good old
fashioned purchase route for this one. Jake, what do you
got for us today?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So today we are talking about a band that I
think you're right in the sense that they are under
appreciated and underrated. But I do think with the new
wave of emo and pop punk that we have covered
at length, this band is starting to finally get the
recognition that they deserve, at least in our music twitter circles.
(02:08):
This is definitely one that I think people have come
around on the last few years. It's also an interesting
album because it is sort of arguably one of the
biggest victims of one hit wonderdom of the late nineties,
even though I mean, I guess technically they are a
one hit wonder, but there's so much more to them.
(02:29):
But also interesting case because the one hit kind of
ruined their career in a lot of ways. And also
this is a great album for walking around Toronto in
the summer and being really sad, because that's how I
got into this one. It's one of my favorite albums,
one of my favorite bands. So today we are talking
about Where have all the Merrymakers Gone? By Harvey Danger, Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Stewart's Bob Charns, Well, you brought your son your world
such a haunting vision for guests. You jump into the
San Francisco I follow, you will know you can't swim
when you've been sad of a hundred years.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Charles Charlotta Bet, Charli Bet Charlota best and will make
you hurt.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
That sand.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Charlotte Charlotta val.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Charlotta All right, that was Carlotta Valdez, which is what
we the lyric we used off the top, which by
(04:30):
the way, is just them describing the movie Vertigo.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Cool, We're getting some literate, literate music today.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, Harvey Dangers, Where have All the Merrymakers Gone? An
album Jake and I both really like and have some
You know, Jake teased his personal connection to it. Do
you want to go ahead first with that? Do you
want me to go go first with the connection side here?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I mean, I think it's pretty much what I outlined before. Uh,
this is an album that I wasn't into at the time.
It's very much a university and later album for me,
which I think is appropriate to their sound. And I
kind of came to it just sort of accidentally. I
heard the big hit one day and I was like,
(05:14):
oh yeah, that band, and then listened to it and
I was like, oh wait, this rules. And then it
kind of became the soundtrack for me for a really
sad summer I had one year, and they just became
one of those bands for me. And that's kind of it.
Like it really it's one of those things that I
really like, but it's not like an interesting or complicated story.
I just think it's great.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So my connection this is actually a connection that I
have shared before about a different song. But basically, when
I was a kid, I got dragged to like a
child therapist and going back and forth from Cambridge to
twelfth after school. My appointment was from six to seven
and the top seven at seven on London FM ninety six,
(05:58):
which was kind of my reward forgetting through those sessions
on Wednesdays, the top seven at seven. This had come up,
I think in talking about Damn It from Blink one
eighty two, which had a few months before Harvey Dangers
for a single came out. It peaked at number eleven overall,
but it obviously on a London alternative chart, it peaked
(06:19):
at number one. Flag Polsita came along a couple months
after that. In looking it up, it hit number three
on the Billboard Alternative chart in July nineteen ninety eight,
and it was hilariously behind Iris by the Goo Goo
Dolls and shimmer By Fuel, even though that fewl album
had come out like two years earlier. And I'm now
like retroactively mad that flag Pole Cida you know, didn't
(06:43):
get all the way to number one because of the
Goo Goo Dolls in Fuel. But anyway, so flag Pole
Sita was one of the songs that I really like.
Flagpole Sita and Damn It are the two songs that
stand out to me from that period of listening to
Top seven at seven and hoping to hear those songs,
hoping they were on the countdown, and that kind of
be being my reward for a bit of a bit
(07:04):
of a confusing time. I will also say that at
the time this was just a one song band to
me and I, you know, and then even later on
it was basically just like a good karaoke song. But
I would say over the last I don't know, I
don't know when I went back to and listened to
the whole album. But the whole album is pretty good,
(07:25):
and I feel like it's been like criminally miscast as
you know, one hit wonder or whatever you want to
call it. I think it's there's a lot more.
Speaker 7 (07:33):
To it than that.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, I think that's true. And I think because their
career was short and very chopped up, I guess, uh,
and like they only had three albums, there's not as
much material there for like the sort of posts quote
unquote backlash renaissance for them. So I think that they're
(07:58):
it's there's just not as much to be like, oh, okay, well,
like you didn't like the Flagpool Cita album, but have
you heard this one? Even though the next two are
also great in their own ways. But yeah, I think
I'm I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, Hey, that band that you never checked out their
their album because you only heard the one song. You
want to check out their other album. That's a tough sell.
But and then exactly, yeah, and it's it's going back
a while now. We're going back like twenty years here,
so we're going to talk about where have all the
Merrymakers gone from Harvey Danger We're going to talk about
all the reasons we like it. We're going to talk
(08:31):
about all the reasons it maybe didn't have the success
that it should have, and the reasons it might have.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
Success had it come along.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Say, now, after this, all right, Jake, give us the
rundown here man, who are Harvey Danger?
Speaker 7 (08:59):
And yeah? Who are they? Because I mean they certainly
look like journalists and journalism students.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, what of them is so? Harvey Dangel reformed in
nineteen ninety two at the University of Washington by Jeff
Lynn and Aaron Huffman because they decided, quote, it might
be fun to start a band. They got the name
from a phrase that was graffitied on the wall of
the offices of the Daily of the University of Washington newspaper,
where to your point they both worked. They originally started
(09:29):
playing shows as a duo, mostly playing house parties, and
then they got Evan Salt to join on drums in
nineteen ninety three. Evan Selton never played drums before, but
thought whatever. He also brought his friend Sean Nelson along
to sing with the band. Lenna Huffman knew Nelson because
he also worked at the newspaper the Art Section. They
(09:50):
played their first show on April twenty first, nineteen ninety four,
at the Lake Union Pub. At the time, celt and
Nelson were under twenty one, so they were only a
to be in the bar for the band set and
then they had to leave, which I think is adorable.
In nineteen ninety four, they released a six song demo
tape which they sold for shows for three dollars, which
you can find in random places on the internet. I
(10:14):
think I have a copy on my phone. In nineteen
ninety six, three of the four members of the band
lost their jobs, so they decided to all move in
together and focus more of their energy on making the
band a thing.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
Wait, journalists lost their jobs.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
In the night they really were ahead of their time.
Heyo nice.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
They would then meet producer John Goodmanson, who has produced
acts in his career such as Bikini Kill and Death
cav for Cutie the entire Los Campesinos discography, which I
think is interesting because I think there's a lot of
similarities between them and Harvey Danger and also bands like
Slater Kinney, so not a light sweight in the production world.
(10:58):
He produced a three song demo with the band, which
got no attention from the major labels. They shopped it too,
but it did find interest from a man named Greg Glover.
Greg Glover was a London records intern who ran a
small independent label called the ogreena rock recording company. He
requested the band make a seven inch single and the
(11:18):
band ended up sending three songs, all of them recorded
with goodmanson. Glover thought that the songs were strong enough
to support a full length album and bankrolled it. One
of those three songs is probably the one song you
know by Harvey Danger, and that is Flagpole Sita.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
The Rocks in.
Speaker 8 (12:02):
Speaking sipcent Manta ras, I can't forget the jerzy body.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
And we're feeling it naughty. I ride in on the
cyclone s Who's the LUTs, but no one ever does.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I'm not sick, but.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I'm not well.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Have guess I'm.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
As well.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Had to cut that one off early here in the
booth because we didn't want another John Collins situation where
one of us singing makes.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
The final cut.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Jake, that is, I know you're in the middle of
the band's history a little bit here, but you I like,
I haven't seen you do it, but I would put
good money on you having sang that song at karaoke before.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Oh yeah, that's definitely like an easy I'm drunk and
don't want to read a book to find a song.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Song for karao and you can just start yelling bah
yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But to your point, it is very much a karaoke song.
And I actually when we first said we're gonna do
this episode, I originally didn't want to play a clip
or talk about that song just because like it's was
so popular, but and because I feel like the thing
about this band is everyone's like, oh the Flagpole sit
a band, but I feel like you can't really tell
(13:53):
their story without it, because it is such an odd
thing for a band like this to just have a hit.
I think we could. We could basically do this same conversation,
I think, but plug in different words with semi sonic
and closing time. Like occasionally, just like a cool rock
band gets this like massive one hit that sounds not
(14:16):
that much like the rest of their music, and I
just find it really interesting.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I also, I mean I think flight Polcido was like
obviously it's a you know, like that's a soundtrack Ready single,
and that's you know, obviously, it was the theme song
for Peep Show, and it's in every movie ever, you know,
in that same sort of I guess just pre American
Pie era. It's everywhere. But the song itself, I find
(14:39):
like really interesting as just like kind of a reflection
on pop culture. And I think it's gonna come up
a lot of times on this episode that they are
like ahead of their time in a number of ways.
And I don't mean that like this is some revolutionary
sound or anything like that, but exactly what they're talking
about in this song is kind of exactly what we've
run into now with the increasing kind of fragmentation of
(15:04):
pop culture, where like every niche is served, and there's
that weird tipping point and delicate balance kind of between
what's underground or what's you know, I guess we'll say
underground for our music purposes and what's mainstream, and there's
that kind of tipping point between them where the thing
that was yours becomes popular and what does that do
(15:25):
to you and you know, your outlook on it as
well as your I guess kind of your self image
as you know, hey, I like this thing that was
cool and underground and now it's the mainstream thing, and
what does that mean for me? So I think I
think it's a really interesting song for that reason. I
don't think anyone actually engaged with it that way at
(15:45):
the time. I think it was just like a really
good pop rock song and really fun to sing along to.
But yeah, those are my thoughts on it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, I think I agree with everything you just said.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
All right, So I guess my question for you, Jake
is so that that became one of their demos. I
guess I'll pocket my question until you get us to
get us to the album.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So this song, to your point though about it being
like soundtrack ready, obviously it was a huge deal Sean Nelson,
and I guess by extension, the band actually have said
that it could have been a bigger deal. In the
vinyl liner notes of the vinyl reissue of this album
from twenty fourteen, which I'll be referring to a lot today,
Sean Nelson said that the title flag Polcida is an
(16:26):
homage to Pavement and NWA, and that the title came
before the chorus. Originally the chorus was just the Bob
Baz and that when he wrote the I'm not sick
and I'm not well. That just became the chorus. But
he's convinced, or he says in the liner notes that
if he had named the song something different, he might
be writing this from a yacht right now, which I
(16:50):
think is interesting that even though it was so huge
and like fucked up their whole world, it's still like
the title sucks because it does.
Speaker 7 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, why call it that?
Speaker 9 (17:02):
Come on?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I believe it's I'm not sure about the NWA homage.
I believe the Pavement homage is to the song Fame
Thrower from Slanted and Enchanted. But anyway, Flag Polsida obviously
became an out of nowhere hit with PEG, which pegged
the band as a one hit wonder band. This kind
of caused some friction for the band because they not
(17:22):
only had to deal with sudden success, but they also
went to deal with the whole like mainstreamification and damaging
their indie cred. In an interview with Alternative Press, Sean
Nelson said that there was some backlash locally in Seattle.
The fundamental difference between a little record you sort of
find out about, and then there's the thing where I'm
being completely bombarded by this fucking song. Flag Polcida wasn't
(17:47):
just played a lot, it was massively played. We were
getting reports that in Atlanta they played it three times
in a row every day at five o'clock or something
like that. I'm grateful ultimately, but the radio programmers just
went ape shit with that song. The incessant radio play
makes it so the half life of the song being
something you discover. It cuts it so short. Also, it
(18:08):
may be difficult to remember now, but in the nineties
there was still a stigma about major labels versus indie labels,
commercial versus underground. Critics tended to be wary of major
labels trying to put one over on you. Even a
band that later transcended all of that, Weezer, when they
came out, everybody in my circle of friends treated them like, oh,
this is a fake major label band trying to court
(18:29):
the pavement cool audience. Everybody had a chip on their shoulder.
We have to slay the monster that is corporate rock.
The funny thing is it was only a year or
two later that all of this stuff became completely irrelevant
culturally speaking. A lot of what we're going to talk
today are just direct writings or quotes from Nelson, just
because he is a great speaker and I love the
(18:50):
way he writes and talks about music.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
So I'm going to say it's just been like super
open about it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
The question I was going to ask earlier and wait
until you got to this point is I understand all
of what he's saying, and I understand that more goes
into this than maybe, you know, picking your next best
song as the next single, especially when you've had the
insane success that flag Polcita had.
Speaker 7 (19:14):
How is Carlotta Valdez not the second single?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So I was gonna get to that, but it's funny
you mentioned that that song was supposed to be the
second single. The band wanted it and believe Carlotta Valdez
should be the next single, to the point where in
the liner notes, Sean Nelson believes that the album might
have been a bigger success had because they felt that
(19:37):
song was more representative of their sound. However, the label
just wanted another Flagpole Sita because after Flagpole Cita's success.
The album was actually reissued by Slash Records, who were
a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, and they just wanted obviously
another big rock hit, and they felt that this song
had a better chance. So this song, which I do
(19:58):
think is a great song but not a good single,
is private helicopter.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
I'm on a private hell a counter with my favorite ex.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
Girlfriend, tiny little cabin in the sky.
Speaker 10 (20:25):
Now we're alone, and we can remember how we felt before.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
We were angry, we were guilty, we were beginner.
Speaker 11 (20:34):
I must admit, I said, of these things, I'm still
attracted to you.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Sorry, we was so self trot.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
So eight mile high, three hours Lansing, Now alone, reach in.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Remember how we felt that first mere dever.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Must have been good the suntime su I'm still attracted.
Speaker 12 (21:15):
Locker Blacker and Blacker.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I could see why where they were coming from,
thinking that on the heels of flight Bolsetta, that might be,
you know, adjacent enough. But yeah, I mean I'm always
I'm almost always of the mind you go with your
strongest stuff, right, And I think that that was carl Lotavaldas.
And if it's not Carlota Valdes, I don't think private
helicopter is you know, high on the list of what
(21:50):
I would have what I would have tried to go
with next.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, I agree, but I do obviously I think Carlo
Valdez is a better song, and I definitely think would
have been a more interesting single, especially with what Sean
Nelson talks about in the sort of underground versus commercial world,
where I think maybe like the college radio crowd would
have accepted them more if the second single had been
(22:14):
something that sounds like Carlotta.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, also just a song that is just describing a
hitch rock movie. It's like nerdy late to the college audience.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
For sure, it's nerdy, it's louder, it's a little more
punky or whatever.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I do think though that Private Helicopter is a decent
representation because one of a thing I never thought about
but obviously is true, is that the band actually very
consciously worked to bring a unique element to their sound.
In the vinyl liner notes, Sean Nelson talks about how
they very much treated Aaron Huffman's bass guitar as a
(22:49):
lead instrument rather than the rhythm section. He said, Aaron
Huffman's base stepping up to take those delectable lead lines.
It's tone carved into a gorgeous lightsaber of distortion. I've
always thought that sound the bass as melodic lead instrument,
and the way those melodies arise from the limitations of
the instrument in the context of those songs was the
thing that made us not merely interesting but unique among
(23:12):
bands of our stripe. It inverts the musty punk canard
of no more guitar solos, which people still unaccountably pretended
to care about in the late nineties, and establishes its
whole own aesthetic microverse. It was what kept us from
veering too closely into content to hold down a more
physical rhythmic role. He also followed that up to ap
(23:32):
saying we didn't then and don't now sound like any
band I can think of that element in particular, the
bass playing marked our band out as a cool little
inversion that I think is super interesting. We didn't say
to ourselves, how do we become interesting? That was just
how Aaron played the bass, and I think Carlotta and
Private Helicopter are both great examples of that.
Speaker 7 (23:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I mean it's again, it's so nice the way they
just kind of lay this out for us and makes
it very wet you have to think about it is Hey,
he should just come on the podcast if you're hearing this,
come on a talking about with Sean Nelson. Come on, HP, Yeah,
you don't even have to talk about Harvey Danger. We
could talk about anything you want.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So when they were despite being overruled on the single,
turns out the band was probably right. Private Helicopter was
not well received by the public. It did not reach
any Billboard chart at all, compared to Flagpole Sita, which
peaked at number three on the Alternative chart and thirty
two on the Billboard Top forty. In terms of other
(24:35):
potential singles that could have marketed the band, that wasn't
a single because those are the only two singles because
after Private Helicopter kind of tanked, that was kind of it.
But one I think that could have been a single
and is a song that I think proves that Harvey
Danger should have been one of the bigger rock bands
in the world, especially at this time, though whether they
wanted to be as another question. Is a song that
I think also really highlights the songwriting of this album
(24:59):
and the technical this album and just like the song
production and the way they put things together. In the
vinyl notes, Nelson says of this song and Lynn's playing,
specifically Jeff's playing was visceral and precise, the guttural chorus
riffs of Carlotta Valdez, Private Helicopter and terminal annex, the
frugal arpeggios of problems and bigger Ones. When he really
(25:21):
came alive was when the opportunity arose courtesy of our
producer mentor friend, obi Wan John Goodmanson to build his
intentionally elementary chord structures into dense layers of noisy texture,
full of the magic tones and secret notes. The squalling
jaguars of Willie Muffler, the stadium cleague lights of Jack
the Lion, the epic snowball rolling heroically down Everest, at Is,
(25:43):
radio silence, and elsewhere. So there's a lot of songs
to choose from on that list, but the one that
I was referring to is this great song which has
problems and bigger ones.
Speaker 13 (25:53):
Cross through the border states to the wrong side, Wrong side,
look away, Virginia.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Spends every day.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Like the past is a bridge, crossing twins.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
Teases, whispers a way, not so.
Speaker 13 (26:33):
Much, get your poison tongue out of mind.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Here's a fact you cannot rise. But we'll have problems.
Speaker 14 (26:47):
Yeah, then we'll have Bigger Ones, Ary.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I figured you would want to talk about the songwriting
a little bit, and just like the craft in general
on the album. I was torn between whether you would
pick that one or Willie Muffler to kind of highlight that. Yeah,
I probably would have leaned Willie Muffler just like lyrically,
I think that that song has a lot of cool
stuff going on. I mean, maybe it's just because of
the uh the choke old line, but you know also
(27:58):
that people disappoint you every time, So if you've got
greatness in you, would you do us all favor and
keep it to yourself. But yeah, I'm afraid I feel
a choko coming on. All I ever thought we might
come to with second Dates. That's some good stuff on
Willie Muffler, But yeah, I'm within problems the Bigger Ones.
It's probably uh, you know, if I were cutting this
album into you know, to jump ahead to the to
the ranking stuff, I think that would probably crack the
(28:20):
top five.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So yeah, I will I think this was probably the
hardest episode for me we've had so far in terms
of picking which songs to talk about, because there's only
ten on the record, so we can only really talk
about half of them, but Willie Muffler was the last cut.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, I would say, yeah, I stuff too, because like
I'm not, I don't like Private Helicopter as much as
even you do, and and certainly not the label, so
they to you know, you kind of have to use
a spot on that because it's, well, hey, this is
what they chose as a second single instead of this.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
Banger or these like high craft songs. So I guess,
I don't know. I think you probably have more on
Nelson's reflections on this stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, he kind of does this great thing in the
lier notes where he goes one by one with the
band members and just sort of like breaks down what
makes it work, and then he finally eventually gets to
himself to the point of the songwriting for Problems and
Bigger Ones. He said that I have the sense that
the words for Problems and Bigger Ones and Terminal Annex
were never quite finished. Both songs contained experiments in a discursive,
(29:26):
vaguely cut up writing style, and as a result, I
hear myself struggling to find a voice that wasn't exactly mine.
And I think it's really interesting because I do think
those two songs sound the least like anything else on
the record, But I appreciate that they were. You know,
it's their debut record. Try all your stuff about the
drumming on the record, Nelson says that Evan's drumming style
(29:49):
was an extension of his restless, inquisitive mind and his
fiercely devoted soul. Though his parts did the work that
drum parts need to do, they also benefited from a
tireless quest to bend a fundamentally ineloquent instrument to the
uses of a verbally dexterous person left otherwise mike free
in a band increasingly marked by a torrent of words.
(30:10):
Hence the perfect fills on Carlatta private helicopter and let's
face it, flagpole Sida, but also the delicate taps on
Wolle muffler, the heart beats an old hat, and problems
and bigger ones, the loping stumbled down radio silence, from
Gary Young to Steve West, and everything in between. And again,
I'm just sharing these quotes because I think they're great.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
Yeah, that's again, come on the pod.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I do find interesting that even now, or I guess
in twenty fourteen, when he wrote this essay for the
Vinyl reissue, he still sort of holds Flagpole like separate,
and it's like he has to acknowledge it, like yes,
even Flagpole Cida, which I think is interesting that it's
very clear that that song's kind of a sore spot
(30:54):
for them, which I guess I understand because it was
like the biggest thing in the world, but it wasn't
what they wanted exactly, I think because their careers never
took off the way that single sort of made them.
I guess.
Speaker 7 (31:10):
Yeah, it's tough, Like you think about.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
It's you think about all the success that that song had,
and on paper even like one hit wonder kind of bands,
and I don't think like obviously they were they only
did have one hit, but I think they're better than
one hit wonder. The phrase suggests on paper, like you
get that many people listening to your stuff, you've got
a better chance of hooking an audience in that likes you.
But I think just so many people come to songs
(31:36):
like that, especially like in the late nineties and early
two thousands, maybe not even early two thousands, because early
two thousands was just like a carousel of bands that
you thought only had one hit and were actually massively successful,
but like late nineties, like, I don't know that people
came to songs like that, especially like this is your
first Like it's not like they were a band that
(31:58):
had a back catalog you could go check out. It
was here's this single and the album's coming soon, And
I don't know. Yeah, I think I think some bands
just missed right. And it's not it's not because this
album isn't good. I think maybe it's just and again
we're going to talk about this in a little bit,
but I do think it was I guess the wrong
time for this band to come along, because as much
(32:22):
as this is really good, I think it's a lot
more successful if it comes along a little later. And
maybe that's where the lament comes where Like if you
had a song as good as flag Pole Sita now
and it was a big single, you know, it's a
click away for everyone to check your stuff out, right,
And I don't mean that it's it's certainly not easier
to make it as a band now, especially to like
(32:42):
like to even have a popular song cut through is
really hard now. But you know, if you if you think, hey,
we've got ten songs here that are good, you know,
maybe the chance that one song hooks people into ten
is a little better.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah. He has a good quote about pretty much exactly
that from the Alternative Press interview where he says that
it was really crippling at the time. We took everything
we did seriously, maybe too seriously, but there was no
way in our mind as a band that Flagpole Cida
was better or more important than any of the other
songs on the record or any of the songs on
subsequent records. If you look at songs like kids, that's
(33:21):
the kid that got the full scholarship to Harvard while
the other kids are struggling to read. Somehow, we accidentally
looked into writing and recording this incredibly catchy commercial thing,
and it leapt off our record and got into the mainstream.
Nothing else we did was a candidate for that kind
of treatment. It doesn't mean the other songs we did
weren't meaningful to us. A hit single is a different
(33:42):
thing from a good song, which I think is a
really interesting way to phrase it. As for his own work,
now that he's talked about the rest of the band,
when it comes to his own work on this record
and his singing and his lyrics, he writes in the
vinyl notes that I'm embarrassed that Carlotta Valdez was misspelled
(34:03):
with a Z on the original pressings of the album.
The title Flagpolcita was intended as a reference to the
mindless trend following as well as an homage to both
Payment and NWA, and occurred before the lyric I'm not sick,
but I'm not well existed. He also talks about sort
of how all his lyrics are sort of pessimistic compared
to sort of the jauntier sound. He told Pop Matters,
(34:25):
I've always been on a look on the dark side
kind of person, especially when it comes to emotional life.
But I also feel like addressing that stuff with humor
is a form of optimism. Even though a lot of
the themes and the lyrics are pretty dour in some ways,
and the words tend to be pretty caustic, I wouldn't
say they're cynical, because I only feel like the act
of making the song is a sort of against cynicism.
(34:46):
So basically where I was going to go with this is,
as we were saying earlier, there's so many songs that
we could talk about on this record. I could talk
about every single one, but we don't have the time.
I could talk about how Radio Silence I think is
a great album closed, how Jack the Lions this huge
sort of arena rock sound. How as you pointed out,
Wooly Muffler is a really well written song that's a
(35:07):
great like sad in your Feelings tune. But the song
I want to talk about last for this record is
none of those, but it is. According to Sean Nelson
Part one to Private Helicopter's Part two, Nelson says that
old Hat is the oldest song on the album and
was the first all the way good one we ever wrote.
(35:28):
It was also the closest I ever got to communicating
the uncomplicated thrill of being newly in love. Abby grushes
out of nowhere. Counter Melody in the Bridge is my
proudest musical contribution. Somewhere there is a video of me
conducting her singing it. Private Helicopter is sort of a
response to Old Hat, one half rung up the ladder
(35:48):
of emotion immaturity. So this is old Hat.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
Und shine a million patter like the waves the great
tub Baths wanted to when it's so brand new that
it kills you.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Came on to strong understand it song in the Now
she can Knock Me Bad.
Speaker 12 (36:23):
Like to sound Body, Great lads, Black Yards, show shape,
swinsdusk and he day.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Her jet like what my friends look like and make
her jet why they like? Ma sold I'm so happy?
How do you read about that? How do you ride about.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Scams?
Speaker 5 (37:25):
Tascam?
Speaker 7 (37:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
I had that again to spoil the ranking part. I
think that's my third favorite song on the album, second
or third.
Speaker 7 (37:41):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I think I've already changed my mind on what I
wrote down to my rankings because this one changes a lot.
But I love that song and I agree with him
that the bridge rules.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
The other thing I wanted to talk about about this
album is that it fits so I think you're you're
probably gonna take us into in the next segment. Some
of the influence that they've had maybe subtly on some
of the bands that followed, But I think one thing
where they fit in perfectly with the type of music
we've discussed over the podcast is with the album art.
(38:13):
They join the pantheon of just a House as album
covers with American Football and The Hotel Year and countless others.
So just look, if you if you wanted to be
a one hit wonder that's kind of pop punkish indie,
and you wanted to, twenty years from then, be able
(38:34):
to trace your influence to some of the kind of
Midwest emo bands of the modern era. Having just a
House from Seattle as your album cover not.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
A bad way to go.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, I feel like that you'll know what the album
sounds like when you see just a House.
Speaker 7 (38:49):
Yes, yeah, you got a pretty good idea.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Called this podcast just a House.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
Yeah, just the house party. I get now that.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
No, I say you're going.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Yeah. I was trying, but it's uh no good, I
like it. I didn't get there. Sorry, Joe, that's all right.
Speaker 13 (39:09):
You try.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
This is why it's your episode, you know.
Speaker 10 (39:11):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I guess the other the one thing we I kind
of wanted to bring up, and I hope you came
across why. And I've asked Steve about this before, and
I guess it just comes down to, you know, who
has the rights and what the prices are and stuff.
But this is, like I said, we've run into on
the B side of the mixtape with some of our
bonus episodes or singles songs that aren't on Spotify, and
(39:33):
we have to pull replacements for them on the mixtape.
We have not run into that yet on the main feed.
This is the first time one is not on Spotify.
Did you come across why because some of the other
stuff is I'm guessing it's just because of who holds
the rights since they were indie and then they were
kind of repressed out on a Warner imprint.
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Do you know?
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Or is it just yeah, I don't know, but I
have to believe it has to do with the fact
that it was just on so many, so many labels,
Like it was released on Arena Rock and then it
was reissued by Slash when it got successful, and then
the vinyl re release was on even on BARSUK. But
(40:14):
it's yeah, I don't know the reason. I'm just gonna
have to assume that it's like a lot of their music,
which we'll talk about in a minute, record labels just
kind of dicked it around. But yeah, I don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
All right, Well, we're going to talk about how the
album was received, how they got dicked around a little
bit and some other stuff after this, all right, Jake,
(40:50):
So we really like, where have all the Merrymaker's gone?
We both came to appreciate the wh album much later,
which is kind of the point and the problem here.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
What was the limiting factor here? I mean, we talked
a little bit about some of why the next single
didn't hit or whatever, but but why did they Why
didn't they break through here? What happened on the label
side and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
The label didn't really hold them back that much until
the next record, But I think for this one it
was really just a case of, like, it's the downside
of having a massive hit, Like everyone just wants, especially
in the late nineties, for a song as big as
Flagpole Cita was, everyone just wants you to play flag
(41:31):
It's the shut up and play the hits thing, right, Yeah,
it's like everyone just wants to right exactly, everyone wants
to hear flag Pole Sita. And I don't think people
really had the patience for the rest of it. And
I think the fact that they were kind of this weird,
hardy pop punk ish but not really sound and to
Sean Nelson's point about the bass driving a lot of
(41:52):
their music, they did sound different than a lot of
their colleagues, not to a like inaccessible way, but at
this time when music was just being sold like you had.
You couldn't just have the one hit like you had
to have music videos being played, you had to have
all that. And I think maybe I don't know, but
maybe like the success of Flagpolsita pushed them out of
(42:16):
their sort of underground scene too much and they just
kind of stayed what they were. But the album was
like semi well received. It got a seven and a
half from Pitchfork, three and a half from All Music,
but also got a six from NME and a two
from Rolling Stone. However, it has in the year's previous
(42:37):
sort of been reassessed and is now held up as
this extremely influential record that's one of the better albums
of the nineties, especially in like the power pop pop
punk world. When it was reissued in vinyl in twenty fourteen,
or issued I should say it was pressed for the
first time on vinyl in twenty fourteen, Fuse wrote that
(42:58):
it is a definitive indie power pop punk record at
a time and place when grunge raided Supreme, which is
also probably a contributing factor to the lack of success, considering,
like what Nelson alluded to earlier about as soon as
this album passed. All the rock stuff kind of became
irrelevant because pop music took over, and then new metal
(43:19):
took over, and then music kind of died in terms
of like selling records in the mainstream. So wrong place,
wrong time.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think it's interesting though, because while this may not
be as heralded as it should be, even though I
do think it is becoming quite heralded now, it has
a huge influence and all the music you and I
listened to, I think, especially when you look at sort
of the new pop punk emo boom, Harvey Danger is
in all of that, especially bands like Modern Baseball and
(43:49):
a lot of Jeff rosenstock work, especially Antarcticovi Spuccy, I
think is very indebted to the Harvey Danger Bomb. The
music industry actually covered Harvey Danger on their sort of
B sides record. They covered Pike Streek Park Slope from
the next album. And speaking of that next album, that
(44:09):
album is called King James Version and it was released
in September of the year two thousand, three years later.
I can never decide which of these two albums I prefer,
because I think King James Version is also quite amazing,
but like it kind of went before it didn't break
through because it was kind of fucked up by the label.
According to the band, they submitted the record and then
(44:32):
just waited because right after the album was submitted to
the label, there was an elaborate corporate reshuffling almost immediately
after the album was completed, and because of mergers and acquisitions,
the record was just sort of left in limbo. They
attempted to take it themselves and give it to Barsuk,
which I think would have maybe broken them bigger considering
(44:54):
in the year two thousand, Barsuk was sort of coming
into their own with all their band as we've talked
about before, but they were stopped by legal trouble. They
also had a tour with the Pretenders lined up that
also fell through, and right as they were about to
give up and just shelve the record, London Slash Sire
Records released the album in September of two thousand. It
(45:16):
was very well received but received almost no label support
at all, although it did have a somewhat well performing single,
though obviously not in the world of Flagpool in Sad
Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Speaker 10 (45:38):
Another Existential Cowboy and No More California Champagne.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
None of the saddle.
Speaker 11 (45:47):
Tramp sex sure lonely out of place, tried in his
trave ice tream she did.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Cannot fix another engine.
Speaker 11 (45:57):
No pain of the Bison and rabbit chair cloud. She
takes another temp job, but at a secret heart she
rat has step sad.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Sweet yo, no no let sadly.
Speaker 11 (46:18):
On ya.
Speaker 12 (46:22):
Looks a trap sadly ho yo no no no LETI
su sastly man yo.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I love that opening guitar riff me too.
Speaker 7 (47:02):
Not to get all wrestling on you, but that should
be hay Man Adam Page's song.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
From I don't know what that means, but I'll say yes.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
His whole thing is existential crisis millennial cowboy. So no,
not another existential cowboy line that.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Is perfect for him.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
After the non success of King James version, the band
went on hiatus. Jeff Lynn returned to school, Selt joined
a band called Bound Stems, and Aaron Huffman formed a
band called Love Hotel. They would reunite three years later
without Celt, but with his blessing with not a Serf's
(47:43):
Ira Elliott filling in on drums, and then a few
years later, with the band all back together, they would
release Little by Little via bit Torrent in two thousand
and five, and then the album would be re released
in two thousand and six with a slightly different track
list by Kill rock Stars. I believe the version on
Spotify is the Kill rock Stars version, but I'm not sure.
(48:06):
They finally broke up for good in two thousand and nine,
saying after fifteen years, three albums, hundreds of shows, and
far more twists and turns than we ever imagined possible,
We've decided to put Harvey Danger to rest. The decision
is totally mutual and utterly amicable. They did a run
of a few breakup shows in the Pacific Northwest. Today,
(48:28):
Sean Nelson continues to work as a journalist for The
Stranger in Seattle, although I feel like it might have
shut down with a lot of journal things, but I'm
not sure. Jeff Lynn co founded the IT company Captricity
in twenty eleven, and sadly, Aaron Huffman passed away due
to respiratory failure caused by cystic fibrosis in twenty sixteen,
(48:51):
and he was eulogized in The Stranger by Sean Nelson,
which is a very beautiful letter to a friend. If
you want to look it up because it's very sad
and very good not sad. Yeah, anyway, that's that.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
So I guess you mentioned Modern Baseball earlier, and I
guess they're kind of I guess the big thing to
take away from this, I think is that, look, I
don't think that like the bands that I listen to
now are necessarily going to be like, oh yeah, we
listened to a lot of Harvey Danger and that's but
like I definitely see it in or hear it in
(49:27):
the bands that you you kind of outline, Modern Baseball
is probably the one that I notice it in most.
So I guess, yeah, some some bands are just that's
that's the place you hold right right.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
And I think you really hear it in sort of
that like the power pop emo world the most obviously,
even judging by their sound. But like I think of
bands like Modern Baseball, like Telethon, like some of Rosasak's stuff,
like it's it's very much in that to me. And
I think that you also see a lot just sort
(50:00):
of music Twitter these days, like there seemed to be
a real appreciation for bands like Harvey Danger, like Fountains
of Wayne, like you know, just that sort of good,
solid power pop music that I don't think was like
laughed at back then, but definitely wasn't held in the
same esteem that maybe it is today.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
Yeah, I think that's fair. So I guess I guess
where we go from here? Is there more?
Speaker 6 (50:26):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (50:27):
We got to break down or do we? Let's rank?
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Let's rank some shit.
Speaker 7 (50:32):
Yeah all right, So in terms of songs off the album,
what do you got for us, Jake?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
So, as I said, I've already changed my mind about
my ranking that I wrote down as we were talking,
But I think my top five is pretty unchanging.
Speaker 7 (50:49):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
So I'm I'm gonna go without an order today because
this shuffles around a lot. So I have for my
top five on the record, which is half the record,
so it's just kind of silly to do five, but whatever.
I think Radio Silence might be my number one. Then
I'd probably have Old Hat, then Problems and bigger ones
than Willy Muffler, and then I think Terminal Annex. I
(51:11):
think those are my five.
Speaker 7 (51:12):
Hmm okay, yeah, in some order, I would have Flagpolesita, Carlotaveldez,
Old Hat, Willy Muffler, and Problems and Bigger Ones. I
think those are my I.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Feel like I would could probably replace Terminal Annex with
Carlata and be pretty happy.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah, I think that that song reps Yeah, it's great
and I think it's a great one too to kick
off the album. So we run into an issue here
for the first time though, that this is not on
as small right, So we could spiritually put one of
these on the mixtape, or we can do a little
(51:48):
something different. May I make a suggestion you may This
is I'm trying to make this as Jake a suggestion
as possible, and because this is a favorite of yours
and you are such a noted SKA fan. Uh, what
I'm going to suggest is that all your place good
idea flag Poles by Harvey Danger on the mixtape, we
(52:12):
do the scot To Network cover of flag Pole Citta
from Skago's Emo.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
That's a great idea. Obviously I have a favor of that.
Speaker 7 (52:22):
It's a weird one. It's gonna be a little odd
for the mixtape, but that's a.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Good everyone will everyone will be excited to fucking get dancing.
Speaker 7 (52:30):
Also, it's really good.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
That wholeim is Yeah, Scott's amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yes, Yeah, Hopefully future guests on the Blast fingers crost
h Jake, This has been a fun one.
Speaker 7 (52:44):
Was it as fun as you hope? Diving into where
all the marror Maker's gone?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah? I just this an album is like talking about
and because Sean Nelson made it so easy for us,
it's fun just reading his reflections on it.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, Jeohn Nelson come on the podcast and talk about
a different album and we'll just sit back and.
Speaker 7 (53:00):
Let you have your nice, thoughtful thoughts for an hour.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (53:03):
I'm like when we have guests, so normally please try
(53:48):
to fish
Jimmy Stewart follows Kim to where your portrait hangs on
a wall. You're such a haunting vision. He forgets his
partner's fall. You jump into the latest episode of Columbia
House Party. Jake, what's up man?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Not much? I'm excited for today's episode. As you have
teased out.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Immensely, very very early on in the planning spreadsheet, one
of I won't say it's part of the origin story
of the podcast, are one of the ones that we
laid out when we first when you first conceived of
this idea, but it was definitely one of the ones
that we identified immediately as like, Okay, we'll do some
popular albums and some popular stuff within our main genres,
(01:06):
and then occasionally we'll do some lesser known stuff and
we'll pull out albums like today's.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I feel like this was an early agreeing about music
album from Yes as well.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, this a little bit of a deep cut of Oh.
Actually the one hit wonder part of this is not
even the most interesting party. They're actually really good. Unfortunately,
as we're going to talk about, this is the first
where you can't find the album on Spotify to prepare,
so I have something planned for us at the end
to try to get around that a little bit. But yeah,
(01:39):
you might have to go the YouTube or good old
fashioned purchase route for this one. Jake, what do you
got for us today?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So today we are talking about a band that I
think you're right in the sense that they are under
appreciated and underrated. But I do think with the new
wave of emo and pop punk that we have covered
at length, this band is starting to finally get the
recognition that they deserve, at least in our music twitter circles.
(02:08):
This is definitely one that I think people have come
around on the last few years. It's also an interesting
album because it is sort of arguably one of the
biggest victims of one hit wonderdom of the late nineties,
even though I mean, I guess technically they are a
one hit wonder, but there's so much more to them.
(02:29):
But also interesting case because the one hit kind of
ruined their career in a lot of ways. And also
this is a great album for walking around Toronto in
the summer and being really sad, because that's how I
got into this one. It's one of my favorite albums,
one of my favorite bands. So today we are talking
about Where have all the Merrymakers Gone? By Harvey Danger, Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Stewart's Bob Charns, Well, you brought your son your world
such a haunting vision for guests. You jump into the
San Francisco I follow, you will know you can't swim
when you've been sad of a hundred years.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Charles Charlotta Bet, Charli Bet Charlota best and will make
you hurt.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
That sand.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
Charlotte Charlotta val.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Charlotta All right, that was Carlotta Valdez, which is what
we the lyric we used off the top, which by
(04:30):
the way, is just them describing the movie Vertigo.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Cool, We're getting some literate, literate music today.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, Harvey Dangers, Where have All the Merrymakers Gone? An
album Jake and I both really like and have some
You know, Jake teased his personal connection to it. Do
you want to go ahead first with that? Do you
want me to go go first with the connection side here?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I mean, I think it's pretty much what I outlined before. Uh,
this is an album that I wasn't into at the time.
It's very much a university and later album for me,
which I think is appropriate to their sound. And I
kind of came to it just sort of accidentally. I
heard the big hit one day and I was like,
(05:14):
oh yeah, that band, and then listened to it and
I was like, oh wait, this rules. And then it
kind of became the soundtrack for me for a really
sad summer I had one year, and they just became
one of those bands for me. And that's kind of it.
Like it really it's one of those things that I
really like, but it's not like an interesting or complicated story.
I just think it's great.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So my connection this is actually a connection that I
have shared before about a different song. But basically, when
I was a kid, I got dragged to like a
child therapist and going back and forth from Cambridge to
twelfth after school. My appointment was from six to seven
and the top seven at seven on London FM ninety six,
(05:58):
which was kind of my reward forgetting through those sessions
on Wednesdays, the top seven at seven. This had come up,
I think in talking about Damn It from Blink one
eighty two, which had a few months before Harvey Dangers
for a single came out. It peaked at number eleven overall,
but it obviously on a London alternative chart, it peaked
(06:19):
at number one. Flag Polsita came along a couple months
after that. In looking it up, it hit number three
on the Billboard Alternative chart in July nineteen ninety eight,
and it was hilariously behind Iris by the Goo Goo
Dolls and shimmer By Fuel, even though that fewl album
had come out like two years earlier. And I'm now
like retroactively mad that flag Pole Cida you know, didn't
(06:43):
get all the way to number one because of the
Goo Goo Dolls in Fuel. But anyway, so flag Pole
Sita was one of the songs that I really like.
Flagpole Sita and Damn It are the two songs that
stand out to me from that period of listening to
Top seven at seven and hoping to hear those songs,
hoping they were on the countdown, and that kind of
be being my reward for a bit of a bit
(07:04):
of a confusing time. I will also say that at
the time this was just a one song band to
me and I, you know, and then even later on
it was basically just like a good karaoke song. But
I would say over the last I don't know, I
don't know when I went back to and listened to
the whole album. But the whole album is pretty good,
(07:25):
and I feel like it's been like criminally miscast as
you know, one hit wonder or whatever you want to
call it. I think it's there's a lot more.
Speaker 7 (07:33):
To it than that.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, I think that's true. And I think because their
career was short and very chopped up, I guess, uh,
and like they only had three albums, there's not as
much material there for like the sort of posts quote
unquote backlash renaissance for them. So I think that they're
(07:58):
it's there's just not as much to be like, oh, okay, well,
like you didn't like the Flagpool Cita album, but have
you heard this one? Even though the next two are
also great in their own ways. But yeah, I think
I'm I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, Hey, that band that you never checked out their
their album because you only heard the one song. You
want to check out their other album. That's a tough sell.
But and then exactly, yeah, and it's it's going back
a while now. We're going back like twenty years here,
so we're going to talk about where have all the
Merrymakers gone from Harvey Danger We're going to talk about
all the reasons we like it. We're going to talk
(08:31):
about all the reasons it maybe didn't have the success
that it should have, and the reasons it might have.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
Success had it come along.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Say, now, after this, all right, Jake, give us the
rundown here man, who are Harvey Danger?
Speaker 7 (08:59):
And yeah? Who are they? Because I mean they certainly
look like journalists and journalism students.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, what of them is so? Harvey Dangel reformed in
nineteen ninety two at the University of Washington by Jeff
Lynn and Aaron Huffman because they decided, quote, it might
be fun to start a band. They got the name
from a phrase that was graffitied on the wall of
the offices of the Daily of the University of Washington newspaper,
where to your point they both worked. They originally started
(09:29):
playing shows as a duo, mostly playing house parties, and
then they got Evan Salt to join on drums in
nineteen ninety three. Evan Selton never played drums before, but
thought whatever. He also brought his friend Sean Nelson along
to sing with the band. Lenna Huffman knew Nelson because
he also worked at the newspaper the Art Section. They
(09:50):
played their first show on April twenty first, nineteen ninety four,
at the Lake Union Pub. At the time, celt and
Nelson were under twenty one, so they were only a
to be in the bar for the band set and
then they had to leave, which I think is adorable.
In nineteen ninety four, they released a six song demo
tape which they sold for shows for three dollars, which
you can find in random places on the internet. I
(10:14):
think I have a copy on my phone. In nineteen
ninety six, three of the four members of the band
lost their jobs, so they decided to all move in
together and focus more of their energy on making the
band a thing.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
Wait, journalists lost their jobs.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
In the night they really were ahead of their time.
Heyo nice.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
They would then meet producer John Goodmanson, who has produced
acts in his career such as Bikini Kill and Death
cav for Cutie the entire Los Campesinos discography, which I
think is interesting because I think there's a lot of
similarities between them and Harvey Danger and also bands like
Slater Kinney, so not a light sweight in the production world.
(10:58):
He produced a three song demo with the band, which
got no attention from the major labels. They shopped it too,
but it did find interest from a man named Greg Glover.
Greg Glover was a London records intern who ran a
small independent label called the ogreena rock recording company. He
requested the band make a seven inch single and the
(11:18):
band ended up sending three songs, all of them recorded
with goodmanson. Glover thought that the songs were strong enough
to support a full length album and bankrolled it. One
of those three songs is probably the one song you
know by Harvey Danger, and that is Flagpole Sita.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
The Rocks in.
Speaker 8 (12:02):
Speaking sipcent Manta ras, I can't forget the jerzy body.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
And we're feeling it naughty. I ride in on the
cyclone s Who's the LUTs, but no one ever does.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I'm not sick, but.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I'm not well.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Have guess I'm.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
As well.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Had to cut that one off early here in the
booth because we didn't want another John Collins situation where
one of us singing makes.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
The final cut.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Jake, that is, I know you're in the middle of
the band's history a little bit here, but you I like,
I haven't seen you do it, but I would put
good money on you having sang that song at karaoke before.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Oh yeah, that's definitely like an easy I'm drunk and
don't want to read a book to find a song.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Song for karao and you can just start yelling bah
yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But to your point, it is very much a karaoke song.
And I actually when we first said we're gonna do
this episode, I originally didn't want to play a clip
or talk about that song just because like it's was
so popular, but and because I feel like the thing
about this band is everyone's like, oh the Flagpole sit
a band, but I feel like you can't really tell
(13:53):
their story without it, because it is such an odd
thing for a band like this to just have a hit.
I think we could. We could basically do this same conversation,
I think, but plug in different words with semi sonic
and closing time. Like occasionally, just like a cool rock
band gets this like massive one hit that sounds not
(14:16):
that much like the rest of their music, and I
just find it really interesting.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I also, I mean I think flight Polcido was like
obviously it's a you know, like that's a soundtrack Ready single,
and that's you know, obviously, it was the theme song
for Peep Show, and it's in every movie ever, you know,
in that same sort of I guess just pre American
Pie era. It's everywhere. But the song itself, I find
(14:39):
like really interesting as just like kind of a reflection
on pop culture. And I think it's gonna come up
a lot of times on this episode that they are
like ahead of their time in a number of ways.
And I don't mean that like this is some revolutionary
sound or anything like that, but exactly what they're talking
about in this song is kind of exactly what we've
run into now with the increasing kind of fragmentation of
(15:04):
pop culture, where like every niche is served, and there's
that weird tipping point and delicate balance kind of between
what's underground or what's you know, I guess we'll say
underground for our music purposes and what's mainstream, and there's
that kind of tipping point between them where the thing
that was yours becomes popular and what does that do
(15:25):
to you and you know, your outlook on it as
well as your I guess kind of your self image
as you know, hey, I like this thing that was
cool and underground and now it's the mainstream thing, and
what does that mean for me? So I think I
think it's a really interesting song for that reason. I
don't think anyone actually engaged with it that way at
(15:45):
the time. I think it was just like a really
good pop rock song and really fun to sing along to.
But yeah, those are my thoughts on it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, I think I agree with everything you just said.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
All right, So I guess my question for you, Jake
is so that that became one of their demos. I
guess I'll pocket my question until you get us to
get us to the album.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So this song, to your point though about it being
like soundtrack ready, obviously it was a huge deal Sean Nelson,
and I guess by extension, the band actually have said
that it could have been a bigger deal. In the
vinyl liner notes of the vinyl reissue of this album
from twenty fourteen, which I'll be referring to a lot today,
Sean Nelson said that the title flag Polcida is an
(16:26):
homage to Pavement and NWA, and that the title came
before the chorus. Originally the chorus was just the Bob
Baz and that when he wrote the I'm not sick
and I'm not well. That just became the chorus. But
he's convinced, or he says in the liner notes that
if he had named the song something different, he might
be writing this from a yacht right now, which I
(16:50):
think is interesting that even though it was so huge
and like fucked up their whole world, it's still like
the title sucks because it does.
Speaker 7 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, why call it that?
Speaker 9 (17:02):
Come on?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I believe it's I'm not sure about the NWA homage.
I believe the Pavement homage is to the song Fame
Thrower from Slanted and Enchanted. But anyway, Flag Polsida obviously
became an out of nowhere hit with PEG, which pegged
the band as a one hit wonder band. This kind
of caused some friction for the band because they not
(17:22):
only had to deal with sudden success, but they also
went to deal with the whole like mainstreamification and damaging
their indie cred. In an interview with Alternative Press, Sean
Nelson said that there was some backlash locally in Seattle.
The fundamental difference between a little record you sort of
find out about, and then there's the thing where I'm
being completely bombarded by this fucking song. Flag Polcida wasn't
(17:47):
just played a lot, it was massively played. We were
getting reports that in Atlanta they played it three times
in a row every day at five o'clock or something
like that. I'm grateful ultimately, but the radio programmers just
went ape shit with that song. The incessant radio play
makes it so the half life of the song being
something you discover. It cuts it so short. Also, it
(18:08):
may be difficult to remember now, but in the nineties
there was still a stigma about major labels versus indie labels,
commercial versus underground. Critics tended to be wary of major
labels trying to put one over on you. Even a
band that later transcended all of that, Weezer, when they
came out, everybody in my circle of friends treated them like, oh,
this is a fake major label band trying to court
(18:29):
the pavement cool audience. Everybody had a chip on their shoulder.
We have to slay the monster that is corporate rock.
The funny thing is it was only a year or
two later that all of this stuff became completely irrelevant
culturally speaking. A lot of what we're going to talk
today are just direct writings or quotes from Nelson, just
because he is a great speaker and I love the
(18:50):
way he writes and talks about music.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
So I'm going to say it's just been like super
open about it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
The question I was going to ask earlier and wait
until you got to this point is I understand all
of what he's saying, and I understand that more goes
into this than maybe, you know, picking your next best
song as the next single, especially when you've had the
insane success that flag Polcita had.
Speaker 7 (19:14):
How is Carlotta Valdez not the second single?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So I was gonna get to that, but it's funny
you mentioned that that song was supposed to be the
second single. The band wanted it and believe Carlotta Valdez
should be the next single, to the point where in
the liner notes, Sean Nelson believes that the album might
have been a bigger success had because they felt that
(19:37):
song was more representative of their sound. However, the label
just wanted another Flagpole Sita because after Flagpole Cita's success.
The album was actually reissued by Slash Records, who were
a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, and they just wanted obviously
another big rock hit, and they felt that this song
had a better chance. So this song, which I do
(19:58):
think is a great song but not a good single,
is private helicopter.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
I'm on a private hell a counter with my favorite ex.
Speaker 8 (20:18):
Girlfriend, tiny little cabin in the sky.
Speaker 10 (20:25):
Now we're alone, and we can remember how we felt before.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
We were angry, we were guilty, we were beginner.
Speaker 11 (20:34):
I must admit, I said, of these things, I'm still
attracted to you.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Sorry, we was so self trot.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
So eight mile high, three hours Lansing, Now alone, reach in.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Remember how we felt that first mere dever.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Must have been good the suntime su I'm still attracted.
Speaker 12 (21:15):
Locker Blacker and Blacker.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I could see why where they were coming from,
thinking that on the heels of flight Bolsetta, that might be,
you know, adjacent enough. But yeah, I mean I'm always
I'm almost always of the mind you go with your
strongest stuff, right, And I think that that was carl Lotavaldas.
And if it's not Carlota Valdes, I don't think private
helicopter is you know, high on the list of what
(21:50):
I would have what I would have tried to go
with next.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, I agree, but I do obviously I think Carlo
Valdez is a better song, and I definitely think would
have been a more interesting single, especially with what Sean
Nelson talks about in the sort of underground versus commercial world,
where I think maybe like the college radio crowd would
have accepted them more if the second single had been
(22:14):
something that sounds like Carlotta.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, also just a song that is just describing a
hitch rock movie. It's like nerdy late to the college audience.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
For sure, it's nerdy, it's louder, it's a little more
punky or whatever.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I do think though that Private Helicopter is a decent
representation because one of a thing I never thought about
but obviously is true, is that the band actually very
consciously worked to bring a unique element to their sound.
In the vinyl liner notes, Sean Nelson talks about how
they very much treated Aaron Huffman's bass guitar as a
(22:49):
lead instrument rather than the rhythm section. He said, Aaron
Huffman's base stepping up to take those delectable lead lines.
It's tone carved into a gorgeous lightsaber of distortion. I've
always thought that sound the bass as melodic lead instrument,
and the way those melodies arise from the limitations of
the instrument in the context of those songs was the
thing that made us not merely interesting but unique among
(23:12):
bands of our stripe. It inverts the musty punk canard
of no more guitar solos, which people still unaccountably pretended
to care about in the late nineties, and establishes its
whole own aesthetic microverse. It was what kept us from
veering too closely into content to hold down a more
physical rhythmic role. He also followed that up to ap
(23:32):
saying we didn't then and don't now sound like any
band I can think of that element in particular, the
bass playing marked our band out as a cool little
inversion that I think is super interesting. We didn't say
to ourselves, how do we become interesting? That was just
how Aaron played the bass, and I think Carlotta and
Private Helicopter are both great examples of that.
Speaker 7 (23:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I mean it's again, it's so nice the way they
just kind of lay this out for us and makes
it very wet you have to think about it is Hey,
he should just come on the podcast if you're hearing this,
come on a talking about with Sean Nelson. Come on, HP, Yeah,
you don't even have to talk about Harvey Danger. We
could talk about anything you want.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So when they were despite being overruled on the single,
turns out the band was probably right. Private Helicopter was
not well received by the public. It did not reach
any Billboard chart at all, compared to Flagpole Sita, which
peaked at number three on the Alternative chart and thirty
two on the Billboard Top forty. In terms of other
(24:35):
potential singles that could have marketed the band, that wasn't
a single because those are the only two singles because
after Private Helicopter kind of tanked, that was kind of it.
But one I think that could have been a single
and is a song that I think proves that Harvey
Danger should have been one of the bigger rock bands
in the world, especially at this time, though whether they
wanted to be as another question. Is a song that
I think also really highlights the songwriting of this album
(24:59):
and the technical this album and just like the song
production and the way they put things together. In the
vinyl notes, Nelson says of this song and Lynn's playing,
specifically Jeff's playing was visceral and precise, the guttural chorus
riffs of Carlotta Valdez, Private Helicopter and terminal annex, the
frugal arpeggios of problems and bigger Ones. When he really
(25:21):
came alive was when the opportunity arose courtesy of our
producer mentor friend, obi Wan John Goodmanson to build his
intentionally elementary chord structures into dense layers of noisy texture,
full of the magic tones and secret notes. The squalling
jaguars of Willie Muffler, the stadium cleague lights of Jack
the Lion, the epic snowball rolling heroically down Everest, at Is,
(25:43):
radio silence, and elsewhere. So there's a lot of songs
to choose from on that list, but the one that
I was referring to is this great song which has
problems and bigger ones.
Speaker 13 (25:53):
Cross through the border states to the wrong side, Wrong side,
look away, Virginia.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Spends every day.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Like the past is a bridge, crossing twins.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
Teases, whispers a way, not so.
Speaker 13 (26:33):
Much, get your poison tongue out of mind.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Here's a fact you cannot rise. But we'll have problems.
Speaker 14 (26:47):
Yeah, then we'll have Bigger Ones, Ary.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I figured you would want to talk about the songwriting
a little bit, and just like the craft in general
on the album. I was torn between whether you would
pick that one or Willie Muffler to kind of highlight that. Yeah,
I probably would have leaned Willie Muffler just like lyrically,
I think that that song has a lot of cool
stuff going on. I mean, maybe it's just because of
the uh the choke old line, but you know also
(27:58):
that people disappoint you every time, So if you've got
greatness in you, would you do us all favor and
keep it to yourself. But yeah, I'm afraid I feel
a choko coming on. All I ever thought we might
come to with second Dates. That's some good stuff on
Willie Muffler, But yeah, I'm within problems the Bigger Ones.
It's probably uh, you know, if I were cutting this
album into you know, to jump ahead to the to
the ranking stuff, I think that would probably crack the
(28:20):
top five.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So yeah, I will I think this was probably the
hardest episode for me we've had so far in terms
of picking which songs to talk about, because there's only
ten on the record, so we can only really talk
about half of them, but Willie Muffler was the last cut.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, I would say, yeah, I stuff too, because like
I'm not, I don't like Private Helicopter as much as
even you do, and and certainly not the label, so
they to you know, you kind of have to use
a spot on that because it's, well, hey, this is
what they chose as a second single instead of this.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
Banger or these like high craft songs. So I guess,
I don't know. I think you probably have more on
Nelson's reflections on this stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, he kind of does this great thing in the
lier notes where he goes one by one with the
band members and just sort of like breaks down what
makes it work, and then he finally eventually gets to
himself to the point of the songwriting for Problems and
Bigger Ones. He said that I have the sense that
the words for Problems and Bigger Ones and Terminal Annex
were never quite finished. Both songs contained experiments in a discursive,
(29:26):
vaguely cut up writing style, and as a result, I
hear myself struggling to find a voice that wasn't exactly mine.
And I think it's really interesting because I do think
those two songs sound the least like anything else on
the record, But I appreciate that they were. You know,
it's their debut record. Try all your stuff about the
drumming on the record, Nelson says that Evan's drumming style
(29:49):
was an extension of his restless, inquisitive mind and his
fiercely devoted soul. Though his parts did the work that
drum parts need to do, they also benefited from a
tireless quest to bend a fundamentally ineloquent instrument to the
uses of a verbally dexterous person left otherwise mike free
in a band increasingly marked by a torrent of words.
(30:10):
Hence the perfect fills on Carlatta private helicopter and let's
face it, flagpole Sida, but also the delicate taps on
Wolle muffler, the heart beats an old hat, and problems
and bigger ones, the loping stumbled down radio silence, from
Gary Young to Steve West, and everything in between. And again,
I'm just sharing these quotes because I think they're great.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
Yeah, that's again, come on the pod.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I do find interesting that even now, or I guess
in twenty fourteen, when he wrote this essay for the
Vinyl reissue, he still sort of holds Flagpole like separate,
and it's like he has to acknowledge it, like yes,
even Flagpole Cida, which I think is interesting that it's
very clear that that song's kind of a sore spot
(30:54):
for them, which I guess I understand because it was
like the biggest thing in the world, but it wasn't
what they wanted exactly, I think because their careers never
took off the way that single sort of made them.
I guess.
Speaker 7 (31:10):
Yeah, it's tough, Like you think about.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
It's you think about all the success that that song had,
and on paper even like one hit wonder kind of bands,
and I don't think like obviously they were they only
did have one hit, but I think they're better than
one hit wonder. The phrase suggests on paper, like you
get that many people listening to your stuff, you've got
a better chance of hooking an audience in that likes you.
But I think just so many people come to songs
(31:36):
like that, especially like in the late nineties and early
two thousands, maybe not even early two thousands, because early
two thousands was just like a carousel of bands that
you thought only had one hit and were actually massively successful,
but like late nineties, like, I don't know that people
came to songs like that, especially like this is your
first Like it's not like they were a band that
(31:58):
had a back catalog you could go check out. It
was here's this single and the album's coming soon, And
I don't know. Yeah, I think I think some bands
just missed right. And it's not it's not because this
album isn't good. I think maybe it's just and again
we're going to talk about this in a little bit,
but I do think it was I guess the wrong
time for this band to come along, because as much
(32:22):
as this is really good, I think it's a lot
more successful if it comes along a little later. And
maybe that's where the lament comes where Like if you
had a song as good as flag Pole Sita now
and it was a big single, you know, it's a
click away for everyone to check your stuff out, right,
And I don't mean that it's it's certainly not easier
to make it as a band now, especially to like
(32:42):
like to even have a popular song cut through is
really hard now. But you know, if you if you think, hey,
we've got ten songs here that are good, you know,
maybe the chance that one song hooks people into ten
is a little better.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah. He has a good quote about pretty much exactly
that from the Alternative Press interview where he says that
it was really crippling at the time. We took everything
we did seriously, maybe too seriously, but there was no
way in our mind as a band that Flagpole Cida
was better or more important than any of the other
songs on the record or any of the songs on
subsequent records. If you look at songs like kids, that's
(33:21):
the kid that got the full scholarship to Harvard while
the other kids are struggling to read. Somehow, we accidentally
looked into writing and recording this incredibly catchy commercial thing,
and it leapt off our record and got into the mainstream.
Nothing else we did was a candidate for that kind
of treatment. It doesn't mean the other songs we did
weren't meaningful to us. A hit single is a different
(33:42):
thing from a good song, which I think is a
really interesting way to phrase it. As for his own work,
now that he's talked about the rest of the band,
when it comes to his own work on this record
and his singing and his lyrics, he writes in the
vinyl notes that I'm embarrassed that Carlotta Valdez was misspelled
(34:03):
with a Z on the original pressings of the album.
The title Flagpolcita was intended as a reference to the
mindless trend following as well as an homage to both
Payment and NWA, and occurred before the lyric I'm not sick,
but I'm not well existed. He also talks about sort
of how all his lyrics are sort of pessimistic compared
to sort of the jauntier sound. He told Pop Matters,
(34:25):
I've always been on a look on the dark side
kind of person, especially when it comes to emotional life.
But I also feel like addressing that stuff with humor
is a form of optimism. Even though a lot of
the themes and the lyrics are pretty dour in some ways,
and the words tend to be pretty caustic, I wouldn't
say they're cynical, because I only feel like the act
of making the song is a sort of against cynicism.
(34:46):
So basically where I was going to go with this is,
as we were saying earlier, there's so many songs that
we could talk about on this record. I could talk
about every single one, but we don't have the time.
I could talk about how Radio Silence I think is
a great album closed, how Jack the Lions this huge
sort of arena rock sound. How as you pointed out,
Wooly Muffler is a really well written song that's a
(35:07):
great like sad in your Feelings tune. But the song
I want to talk about last for this record is
none of those, but it is. According to Sean Nelson
Part one to Private Helicopter's Part two, Nelson says that
old Hat is the oldest song on the album and
was the first all the way good one we ever wrote.
(35:28):
It was also the closest I ever got to communicating
the uncomplicated thrill of being newly in love. Abby grushes
out of nowhere. Counter Melody in the Bridge is my
proudest musical contribution. Somewhere there is a video of me
conducting her singing it. Private Helicopter is sort of a
response to Old Hat, one half rung up the ladder
(35:48):
of emotion immaturity. So this is old Hat.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
Und shine a million patter like the waves the great
tub Baths wanted to when it's so brand new that
it kills you.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Came on to strong understand it song in the Now
she can Knock Me Bad.
Speaker 12 (36:23):
Like to sound Body, Great lads, Black Yards, show shape,
swinsdusk and he day.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Her jet like what my friends look like and make
her jet why they like? Ma sold I'm so happy?
How do you read about that? How do you ride about.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Scams?
Speaker 5 (37:25):
Tascam?
Speaker 7 (37:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
I had that again to spoil the ranking part. I
think that's my third favorite song on the album, second
or third.
Speaker 7 (37:41):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I think I've already changed my mind on what I
wrote down to my rankings because this one changes a lot.
But I love that song and I agree with him
that the bridge rules.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
The other thing I wanted to talk about about this
album is that it fits so I think you're you're
probably gonna take us into in the next segment. Some
of the influence that they've had maybe subtly on some
of the bands that followed, But I think one thing
where they fit in perfectly with the type of music
we've discussed over the podcast is with the album art.
(38:13):
They join the pantheon of just a House as album
covers with American Football and The Hotel Year and countless others.
So just look, if you if you wanted to be
a one hit wonder that's kind of pop punkish indie,
and you wanted to, twenty years from then, be able
(38:34):
to trace your influence to some of the kind of
Midwest emo bands of the modern era. Having just a
House from Seattle as your album cover not.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
A bad way to go.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, I feel like that you'll know what the album
sounds like when you see just a House.
Speaker 7 (38:49):
Yes, yeah, you got a pretty good idea.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Called this podcast just a House.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
Yeah, just the house party. I get now that.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
No, I say you're going.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Yeah. I was trying, but it's uh no good, I
like it. I didn't get there. Sorry, Joe, that's all right.
Speaker 13 (39:09):
You try.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
This is why it's your episode, you know.
Speaker 10 (39:11):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I guess the other the one thing we I kind
of wanted to bring up, and I hope you came
across why. And I've asked Steve about this before, and
I guess it just comes down to, you know, who
has the rights and what the prices are and stuff.
But this is, like I said, we've run into on
the B side of the mixtape with some of our
bonus episodes or singles songs that aren't on Spotify, and
(39:33):
we have to pull replacements for them on the mixtape.
We have not run into that yet on the main feed.
This is the first time one is not on Spotify.
Did you come across why because some of the other
stuff is I'm guessing it's just because of who holds
the rights since they were indie and then they were
kind of repressed out on a Warner imprint.
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Do you know?
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Or is it just yeah, I don't know, but I
have to believe it has to do with the fact
that it was just on so many, so many labels,
Like it was released on Arena Rock and then it
was reissued by Slash when it got successful, and then
the vinyl re release was on even on BARSUK. But
(40:14):
it's yeah, I don't know the reason. I'm just gonna
have to assume that it's like a lot of their music,
which we'll talk about in a minute, record labels just
kind of dicked it around. But yeah, I don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
All right, Well, we're going to talk about how the
album was received, how they got dicked around a little
bit and some other stuff after this, all right, Jake,
(40:50):
So we really like, where have all the Merrymaker's gone?
We both came to appreciate the wh album much later,
which is kind of the point and the problem here.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
What was the limiting factor here? I mean, we talked
a little bit about some of why the next single
didn't hit or whatever, but but why did they Why
didn't they break through here? What happened on the label
side and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
The label didn't really hold them back that much until
the next record, But I think for this one it
was really just a case of, like, it's the downside
of having a massive hit, Like everyone just wants, especially
in the late nineties, for a song as big as
Flagpole Cita was, everyone just wants you to play flag
(41:31):
It's the shut up and play the hits thing, right, Yeah,
it's like everyone just wants to right exactly, everyone wants
to hear flag Pole Sita. And I don't think people
really had the patience for the rest of it. And
I think the fact that they were kind of this weird,
hardy pop punk ish but not really sound and to
Sean Nelson's point about the bass driving a lot of
(41:52):
their music, they did sound different than a lot of
their colleagues, not to a like inaccessible way, but at
this time when music was just being sold like you had.
You couldn't just have the one hit like you had
to have music videos being played, you had to have
all that. And I think maybe I don't know, but
maybe like the success of Flagpolsita pushed them out of
(42:16):
their sort of underground scene too much and they just
kind of stayed what they were. But the album was
like semi well received. It got a seven and a
half from Pitchfork, three and a half from All Music,
but also got a six from NME and a two
from Rolling Stone. However, it has in the year's previous
(42:37):
sort of been reassessed and is now held up as
this extremely influential record that's one of the better albums
of the nineties, especially in like the power pop pop
punk world. When it was reissued in vinyl in twenty fourteen,
or issued I should say it was pressed for the
first time on vinyl in twenty fourteen, Fuse wrote that
(42:58):
it is a definitive indie power pop punk record at
a time and place when grunge raided Supreme, which is
also probably a contributing factor to the lack of success, considering,
like what Nelson alluded to earlier about as soon as
this album passed. All the rock stuff kind of became
irrelevant because pop music took over, and then new metal
(43:19):
took over, and then music kind of died in terms
of like selling records in the mainstream. So wrong place,
wrong time.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think it's interesting though, because while this may not
be as heralded as it should be, even though I
do think it is becoming quite heralded now, it has
a huge influence and all the music you and I
listened to, I think, especially when you look at sort
of the new pop punk emo boom, Harvey Danger is
in all of that, especially bands like Modern Baseball and
(43:49):
a lot of Jeff rosenstock work, especially Antarcticovi Spuccy, I
think is very indebted to the Harvey Danger Bomb. The
music industry actually covered Harvey Danger on their sort of
B sides record. They covered Pike Streek Park Slope from
the next album. And speaking of that next album, that
(44:09):
album is called King James Version and it was released
in September of the year two thousand, three years later.
I can never decide which of these two albums I prefer,
because I think King James Version is also quite amazing,
but like it kind of went before it didn't break
through because it was kind of fucked up by the label.
According to the band, they submitted the record and then
(44:32):
just waited because right after the album was submitted to
the label, there was an elaborate corporate reshuffling almost immediately
after the album was completed, and because of mergers and acquisitions,
the record was just sort of left in limbo. They
attempted to take it themselves and give it to Barsuk,
which I think would have maybe broken them bigger considering
(44:54):
in the year two thousand, Barsuk was sort of coming
into their own with all their band as we've talked
about before, but they were stopped by legal trouble. They
also had a tour with the Pretenders lined up that
also fell through, and right as they were about to
give up and just shelve the record, London Slash Sire
Records released the album in September of two thousand. It
(45:16):
was very well received but received almost no label support
at all, although it did have a somewhat well performing single,
though obviously not in the world of Flagpool in Sad
Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Speaker 10 (45:38):
Another Existential Cowboy and No More California Champagne.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
None of the saddle.
Speaker 11 (45:47):
Tramp sex sure lonely out of place, tried in his
trave ice tream she did.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Cannot fix another engine.
Speaker 11 (45:57):
No pain of the Bison and rabbit chair cloud. She
takes another temp job, but at a secret heart she
rat has step sad.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Sweet yo, no no let sadly.
Speaker 11 (46:18):
On ya.
Speaker 12 (46:22):
Looks a trap sadly ho yo no no no LETI
su sastly man yo.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I love that opening guitar riff me too.
Speaker 7 (47:02):
Not to get all wrestling on you, but that should
be hay Man Adam Page's song.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
From I don't know what that means, but I'll say yes.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
His whole thing is existential crisis millennial cowboy. So no,
not another existential cowboy line that.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Is perfect for him.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
After the non success of King James version, the band
went on hiatus. Jeff Lynn returned to school, Selt joined
a band called Bound Stems, and Aaron Huffman formed a
band called Love Hotel. They would reunite three years later
without Celt, but with his blessing with not a Serf's
(47:43):
Ira Elliott filling in on drums, and then a few
years later, with the band all back together, they would
release Little by Little via bit Torrent in two thousand
and five, and then the album would be re released
in two thousand and six with a slightly different track
list by Kill rock Stars. I believe the version on
Spotify is the Kill rock Stars version, but I'm not sure.
(48:06):
They finally broke up for good in two thousand and nine,
saying after fifteen years, three albums, hundreds of shows, and
far more twists and turns than we ever imagined possible,
We've decided to put Harvey Danger to rest. The decision
is totally mutual and utterly amicable. They did a run
of a few breakup shows in the Pacific Northwest. Today,
(48:28):
Sean Nelson continues to work as a journalist for The
Stranger in Seattle, although I feel like it might have
shut down with a lot of journal things, but I'm
not sure. Jeff Lynn co founded the IT company Captricity
in twenty eleven, and sadly, Aaron Huffman passed away due
to respiratory failure caused by cystic fibrosis in twenty sixteen,
(48:51):
and he was eulogized in The Stranger by Sean Nelson,
which is a very beautiful letter to a friend. If
you want to look it up because it's very sad
and very good not sad. Yeah, anyway, that's that.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
So I guess you mentioned Modern Baseball earlier, and I
guess they're kind of I guess the big thing to
take away from this, I think is that, look, I
don't think that like the bands that I listen to
now are necessarily going to be like, oh yeah, we
listened to a lot of Harvey Danger and that's but
like I definitely see it in or hear it in
(49:27):
the bands that you you kind of outline, Modern Baseball
is probably the one that I notice it in most.
So I guess, yeah, some some bands are just that's
that's the place you hold right right.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
And I think you really hear it in sort of
that like the power pop emo world the most obviously,
even judging by their sound. But like I think of
bands like Modern Baseball, like Telethon, like some of Rosasak's stuff,
like it's it's very much in that to me. And
I think that you also see a lot just sort
(50:00):
of music Twitter these days, like there seemed to be
a real appreciation for bands like Harvey Danger, like Fountains
of Wayne, like you know, just that sort of good,
solid power pop music that I don't think was like
laughed at back then, but definitely wasn't held in the
same esteem that maybe it is today.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
Yeah, I think that's fair. So I guess I guess
where we go from here? Is there more?
Speaker 6 (50:26):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (50:27):
We got to break down or do we? Let's rank?
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Let's rank some shit.
Speaker 7 (50:32):
Yeah all right, So in terms of songs off the album,
what do you got for us, Jake?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
So, as I said, I've already changed my mind about
my ranking that I wrote down as we were talking,
But I think my top five is pretty unchanging.
Speaker 7 (50:49):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
So I'm I'm gonna go without an order today because
this shuffles around a lot. So I have for my
top five on the record, which is half the record,
so it's just kind of silly to do five, but whatever.
I think Radio Silence might be my number one. Then
I'd probably have Old Hat, then Problems and bigger ones
than Willy Muffler, and then I think Terminal Annex. I
(51:11):
think those are my five.
Speaker 7 (51:12):
Hmm okay, yeah, in some order, I would have Flagpolesita, Carlotaveldez,
Old Hat, Willy Muffler, and Problems and Bigger Ones. I
think those are my I.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Feel like I would could probably replace Terminal Annex with
Carlata and be pretty happy.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah, I think that that song reps Yeah, it's great
and I think it's a great one too to kick
off the album. So we run into an issue here
for the first time though, that this is not on
as small right, So we could spiritually put one of
these on the mixtape, or we can do a little
(51:48):
something different. May I make a suggestion you may This
is I'm trying to make this as Jake a suggestion
as possible, and because this is a favorite of yours
and you are such a noted SKA fan. Uh, what
I'm going to suggest is that all your place good
idea flag Poles by Harvey Danger on the mixtape, we
(52:12):
do the scot To Network cover of flag Pole Citta
from Skago's Emo.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
That's a great idea. Obviously I have a favor of that.
Speaker 7 (52:22):
It's a weird one. It's gonna be a little odd
for the mixtape, but that's a.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Good everyone will everyone will be excited to fucking get dancing.
Speaker 7 (52:30):
Also, it's really good.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
That wholeim is Yeah, Scott's amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yes, Yeah, Hopefully future guests on the Blast fingers crost
h Jake, This has been a fun one.
Speaker 7 (52:44):
Was it as fun as you hope? Diving into where
all the marror Maker's gone?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah? I just this an album is like talking about
and because Sean Nelson made it so easy for us,
it's fun just reading his reflections on it.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, Jeohn Nelson come on the podcast and talk about
a different album and we'll just sit back and.
Speaker 7 (53:00):
Let you have your nice, thoughtful thoughts for an hour.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (53:03):
I'm like when we have guests, so normally please try
(53:48):
to fish
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