Harvey Danger: Underrated or Mediocre?

didn't they only have two albums?

meh. *hungover, folds up his soapbox and limps lazily to the next corner*

And that's it

After 15 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. Everyone is very proud of the work we've done together, but we've also come to feel that our collaboration has--in a very positive way--run its course. We're all eager to try our hands at other projects, musical and otherwise. Chances are we'll all work together in one form or another; if we've learned anything, it's that you never know what will happen. Of course, putting an end to something we've been working on since our early 20s can't help being accompanied by a soupcon of melancholy. Nonetheless, as the Chambers Brothers remind us, time has come today. Rock bands have life spans, and Harvey Danger's has been longer, and more eventful, than even we would have predicted.

good job Harvey Danger you outlasted both Rage and 'zines

i still heart their 2nd album. one of my fave guitAR pop/rock records of the last, um, you know, 10 years. 20 years. whatever.

Drummer is in a boy/girl band called Sleepy Kitty. New album Projection Room is sometimes pretty good. Has maybe my favorite song of this month on it, Hold Yr Ground.

...

I couldn't tell if bean dad was really in the band or just a touring musician

He is why The Long Winters thread got bumped again today.

should have bean a son

Bean Dad was never officially in Harvey Danger. (Might've toured with them, idk.) Sean Nelson - lead guy of Harvey Danger - *was* officially in the Long Winters.

I'm not bean, but I'm not dad

was bean dad in gay dad?

i bean dadhearted baby
ever since the day we met

this is unrelated to the bean dad stuff, but the original drummer from harvey danger was in a band called bound stems based out of chicago in the mid-2000s. when my wife and i first moved to chicago in 2004, we put up a craigslist ad looking for people to be in a band with us. the drummer guy responded to it and said he was already in a band but that he thought our ad was cool and that he hoped we were able to put something together because it sounded like it would be good, and i think maybe even suggesting we could play a show together in the future. it was really nice especially bc we were new in town and hardly knew anyone.

Canasta played with Bound Stems a couple of times. I remember him being a really nice guy.

I recently listened to their second album, King James Version, for the first time ever, and I'm struck by what an incredible transitional fossil it is between 90s alternative and 2000s indie, in terms of specific production choices.

"Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" has a huge guitar rawk riff, the most prominent song of several with hooks that would sound right at home a couple years later in the Vine/Stripe/Hivemind; but it's paired with some dinky Smash Mouth organ. "Why I'm Lonely" just straight-up morphs into a Strokes or Interpol song at the halfway point. There's a heartfelt Ben Foldsian piano ballad about moving to Brooklyn, finding "a community of dabblers," and being told "Why don't you try LA?"

And through it all, the singer is committed to the silly voices and screaming-as-punctuation that I associate with the Dismemberment Plans (and, a few years later, the Mcluskys) of the world, which just torpedoes the commercial viability of the whole thing. As the nu-metallers were starting to discover, you need to hire a second dude just to do the screaming.

the second album is underrated. i love it. and nobody is more surprised by that than me.
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, February 4, 2006 12:25 PM (eighteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink