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Gimme indie rock! >> Harvey Danger sit on their "Flagpole" hit but not the alt-rock fence by CHRIS YURKIW
You can almost tell from the first seconds of its urgent intro drum roll (which, for example, Nirvana saved for the intro to the chorus of "Smells Like Teen Spirit") that something good is about to follow, and it does. First comes an anthemic series of chords, instantly signified as "indie" by their tautness, and then, within 40 seconds, its own chorus, based on nothing less than that most tried but true of pop techniques--the wordless refrain: "Bah ba-da bup-ba" go the vocals, but the twist is that singer Sean Nelson decides to sing over top: "I'm not sick/But I'm not well." And while "Flagpole Sitta" might be a lot more buoyant and, ultimately, fleeting than "Teen Spirit," that line does tap into the state of indie rock in 1998: not dead, perhaps not even sick, but certainly not well. Still, for four guys in their mid-20s (including a guitarist who had only followed classical music until he heard Nirvana, and a vocalist/lyricist who's given up both acting and rock criticism to be in a band), that don't make no nevermind. "I understand the implications of a statement like this and how it reflects an ignorance which is somewhat wilful," says Nelson, "but I think that American indie rock is the dominant aesthetic concern of the last 20 years." Geez, he doesn't sound like a rock critic. "I think it's the most interesting and most revolutionary form--certainly in rock music but also in popular music and popular art," continues Nelson, who cites contemporaries such as Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pavement, Sebadoh, REM and the Smiths as Harvey Danger's influences. "That's the stuff that moves me the most--contemporary people. And a few years back, the Smiths and REM were bands that in some ways provided a bridge between mainstream and underground." These days, of course, that bridge is all too crowded, and might cause some to see Harvey Danger as just another "alt" band with a cute single that may or may not have had the (not even) requisite independent cred. The rest of the songs on their debut album Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? (originally released on the NYC indie the Arena Rock Recording Company last year, and picked up by Slash/PolyGram this year) are strong enough not to support that view, but it does depend on whether Nelson's touted "clever" lyrics ring your bell or not. Call me a cynical rock critic, but why do lines like "I want to publish zines/And rage against machines"--indie-rock zingers at its own culture's foibles--always come off as facile and, well, not that "clever." Nelson, a certified cynic-idealist himself, tells me not to worry. "Even if you continue to be cynical, you can at least take some sort of comfort in the fact that you had a hope, or a will, for something to be good. And that has some relationship to why I think indie rock is so interesting and great. Because even if the people who make it are talking about cynical things or easy ironies or sarcasm, they're still exerting their own vision. They still have hope." Harvey Danger open for Semisonic this Friday, July 17 at Café Campus, 8:30pm, $10+tax
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Whether you hear it amid the worn-out classick grooves of CHOM or in the fly-by-night format of the "alternative" BUZZ, there's no mistaking the song "Flagpole Sitta" by Seattle band Harvey Danger as a hit. This is no "emphasis track," no first volley to soften the masses for the follow-up with the big-budget video--"Flagpole Sitta" is one of those grassroots radio hits replete with indie origins and a local radio station turning it first into a regional hit.