Enter Harvey Milk.
Now with this I want to talk about my history of how I got into Harvey Milk which shouldn’t take longer than a paragraph. I’ve always heard the name Harvey Milk mentioned in the same breath as Neurosis, which is how I at least heard of them. Got their latest album: Life….the best game in town. Fell in love. See, that was easy.
For a long time, just knowing the name Harvey Milk seemed to be a secret handshake among many metal fans and music aficionados Now that the internet has allowed cult bands to have a stage, it’s refreshing to see a band who is, for lack of any term, uncompromising in their implied intent.
That intent seems to be to dig into the soul crushing riffs of human misery. Metal is a hard thing for “normal” people to get into and the sludge of the south is even harder. But Harvey Milk tests the patience of even the most ardent Eyehategod, Crowbar, and Buzzoven fans. To say the Harvey Milk is angry music, misses the point. To say that Harvey Milk is sad music, is a pitiful understatement. Harvey Milk kidnaps you, throws you into the head of a very emotionally damaged person, and you fight and claw to escape but you can’t. Once someone “gets it,” it’s very difficult to escape. But it requires patience and an a good deal of active listening on the part of the audience.
Sorry about the picture on the video, but you see my point. It’s a hard pill to swallow. It whispers and yells. But Harvey Milk also shows us beauty in that adolescent suffering not just by it’s lyrical content but also by their southern twangy sensibilities (see: Special Wishes). But they also demonstrate that they have some grasp on the poppyness of music, but still (at least lyrically) keep that pained groan.
After seeing Harvey Milk live, you get to really see them mess with your need to headbang because of it’s off-beat nature. It tricks you, you want to nod your head to a beat….but it’s so sporadic that they make it almost impossible.
Harvey Milk is one of those bands that makes me realize why I like southern sludge. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. If you get it, you almost wish you didn’t and you envy all of those happy people who don’t. Because when a band takes sadness to such a beastly and unearthly low, it’s hard to look up and see any light at all.
So in closing, here’s a live recording I wasn’t at. Notice Joe Preston on second guitar. That guy gets around. Also, the last part of the song is a play on The Velvet Undergrounds “Waiting on my man” and The Beatles “A Day in the life.”
Command Image: Shaky pictures of concerts from my cell phone
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