Harvey Danger Saying Cool Stuff On The Radio

Our mysteriously long commute this morning (the rain? aurora borealis centralized on 99?), in concert with an even more mysterious mp3 player outage (battery power? the gods telling us we need an iPod? technical ineptitude?) forced us to catch Harvey Danger on KEXP. KEXP is broadcasting out of the Museum of Television and Radio in NYC currently, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Harvey Danger (we think it was Sean?) was on with host John Richards and saying a lot of incredibly cool things. Plus they played a few tracks from their new Little by Little CD and they were incredibly decent, particularly Wine Women and Song.

One of the things they talked about, and we've heard this before from other sources, is the fact that Harvey Danger will be giving their new album away on their website and through BitTorrent. When John Richards asked if they thought that giving away downloads of Little by Little would undercut their sales Sean said something about downloads and CD purchases being distinct muscle groups and that he didn't think it would have an affect. And he just wants people to hear the album. And it's going to get on the internets anyway. And that's how people listen to music. This is straight from our addled memory, folks.

Then conversation came around to the Katrina benefit Harvey Danger will soon be playing with Death Cab For Cutie at the Showbox, which is, of course, sold out. It turns out that they bought a few tickets themselves, though, and are holding a contest on their website to give them away. Who buys tickets to their own benefit concert, you might ask. Harvey Danger, apparently. We did have a little trouble locating the giveaway on their website, but as soon as we rolled up our pant legs and waded into the forums we were able to find it. They're accepting 1000-word essays on the relationship between art and activism, or, in their own words:

THE TOPIC: Given the surge in political outspokenness during the last presidential election, and the huge outpouring of benefit activity surrounding Hurricane Katrina and last year’s tsunami in SE Asia, what do you think of the way artists, especially bands/singers/rappers et al, respond to such situations? How does it affect your appreciation of the music and the musicians? What is the relationship between art and activism, or better yet, what should it be? (1,000 words or less.)

Essays to be submitted no later than Sunday night at their in-store appearance at Sonic Boom.