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Back To The Shack

Nearly two decades after its release, Seattle indie rock band Harvey Danger’s cherished debut full-length album, Where have all the merrymakers gone?, will be released on vinyl LP for the first time ever on July 29th via No Sleep Records.

The Vinyl packaging for Where have all the merrymakers gone? will feature new artwork, designed by band members Aaron Huffman, Evan Sult and Sean Nelson, that features the same house where the band lived together during their early years - as depicted in the original cover art - now updated to reflect the passage of time.

Originally released in 1997, Where have all the merrymakers gone? catapulted the young band to stardom with the massive radio and video success of their anthemic hit song “Flagpole Sitta.” The album has since sold over half a million copies with the single still receiving regular airplay on radio stations across the country.

For many critics, Harvey Danger’s history begins and ends with “Flagpole Sitta.” However, a revisitation of Where have all the merrymakers gone? reveals an album that transcends it’s most famous song with music that is smart, sardonic and dynamic and a band that was far more than simply a “one hit wonder.” 

Harvey Danger emerged from the garages and basements of mid-'90s Seattle playing music that walked a line between indie-rock and pop-punk, with an uncommon emphasis on the clever, heartfelt lyrics. They never sought worldwide notoriety, but managed the best they could when it was thrust upon them. Simply put it was four kids, Aaron Huffman (bass), Jeff Lin (guitar), Evan Sult (drums) and Sean Nelson (vocals), who created a song and an album that made a mark on rock music and whose pleasures have only deepened with time.

In preparation for the upcoming release, singer Sean Nelson wrote a foreword for the vinyl release, looking back on the album and its unexpected success.

“Under the long shadow of 17 years’ worth of memory, I must say that listening back to the 10 songs that changed everything for us is a bracing sensation. To hear the person you were when you weren’t yet who you are now is to understand how little you understood, and to recognize how little you even could have understood. This is doubly bracing when you consider that the person you were then had everything riding on the depth of his understanding. It’s tempting to be hard on your past self, the one who made all those idiotic mistakes, who scorched so many friendships, who insisted he knew exactly what we was doing while steering car after car into ditch after ditch. And yet, temptations aside, it feels a lot better, and in a much bigger way, to hoist hindsight’s binoculars to your deteriorating eyes and spy something you love.” (full essay from Nelson can be found in the liner notes of the vinyl LP)

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