„courtesy and good will toward men“

(Relapse, 1996)

So much has been written about this band and still nobody seems to know them except for a few die hard fans that won’t ever budge. Amongst them members of The Melvins, Sunn0))) and other great grandfathers of what is the most progressive and extreme rock out there. Rock that is so extreme it comes in around the other way not rocking anymore and thereby hitting even harder. These days some music of Harvey Milk has been re-released or unearthed and the band has played some gigs, even though they are still broken up. Whatever that means in the real world or in your private little pit, „Courtesy and good will toward men“ is the undisputed masterpiece of this Georgia three piece for more reasons than you can shake a hen at. Some of them will follow, but in beforehand I would like to add a disclaimer: in which ways ever this music will influence your life, change you or your career in love or business, or anything else – I won’t be held responsible. I am just pointing out to you that this is a great record. It is also as big as a mountain, burning like a volcano and impressive as a lot of other geographically inclined metaphors.

Harvey Milk as a band are a mystery. Unlike the San Franciscean gay rights activist of the same name, about whom almost everything is known, Harvey Milk remains elusive. Interviews are scarce, though informative and enriching, but what the actual plan behind the forming of the band was, remains unclear. In comparison to for instance Metallica („we want to be the #1 metal band“), Fantomas („we want to be the weirdest heaviest band on the planet“) or U2 („we want to the most annoying dickheads this world has ever seen“) the mission statement of Harvey Milk remains in blind. And the four sides of vinyl don’t give any further clues either.

From the opening strangeness of the epic „Pinocchio’s example“ via the hymnic guitar lines of „My broken heart will never mend“ to the cover version of Leonard Cohen’s (!!!!! and one more !) „One of us cannot be wrong“ everything is possible. Mostly it is slow and slowly unfolding, so Harvey Milk were put into the doom, sludge and slo-mo metal parts of the universe, but that is just as true as sticking Evil Knievel to race track drivers. Harvey Milk are a genre of their own as it is. And aside from the heaviness and the darkness, the true masterpiece of Harvey Milk is a structural one. There are sparse, minimal arrangements led by piano as well as crushing thuds of guitar and drum noise. There is frenzied noise in guitar feedbacks that burns like the best of Wolf Eyes and there are well thought out guitar lines that will run through your brain as straight and planned as a Mid Western train track. But the true genius is not in the parts, but in the way they are put together.

There are really long tracks that transcend the fast hammering of metal and the slow purging of noise drones into a fusion of burning hot lava. In places where lesser bands and projects tend to go boring, Harvey Milk managed to become exciting. Then there are tracks that are close to real songs, lyrics are never important, it seems, and their use random. At other times the song is just a hand picked guitar and not a lot more. Atmosphere is what counts, the effect of the music stands more important than the pose. Can you imagine this band playing before Slayer? The common nutheaded Slayer whorshipper would try to kill them as soon as the first piano chord appears. Of course, I like Slayer a lot, and there is just as much Slayer in Harvey Milk as there is Henryk Gorecki or Leonard Cohen or Tortoise, after all. Gonzo, they even share ideas with the Einstürzende Neubauten and I mean more than just using sledgehammers as instruments.

But as I said, it is all in the structures. The arrangements and compositions (yes, you read that right and I’ll repeat it: compositions) seemed easy on the surface but were quite complicated. Just try to play along to these time-shifts, rhythm changes, harmony changes. Great musicians after all. Any decent music teacher would ask why they wasted their talent so much. Listen closely and they will turn you upside down in wonder of what is going on. Listen absentmindedly and the music will at one point grab you, shake you and you will say, what is happening on this platter exactly. Anyway, it won’t leave you alone. Maybe if Harvey Milk had released a more straightforward record once in a while, like the Melvins do, they would be still around and famous. (And using The Melvins as a „straightforward“ reference point is saying a lot more than I have done before in all these words.) The way they chose, they have turned into a legend. Probably a resuscitated legend, we will see.