I imagine the conversation between him and Colbert before each show is a sweet but kind of deluded pep-talk. "All right, Jon, you really wanna try again tonight? We couldn't really pull off the banter yesterday. But you're sure you want to give it another go? Yeah? YEAAHH! All right, I believe in you, buddy! We're…

True story: the year they released "Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)," I actually worked on Christmas Day. At a movie theater. (Albeit not repertory.)

That happened on Napster/Kazaa all the time. Various jerks would share the song, saying it was "Paranoia Paranoia" or "I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well" by Lit, Blink-182 or Green Day. I think I even saw one person who claimed it was by the Foo Fighters.

Don't forget their third album, Little by Little…, which they gave away for free/pay-what-you-like years before Radiohead's In Rainbows. A lot of great tracks on that one.

You should hear the more updated version of "Jack the Lion," which they recorded live a couple times. It's slower, and swaps out the guitar for moody piano that's highly akin to "Pike St./Park Slope." Really heartwrenching.

Harvey Danger (mostly though Sean Nelson) actually has connections to a lot of mainstay Seattle bands. The Long Winters's John Roderick was the band's backup keyboardist/guitarist on the King James Version tour, and Nelson helped produce the first Long Winters album as a sorta-co-founder. (Nelson stepped away after…

It's the first and second album. Nelson left the band in 2004 to restart Harvey Danger, just before John Roderick began work on the Ultimatum EP and Putting the Days to Bed.

I'm one of the few fans I know who really likes "Terminal Annex" off that album. "Radio Silence" also doesn't get nearly enough credit as an amazing closer track.

Fun Fact: They did not want to do that cover, but MTV Films bullied them into it for the soundtrack to 200 Cigarettes. Judging by the self-produced rarities CD sold on the band's farewell tour, I think they were actually intending to do a version of "Maneater" for the movie.

I wouldn't say the song drops off completely with the white-boy reggae, but it does totally change the eerie edge of it. I think they were just trying to find a way to make the song not sound like a complete take-off of Radiohead's "Creep?"

"Sex and Candy" is aiight with me. Just as Marcy Playground put the bare minimum amount of effort into writing and recording it, I enjoy the song on a level of utter passivity.

At one point in the song, Nelson actually sings the word "Vertigo" three times in a row with increasing urgency. As if he's willing himself to jump out of your Discman, grab you by the shoulders and point you to the library to go check out some dang Hitchcock already, you dumb teenagers.

As great as Merrymakers is, their sophomore album King James Version is even better. It's actually disgraceful how it got no real critical attention or label support.

It's an intentional thematic trick, though. The first two choruses actually go "I'm so hot / 'cuz I'm in hell." They change it to the seemingly lazy "live so well" as the very last line to signify surrendering to all the mediocrity that the rest of the song was decrying.

I wouldn't give the movie much cred, honestly. "Flagpole" was already a huge radio mainstay by the time American Pie came out. And the movie was so transparently mercenary in its execution that the obvious reason the song was even used was merely the need for something fast-paced and recognizable to enhance the energy…

Poor, poor Wheatus.

Your loss, bud.

It's more of a spiritual ponytail.

I can attest that it is terrific for karaoke.

Because Pitchfork doesn't know shit about shit.