“Introduction by ‘Humble’ Harv”
by Harvey Miller
1968 song
What would a fake live album be without a fake compère to address the fake crowd? The Seeds’ Raw & Alive album begins with Los Angeles disc jockey Harvey Miller, a.k.a Humble Harv, introducing “Sky Saxon and The Seeds!” The short speech was recorded in the studio especially for the album and tacked onto the beginning of "Mr. Farmer", the first actual song on the LP.
Harv does a fine job, but his curious lack of rapport with the audience (just like the band on this album) was of course a result of the fact that there was no audience. This odd dynamic reached its logical conclusion in 2014 when the entire “show” was finally issued without the crowd noises by Big Beat. Humble builds up a crescendo of hype, there’s a beat of absolute silence, and then "Mr. Farmer" starts up, to hilarious effect.
(By the way, the Big Beat CD uses the fuller and differently-spelled title “Introduction By ‘Humble Harve’ Miller”.)
On various CDs over the years “Introduction By ‘Humble’ Harv” has been indexed both as a separate track and alongside "Mr. Farmer". On a Japanese release of the debut album called The Seeds + 8 in 1991, HH’s intro was indexed with the Raw & Alive take of "No Escape" as a bonus track, while that same year the Japanese Future + 8 indexed the same ol’ intro with "Satisfy You". ‘Humble’ Harv aficionados will, of course, want to seek out each version for their own collections.
Following The Seeds’ demise things went awry, arguably, for Harvey Miller. He suspected, shot, and killed his wife in 1972, ending up behind bars. Undeterred, he established a prison radio station and continued to broadcast, continuing his successful DJ career after his release.
