by Nick Soulsby
Later biographies dwelled on various differences, and Cobain’s journals fueled the fire with a letter claiming Foster was from “a totally different culture.” Yet crucially, what stands out in this unsent venting is that it’s one of the rare occasions when Cobain acknowledged how good one of his early drummers was.
PAUL KIMBALL: He was a great drummer to work with, really fun and funny a lot of the time … just a super-sweet soul.
RYAN AIGNER: He’s a funny guy, a crossover. You’ve got these worlds in every community: there’s the mainstream … People that are musicians, number one, they’re not part of the mainstream. They interact with the mainstream, but they’ve taken this passion for music, they’ve honed it, and they’ve become proactive and learned how to play an instrument. Now, you take that same guy that’s a musician and you put him into an aesthetic like punk rock—now he’s another step or two removed from the mainstream socially acceptable thing. Dave, he worked in the middle there: short haircut, he didn’t wear the punk-rock weirdo clothes, he didn’t give a flying crap about that, he was just a damn good musician and he just wanted to play and he really thought the music of Nirvana was good. I did too. When I said to Kurt that it was good enough to hear on the radio, that’s what Dave heard. Kurt was so worried about whether or not it was Black Flag enough, Dave and I didn’t care—it just sounded good and it was original and Dave didn’t want to play Judas Priest covers the rest of his life. He wasn’t going to get the Black Flag tattoo, he was just going to keep on being Dave.
Others remember little beyond the heft of Foster’s equipment.
SHAWN LAWLOR: Equipment-wise I don’t remember what they had, except the drums being what I perceived as too big. The toms were probably 18 to 20 and 22 [inches].
SLIM MOON: He had a really good large drum set. By large, I mean each piece was large, not that it had a lot of pieces. He tried to have a more “heavy” style than Aaron …
And some remember both his drums and his talent.
JASON MORALES, Helltrout: We were at another keg party and we met this other strange crazy redneck dude who happened to be partying there that night—we started talking to him and he pointed out he had played drums in Nirvana. “No way! I just saw those guys, they’re great—why don’t you come over to our place and play with us?” We hooked up with him the next morning; he was strolling ’round with a wicked hangover but he remembered us. We were waiting three, four hours, and he showed up with this gigantic drum kit—big double bass drum, everything huge, very Bonham-esque. He set it up and the first song … by the time we’d finished, we were like, Holy shit this is awesome. That’s the birth of Helltrout right there.
While it was the Crover demo that kick-started Sub Pop’s interest, it was Dave Foster holding the beat down when the label’s owners saw them in April and when Nirvana received a spot on a Sub Pop Sunday show that month.
CHRIS QUINN: He gets short shrift in history [but] he was an incredible drummer—this was a guy able to play stuff that Dale Crover had played on, he was great … He was always cool when I talked to him, but a real Aberdeen guy, and he didn’t have the same aspirations or the artistic inclinations that Kurt and Krist did. He just wanted to be a kickass drummer, and he was. A lot of the stuff said about him was just Kurt’s personal stuff … That guy filled Dale’s shoes, and that’s no joke—they looked really good with him. I don’t think he was as creative as Dale, but he could play those parts, do a lot of what Dale did. That’s not to say I don’t understand why they got rid of him and got Chad—Chad helped them do more of the poppy stuff. But Dave, being the type of drummer he was, for the time it was and what they were playing, he was amazing. I think the guy deserves more credit. He did help Nirvana bridge that gap.
The final piece soon fell into place. Nirvana fell into line with the sound Sub Pop was peddling and, on Foster’s watch, the first songs showing off this alignment—“Blew” and “Big Cheese”—emerged.
SLIM MOON: I think that Kurt was very influenced by what he was listening to in those days. When I first met him, he was listening to a lot of stuff on Touch and Go, such as Scratch Acid and Big Black, and those influences plus Devo and the Melvins inform the earlier stuff. He did start listening to more Sub Pop bands, along with stuff that he was being introduced to through the Olympia scene, and that started to show in the newer songs. I think Dinosaur [who were not yet called Dinosaur Jr. at that time] also influenced him a bit at that time, and he became less shy about his “classic rock” influences from his earlier teens. He once played me the first song he ever wrote, and I thought it sounded like vintage Aerosmith.
By June, Nirvana already had three more songs—“Mr. Moustache,” “Sifting,” and “Blandest”—mining the hard-rock/punk amalgam known as grunge.
CHRIS PUGH: When I saw them play, I was a fan almost immediately. I felt that though their playing wasn’t fantastic, their songs were great, so it was evident even in the early days that they got better fast, rehearsed a lot … by the fourth or fifth time they were really good. The crowds would erupt, people would dance! Their songs and Kurt’s singing was very compelling. A lot of bands when they first start they’re going to be rough—what got Nirvana to make the jump to great was Kurt’s singing, his sense of melody; he was able to capture great hooks and still be a punk rocker—but it’s the melody that set them apart.
But Foster wasn’t there to see it.
AARON BURCKHARD: Kurt and Krist would pick me up to come practice with them and just not tell Dave!
JASON MORALES: The way they kicked him out was pretty lame—they didn’t tell him anything, just advertised a show in the paper and he called them to ask about it and they said, “Well, you’re not, but we are…”
Regardless, Dave Foster’s brief spell with the band saw real change. He was there when it counted and Cobain wouldn’t lose his desire to have a hard-hitting drummer someday …
4.0
Becoming a Seattle Band
April to June 1988
Punk wrapped itself in the banner of rebellion, ostensibly against the “old dinosaurs” of ’70s rock; generational conflict was explicitly part of the template for the US underground in the ’80s. Frozen out by bars either unable to let in teens or simply not fond of punk, the underground was built around any locale in which underage kids could tear through songs. This was the world Nirvana inhabited, and they shared these same challenges and conflicts throughout their early years.
ALAN BISHOP, Sun City Girls: The original scene (at least in Austin) was made up of college art and RTF students with “weirdos” thrown in. The places you played, for the most part, were places where kids could not get into the shows … What was known as hardcore was largely based on [a] Do It Yourself ethic that realized that we all needed to find places where shows were all-ages and kids could come see for themselves that they could start bands, start fanzines, do something on their own … It was about showing that there was another choice on the table where self-expression lived and everyone could participate if they wanted. If you weren’t interested, no worries. If you were, come on …
CRAIG CRAWFORD, Mousetrap: The music scene in Omaha at the time was very DIY … almost all of the shows were held in rented halls. Since bars in the States require one to be twenty-one years of age to enter, you would have to play independent venues that didn’t serve alcohol. The Cog Factory on Leavenworth Street served this purpose, and the names of bands that came out of that place is long and legendary … The Lifticket was located in a lower-working-class neighborhood called Benson, and while the owner was very accommodating to bands, depending on the night the clientele could be a little rough. Later, there was the Capitol Bar downtown, and that became pretty much our main venue from ’91 to ’95.
JOSH KRIZ, Anxiety Prophets: The Zoo, ah the Zoo … miss that place. As you walked in, there was a tall Plexiglas wall that divided the two lower halves of the venue [the over-21 section, and the stage and dance floor area that was all-ages]. There was an uppe
r level that was also all-ages that had a banister that allowed concertgoers to look over the railing and see the action below. The walls were all painted in zebra and animal-print paint jobs (the Zoo, right?). The common denominator was black … lots and lots of black paint—probably about 70 percent was painted black. It allowed smoking back in the day, and there was a thick smoky haze inside.
In Seattle the Teen Dance Ordinance of 1985 generated a clear divide between venues that were friendly to those under twenty-one and those with closed doors.
JAMES BURDYSHAW, Cat Butt: Made it nearly impossible to put on an all-ages show in a legitimate club. The ordinance would insist if your place was under-21, you had to pay hefty fees for insurance and to meet fire codes. It was a move by the city to close clubs that were havens for teen runaways to do what they wanted and not tell their parents anything … Every time Seattle opened all-ages or eighteen-plus nightclubs, they would be shut down quick. The Underground in the University District was where the Sub Pop 200 record-release party was held, and that place lasted maybe six months tops.
TY WILLMAN, Inspector Luv and the Ride Me Babies: Squid Row, that’s going way back. It was the first club you’d play in Seattle, or one of the first, when you came to town. Very small place on Capitol Hill. They just opened up to letting a lot of bands play there even though it was only there a short space of time. The OK Hotel was the best all-ages venue.
BEAU FREDERICKS, Saucer: There were a lot of house parties, and all-ages venues would come and go. The Show Off Gallery (all-ages) and the Up & Up Tavern (over-21) were the main places at the time. They were very friendly places, and all you needed to do was say you were in a band and they would give you a show …
SCOTT VANDERPOOL: All-ages shows were big early in the punk/alternative days in Seattle, largely because all the established local bar venues (a) didn’t think they could sell any beer to bands with a young audience and (b) fucking hated the music. (Still the case when I got a gig running sound at the Fabulous Rainbow Tavern in the U-District; the guy who owned the PA didn’t want to be anywhere near the place when Jon Poneman–booked bands played!)
A number of all-ages events shuffled out of the city into neighboring towns—the Community World Theater being one example of the opportunities that arose.
SLIM MOON: It did mean more big shows in Tacoma and Bremerton, but Olympia is too far away from Seattle. In fact, it probably hurt Oly because it meant that some bands decided to skip the Northwest entirely if they couldn’t get a show in Seattle. Olympia did have a better all-ages scene than Seattle, which might be partially attributed to the Teen Dance Ordinance. But I should point out that I lived and went to shows in Seattle in 1983 to 1985, and also drove from Oly to Seattle to see shows from 1986 to 2006, and even though the TDO existed, there was never a time that all-age shows weren’t happening in Seattle. People either found ways to get around it, or they ignored it and took their chances of getting busted …
GLEN LOGAN, Bible Stud: These all-ages fans were/are incredibly dedicated and supportive. Years earlier the Lake Hills Roller Rink shows filled this gap on the east side. There were/are unique challenges faced by bands and promoters who wanted to play to the all-ages crowd and for the all-ages crowd who wanted to attend these shows. For example, a bar owner who doesn’t mind what band’s fans he or she sells booze to may be more open to having bands at their club. The bands are the honey that attract the bees who buy the booze. There is potentially more monetary risk where the built-in liquor sales are absent. This can lead to less all-ages opportunities for bands and fans alike.
NATHAN HILL, King Krab: Ellensburg was small and boring, so the only entertainment was music, crime, and drugs … Highway 18 to Olympia was a nightmare and was also a three-hour drive … Calvin Johnson went to elementary school here with Mark Lanegan. Through that connection I met the band Dangermouse, Slim Moon, and Dylan Carlson … Slim Moon’s Lush had played in Ellensburg earlier and I thought they were great. I called him to book another show and they couldn’t play so he suggested I call his friend Kurt Cobain. I did: they showed up and blew us all away. Well, all twenty of us … The Hal Holmes Center was the only place we could put on shows ourselves, and it sucked. Me and another guy put on all the shows because we wanted our bands to play somewhere, anywhere. We would try to bring in an out-of-town band, but we couldn’t pay anything more than gas money. It was very punk-rock, and I remember it fondly … We always let the out-of-town band headline unless they didn’t want to. We thought any band was better than we were! They were loud and heavy and blew us away. None of us realized that we could be that way—they were inspiring and a really nice bunch of guys …
Nirvana’s relatively strong focus on younger fans, on college audiences, was in part an outgrowth of the scene’s firm ideological commitment to all-ages shows.
SCOTT VANDERPOOL: All-ages shows were almost required to be cool in Olympia, Calvin Johnson would flat-out refuse to play to a 21-plus for years. The Tropicana wouldn’t have dreamed of getting a liquor license …
GEORGE SMITH: Again, the Tropicana, it was an incredibly important place in Olympia music—it was always in danger of getting shut down. All-ages clubs over here are always living week-to-week in danger of getting shut down because they attract a weird-looking bunch of people and I think it makes people nervous. To be sure, there are attendant minor crimes—vandalism, empties littering the street—I don’t think that it’s necessarily worse than other sorts of venues, but they get targeted. The Tropicana was always getting shut down and having flare-ups with the law. Reko/Muse was another club that was in town a year or two after GESSCO—another all-ages venue that had a short run. It was definitely one of the places to play, one of the short-lived places … We didn’t really consider taverns to be the same—the lifeblood of the scene was all-ages shows. A badge of honor was to keep playing all-ages rather than bar shows so that the kids could go. When you’re twenty-two, twenty-three, you still remember it was so lame there had been good shows you couldn’t go to. It was nice not to arbitrarily omit 50 percent of the audience. By twenty-four, twenty-five I guess you start to feel it’s nice not having all these kids running around!
By the time they started playing Seattle, Cobain and Novoselic were twenty-one and twenty-two, respectively, but had to be discreet regarding the youngster who would soon join them on drums: Chad Channing.
DAMON ROMERO: The laws in Washington State are really tricky. To play in a bar under the age of twenty-one is a real hassle. I did it, but you can’t just go in the club, not until it’s time to play, or you had to stay in a really dingy area in the corner of the bar—it wasn’t much fun. You were just relegated to some little corner at the side of the stage or had to stay outside. There were a couple of actual punk-rock venues in Seattle, one was an old cinema that had been converted—well, the seats were ripped out, so it was basically a concrete box—that was Gorilla Gardens Rock Theater. There was another place called the Gray Door … Unfortunately, as teenagers, we never made it down to the Tropicana—but we spoke about it, just never made the trip.
While these difficulties didn’t limit the ability to get shows, it restricted the free movement of band members and made it harder to draw enthusiastic teens. Sub Pop would work to ensure Nirvana played all-ages shows. For example, they secured Nirvana a December 1 slot below two punk legends.
PETER LITWIN: Jonathan Poneman actually called me and asked me if I could get them onto the gig. We had a fairly well established all-ages following at this point and Jonathan thought they needed to do more all-ages shows … I should mention that Jonathan gave Coffin Break our first bar show in Seattle—he was always supportive of us, so I was more than happy to do him a favor. Plus, I loved Nirvana … I never knew Kurt was a big Coffin Break fan till many years later.
JOE KEITHLEY, D.O.A.: Seattle was one of the worst places to find an all-ages show—the city councilors were absolutely draconian and puritan about not wanting kids near alcohol … In L.A. what they w
ould do is check your ID and if you didn’t have ID then they’d take a sharpie and put a big X on your left and then your right hand, so if you were trying to reach for a beer the bartender would see your X … in the Northwest they just wouldn’t let you in unless you had these completely separate shows with no alcohol. The promoter invited us down either at the end of a tour back from California or maybe just for the weekend, but the singer from Coffin Break said we needed to go do some fliers, so we walked to Kinko’s and when we got back Nirvana had finished and were taking the cymbals off the stand so I had no clue who they were.
The generational divide was written indelibly into the emerging music.
CHRIS BLACK: I recall that Bliss and the other bands were slow and sludgy, and that they had long hair.
ROD MOODY, Swallow: We were the fourth band on the official label … all featured big, loud, ugly guitars, screaming vocals, and relentless rhythm sections. None were very subtle but all had their distinct personalities and influences. Green River had Stooges and (later) glam. Soundgarden had psych elements mixed into their Sabbath/Zep foundation. Blood Circus was straight-up biker rock, and Swallow brought in some pop elements. We were all a little different musically, but we had a common ground as well. That was the heavy. And we all had long hair.
Punk spat at its counterculture precursors by dispensing with hippie/rock-god hair, then hardcore took it to the extreme with Marine Corps–esque skinheads. A few more years and the next wave of youngsters again wanted to stand out alongside their immediate elders, which they did by re-embracing hard rock and long hair.
MIKE MORASKY, Steel Pole Bath Tub: Funny, of all things, I do remember Nirvana’s long hair and thinking that it was cool, like they were a heavy Southern rock band or something. Even though we were referencing some of the same music sources, they were coming at the heaviness from a very different direction … we were art punks and players; they were a pop band.
