by Nick Soulsby
Sub Pop’s strategy was working—each new band was seen in the light of past Sub Pop successes, making fans more likely to take a shot on something they hadn’t heard. This benefited Bleach upon its release in June.
ROBIN PERINGER: I was a fan of Green River, who played my hometown when I was in high school. Friends told me that this new band, Mudhoney, had formed out of Green River and were playing L.A. while I was living there. I went and saw them at Club Lingerie, opening for Sonic Youth … I was hooked. I started buying whatever Sub Pop put out, which is how I bought Bleach and I loved it.
LORI JOSEPH, Bhang Revival: An old boyfriend in God’s Acre who worked in a record store turned me on to Sub Pop 200. I loved it and then followed all the bands on that label after that release. It made a huge impression on me. I went out and bought a wah-wah pedal! I was like, Holy shit this music is soooooo freaking awesome. I followed Nirvana and saw them every time they were in town. I think in 1989 at Club Dreamerz and then we followed them to Milwaukee. There were ten to fifteen people at this show. I remember they were hanging out in front of the venue. I told them if they put us on the guest list I would give them the door cover directly just to make sure they got some money.
CRISPIN WOOD, The Bags: I hadn’t heard Bleach, but I knew about it. There was a bit of hype around Nirvana at the time because they were on Sub Pop. I remember hearing that they recorded Bleach for $600. We took pride in the fact that, the year prior, we recorded an album (Swamp Oaf) in less than twenty-four hours and paid only $800. So we were kind of like, “What?! $600? How did they do that?!”
Bleach was released after Nirvana was on the road, so most audiences had no chance to pick up a copy. Even bands they’d be accompanying during the tour were unaware of them.
ALAN BISHOP: June of 1989 in Tempe Arizona. We pulled up to the Sun Club to unload through the back door and do a sound check. There was another van parked there with three younger guys milling around it. I approached them and they introduced themselves and asked if we were Sun City Girls. They said they were very happy to play with us, that they listened to our music, whatever, was a bit awkward as those moments tend to be and I was doubting that another band was on the bill that night—it was only supposed to be two bands, us and Crash Worship from California. Then I’m like, whatever, they’re here and must have been added, and asked what the name of their band was and Kurt said “Nirvana.” Of course I started fucking with them and said, “Oh, so we’re gonna reach Nirvana tonight are we?” Don’t remember anything else about them until they started playing. What I remember most about the set was Krist being so tall on that stage with a low ceiling, and his head kept banging the ceiling during the set and it was quite amusing. Their sound, to me, was very similar to many bands that were coming through town at the time, nothing really set them apart for me.
CHRIS DESJARDINS, Stone by Stone: I have no recollection of Nirvana opening … I frequently would not get to the club until right before the set, so I probably just missed them. It was a turbulent time in my life and shortly after that I renamed the band the Flesh Eaters, which had always been the main group name I’d used off and on since 1977.
DAVID VON OHLERKING: The Axiom was fantastic. My band played there every Wednesday for a long time … It was nasty and dirty and there was a couch that was infested with crab lice. If you were an asshole they would make you sit on it while you waited to get paid … My punk-ass rhythm section opted out long before the show, but oddly showed up … the Nirvana show had thirty people max, probably twenty with sixteen people paying, then the guests and friends … They were awesome, loved them. My rhythm section didn’t get it … the small crowd were fairly static and undemonstrative—it can’t have been much encouragement for them but they rocked it … I liked the rhythm guitar player a lot. Awkward and charming dude.
Like in their early Seattle days, Nirvana had to prove themselves afresh. They would earn a few converts both through performance and general likeability.
TIM KERR: I already knew some of the songs and thought they were a good band but it wasn’t like “Oh my Gawd!” It was just good. It was not a big club, I remember that. We were sharing the backstage area … One newspaper chick [Public News] announced that they would change the world but not everyone believed her.
DOUG GILLARD, Death of Samantha: Nirvana’s set starts and we had no idea Kurt broke his guitar. I could have lent him mine if we’d known, but he chose to just not play. He had a black dress on … They were hungry and this was their Boston show, y’ know?… My memory of that show was being at our van in the parking lot with Dave Swanson getting dressed, changing clothes, and Krist Novoselic saunters over from their beat-up white van, a fifth of Myers’s Rum in his hand, big white T-shirt, and very happy, saying, “Hey, are you guys from Death of Samantha? I’m in Nirvana.” He couldn’t have been nicer or warmer … already really sloshed and slurry when he came up to us, but he was sweet as can be.
ED FARNSWORTH: A Sunday night. By that point, Dobbs was starting to get some of the shows the Khyber would have otherwise had (and probably would have done better with, although they weren’t open on Sundays at the time). As I recall there was barely anyone at the show. I wanted to see Nirvana because some of my friends whose taste I respected were fans. I remember dismissively thinking as they played, They sound like a crappy hardcore band … Everyone was pretty nice, although I also remember everyone looked very tired—I imagine they had played either NYC or DC the night before and goodness knows how long they had been out on the road.
TOM TRUSNOVIC, Monkeyshines: One of them—Krist or Chad, I’m certain—thanked me for covering “Stiff Little Fingers” in Monkeyshines’s set. I thought that was a nice gesture, more friendly than would seem customary … That Elvis/Alice Cooper backdrop did not bode well … They had stacks, I mean, heavy-metal STACKS of amps, and were unwilling to turn down even when the maxed-out PA was insufficient for vocals and the volume began to thin out the crowd, who headed outside to drink in the parking lot … “Dive” and “About a Girl” aside, it was assertively audience unfriendly sludge-grunge … at some point someone in front straight-up requests “something fast,” and they respond with one of Bleach’s slower numbers. Not in a mean-spirited way, just “Hey, this is what we are doing.”
DAVID YAMMER: My main memory is standing out front by the door leaning against a wall, looking at a van parked across the street parallel to the club on McKinney. It seems that the members (or at least some of them) were sleeping in the van. It had been dark for a little bit—sound check was over—and we would be opening the doors soon. It was a slow night … Anyway, I was leaning against the wall and this hippie/Goth/punk chick who had lived on the West Coast for a while came up to me and started raving to me about Nirvana—I had never heard of them before—saying that she couldn’t believe that more people weren’t there yet. She went over and woke them up and started talking to them. They looked like normal, scruffy rock ’n’ roll musicians … The Axiom was the kind of place we would go to hang out even if no one was playing. The owner, J. R. Delgado, would let us in to shoot pool or whatever, so even on a night when there was a relatively unknown band playing there would be people there to hang out—the whole thing was low-key and despite my vagueness I do remember it as being somewhat intimate and, of course, loud!… Most performing musicians—on that street level—drop the stage persona when not up on the boards, and are almost unassuming in nature and not too demanding of a club’s staff. In fact, one may not even realize that they are the band until they get onstage.
JON WAHL, Claw Hammer: I remember when Kurt first entered Al’s Bar before sound check. He was a grouch and wouldn’t talk. Novoselic apologized on Kurt’s behalf, claiming the traffic into L.A. was brutal. Probably very true … This Nirvana gig was up there in the gnarly gig realm. I wouldn’t consider them as inexperienced, not at all. They had their shit together. It was an amazing show. Sweaty, heavy-handed rock ’n’ roll done by junkie Seattleites. I was a fan going in
there and a fan walking out. I remember the stage collapsing in chaos in the last chord of the last tune as Kurt lunged himself into the drum set to end the whole thing. Walking out of Al’s, the ears rang and the beer buzzed. What else can you ask for? And then a handful of fans buying the not-officially-available, hot-off-the-press Bleach from Kurt and company from the back of their van.
Nirvana left odd impressions wherever they went.
DANA HATCH, Cheater Slicks: Broke-ass twentysomething punkers … We were standing in the parking lot smoking pot when Nirvana arrived. A couple of them joined the circle and one had some hash in a pouch around his neck. We thought from that, their name, and their VW van they were hippies … Kurt seemed really pissy but maybe just wasn’t feeling well.
DAVID VON OHLERKING: They were a weird mixture of hippie and punk, like Hüsker Dü—not nervous; happy dorks … Didn’t know who they were at all … They looked broke like us.
TOM TRUSNOVIC: They seemed a smidge ragged-looking, but not punk ragged, you know? Like Midwest flannel pothead outcast ragged. Ha! They were hiding out in the van most of the night, it seemed.
LLOYD WALSH, Swaziland White Band: Originally the gig we were offered was for a birthday party … we were her favorite band at the time, along with the Happy Dogs, so that was how the gig was created. When we showed up to play, Alfred, the owner, came up to me and said, “Sorry, guys, there was a fuck-up, this other band is touring from Seattle, do you mind if they play?” Not that he was really giving us a choice, I mean who’s going to say no? Anyway, Nirvana sheepishly approached us to discuss the order of bands and we offered to open for them … they played second and the Happy Dogs ended the night. After the gig they crashed at one of the Happy Dogs’ places.
JOHN FARRELL, Swaziland White Band: Our fangirl was Wendy … I remember sensing that Nirvana was a bit aloof at our humble gig and did not want to unpack a whole lot. When they came out of their van with hand-wrench outlines spray-painted over their curtains thereon, they looked like smallish hippie types just out of the spin cycle. I do remember they eventually got out some Marshall amps and began to rock the house down. I was impressed.
DENNIS FALLON, Swaziland White Band: I remember laughing at the big rock-star style hair flippin’/headbanger moves—too funny!
JOSE SORIA, Happy Dogs: We had a person who worked with the Sub Pop label, so everyone on Sub Pop would come through the Happy Dogs—we already knew, had their albums, were set up … They stayed at our house a whole day before they played and we partied the whole damn night. Krist was real friendly, knew a little about everything … Kurt Cobain was a little relaxed and didn’t open up to you—I didn’t get to talk to him for two or three hours after they got there. We had our own conversation. A little more not wanting to talk to everybody … Cobain slept in the van, the rest slept on the floor … River Road, everybody knew our house! It was a place to go. Elvis-Cooper—Kurt made it, he had the Elvis thing but he painted Alice Cooper parts on it. My girlfriend had covered herself in it while she was sleeping so in the morning when the band were leaving Kurt looked at her and said, “Hey, you’re cold, you can keep it.” They were exactly like us—in terms of wanting to play, wanting to party, they were just really cool and like “Let’s do it, let’s do it man.” That night it was one of my friends’ birthday parties and they were coming through town and weren’t even going to play in San Antonio but we said, “You wanna play? You wanna play at Alfred’s?” And we did it—a really great thing. Kurt Cobain came back with the other guitarist, bought a couple of guitars here in San Antonio, I kept in touch with Krist Novoselic.
Nirvana would later recall it as a fairly rough tour. Even playing alongside one of the underground’s cult acts barely netted them a profit.
ALAN BISHOP: After the show, the club manager handed me $225 to distribute between the bands ($5 cover, fifty-five people paid—add fifteen, twenty guests and it’s seventy plus at the show). I called a guy from Crash Worship over and found Kurt, split the $225 three ways into $75 each and handed both their shares. The Crash Worship guy started complaining and saying that Nirvana was not even supposed to be on the bill and that they didn’t deserve a third of the take, that Sun City Girls drew most of the crowd … so I handed him our share of $75 and said something like “Take this—you’re on the road too.” He grimaced, knowing there was really nothing he could say, refused the extra cash, and left.
Nirvana rolled into New York so out of enthusiasm they’d already canceled the tour’s final eleven days and seven shows. Their relationship with guitarist Jason Everman had broken down.
TOM TRUSNOVIC: On second guitar, I don’t wanna be unreasonable, but I love the Damned, right? That guy looked and sounded pretty fucking far from the Damned. Ha! He seemed to ooze the sort of repellent, dunderheaded machismo that I thought metal represented. Didn’t he end up playing in Soundgarden, then joining the Army? Big surprise.
They didn’t skip this show, however, because it wasn’t just another gig. This was the New Music Seminar, a promotional event giving Nirvana their first contact with the wider music business.
SHAMBIE SINGER: [It was] essentially a meet-and-greet for up-and-coming bands, record labels, the PR community, and college-radio folks. A chance to assemble everyone in one spot and let the matchmaking happen. I think the official line was a bit less crass … But at heart and in practice, that year at least, it seemed mostly about getting alternative bands hooked up with independent and mainstream labels and PR groups. I think a lot of bands without record contracts came to the NMS specifically to try to find a deal. And for bands on independent labels it was a chance to showcase for the majors.
MIKE HARD, God Bullies: This was a College Music Journal [CMJ] showcase … Being a showcase pretty much means all the bands get paid the same stipend, like a hundred and fifty bucks, and sets are kept short.
It wasn’t necessarily a huge event; each band had fairly casual reasons for being there.
SHAMBIE SINGER: Mike’s grandmother was out of town and we were able to stay for free at her place. And generally it seemed like the trip’d be relatively easy, and the gig fun, and a good chance to see a chick I was sort of dating who lived in NYC.
MIKE HARD: I think you guys want to make it more than what it was. Like there was some kind of magic there. This was a CMJ show. A joint Sub Pop/Amrep venture, and it was work to us. We knew everyone was there to see Nirvana, so we just wanted to get out of their way, play a good set, make our statement (whether the audience wanted to hear it or not), and then go hang out with our friends. We weren’t real bitch magnets or even “cool.” God Bullies was kind of a therapy session for the members involved. We were selfish in that respect. We needed to do this or we would be the ones you would read about in the paper the next day, you know? So and so committed this crime because of their repressive childhood? We were acting out. I do not know what motivated bands like Nirvana. We were trying to save souls and were on a path of enlightenment.
JOHN LEAMY, Surgery: For us it was just another hometown gig.
For Nirvana it could still have been a chance for industry exposure. Instead, by the second song, a drunk clambered onstage to shout, “Fucking shit!”
MIKE HARD: They were off doing interviews all day or something. Rolled in after sound check like rock stars … It was because they were lazy and already thought they had a certain privilege. This is another big bullshit story; they were so poor? Any working band at this time wasn’t getting paid shit. Our equipment was like gold. If Nirvana fucked it up or broke it, it would be us the next night who’d be fucked. We’d seen how hard they were on their equipment, we were not about to let them fuck up our shit … There may have been some confusion with all the bands and Nirvana: if we were all going to set up our own backlines or just use one band’s. Maybe Nirvana hung around the venue, but it seems they just showed up, wondered if they had to unload or if we were sharing backlines, and then took off until they had to go on.
JOHN LEAMY: I stood outsid
e smoking cigarettes during their set … Didn’t meet them. I was tired though.
KEVIN RUTMANIS, Cows: I didn’t watch the band at all that night … I walked up, was surprised to see how many people were there, and left. I never cared much for Nirvana—not at all at that point, in fact. I’m sure our booker arranged the show.
SHAMBIE SINGER: I talked to Kurt briefly in the dressing room … you had to climb down a steep ladder to get there. I recall talking to him about how dangerous it felt to climb up and down that ladder. And I told him a story about another night we’d played … When a huge—like six-foot-seven—dude climbed down the ladder while I was there and transformed himself over the course of about forty-five minutes into a spitting image of Marie Antoinette. Alternative-music night at the Pyramid was always Tuesdays. But on the weekends the club hosted transvestite cabaret acts. And a lot of the regular performers had lockers filled with their stage outfits in the club dressing room … Nirvana didn’t seem qualitatively any different from any of the other “Seattle” bands then. And quantitatively I understood they were maybe on the second tier of things.
