I Found My Friends

by Nick Soulsby

  SETH PERRY: Dale and I took a seat at the end of the bar by the front door of the club and spent all of the Melvins’ and Nirvana’s sets sitting there drinking beer. At one point we had an inkling to try to go watch Nirvana but decided not to, as the club was too packed, so we decided on the safety of our seats with quick access to the exit. It was quite claustrophobic in there and I remember being amazed at how many people were stuffed in.

  The night before the Legends show, Nirvana was showing the Dionysian spirit of rock ’n’ roll in other ways.

  GEORGE SMITH: At the Steamboat Island show, there was a buzz that Kurt was on heroin … At that show people were talking about track marks—he had faked them up on his arms to skewer or maybe propagate the rumor … People were talking “Kurt has track marks,” but he had drawn them, overdone. I didn’t think about it too much at the time—Ian McKinnon, a popular punk-rock guy in town, had died from an overdose … I didn’t know if it was true about Kurt and if he was just having a goof at people or if there was something to that.

  JUSTIN TROSPER: Sub Pop bands were very “rock” compared to the Olympia thing, and Nirvana straddled that line … Kurt came out onstage looking all fucked up with what appeared to be track marks. He was pretending to be a junkie, or he was one, but in any case we all thought that was really stupid even though, and especially because, we were big fans. The Seattle bands pretended to be rock stars until they actually became them!

  VADIM RUBIN: The rap on those guys back then was that they were pretty into drugs. So to me he seemed like he was a bit of a stoner.

  STEVE MORIARTY: Part of the scene with the Sub Pop bands revolved around heroin—we were anti-heroin, anti-drugs, it was our common sense we thought; we drank a lot but we weren’t doing drugs—not smack, anyway.

  CHRIS QUINN: I remember Kurt having a lot of stomach problems back at the time I knew him—he had something going on. He had the stomach thing, and when I knew him he had no reason to make it up—for a long time I thought he didn’t drink or do drugs, I thought he was straightedge … I never saw him do anything in that whole period—but I’m only one person. For the amount I drank at the time, the amount of people I knew drinking at parties—it was college—Kurt never seemed like he was into that; it wasn’t his thing.

  Rumors …

  Cobain was certainly open to experimentation, at least of the musical kind. During this spell in Olympia he worked with a Calvin Johnson/Tobi Vail outfit, the Go Team; sang for his friend Dylan Carlson’s band Earth; and collaborated with members of Screaming Trees on a project known as the Jury.

  MARK PICKEREL: I loved the collaboration and would have loved for it to turn in to something prolific and consistent, but both bands just became overwhelmed with their own workloads and responsibilities as well as devotion to their own writing. I also have to wonder if it was a little uncomfortable for [Mark] Lanegan and Cobain to figure out how to divide up the workload—they were both such strong singers, but Lanegan didn’t play an instrument at the time, so it didn’t leave him much to do on songs that Cobain sang. I will say, though, that I thought it was a really magical meeting of musical minds, and if we’d had just a little more time to develop it, we could have made an amazing album!

  Becoming a top draw at the “in” label meant Nirvana could live reasonably on just a few local shows, as they proved in 1990 by playing only once a month for March, September, November, and December, while not at all in June and July.

  JOHN PURKEY: There was around $7,000 made. She [the promoter] paid out $500 each to Nirvana and the Melvins. Machine made $150, though we were guaranteed $500 if there were five hundred people at the show. The show turned out to be over capacity. Something like eight hundred people.

  CRISPIN WOOD: We were paid $500 that night. I assume Nirvana was paid the same, possibly more since they went on last. Not crazy-great money, but not bad, either. I also know that Cobain was not impressed by the sound man that came with the rented PA. After hearing us do our check, Cobain offered our sound man $100 to mix their set. Our sound man—Carl Plaster, engineer/producer on most of our recordings—turned Cobain down. Nirvana couldn’t have been hurting too badly for money if Cobain was able to offer $100 for sound.

  MARC BARTHOLOMEW: The Nirvana show at the Cactus Club was our first legit paid gig. The band got $50 cash and every member got a free drink ticket. I’m sure the few friends of ours who showed up covered that $50 with their ticket price at the door. The only other benefit was the sound guy was usually cool and would record your set from the mixing board onto a cassette tape … After our set we hung out with the other bands, I got my free drink ticket, and felt like a big shot being nineteen years old, drinking a draft Budweiser in a big red plastic cup walking around a club. It was basically “Here’s your drink tickets, get your shit off the stage.”

  Nirvana had ambition as well as label obligations, so they found themselves supporting Tad on a tour haring down the West Coast to Tijuana, Mexico.

  ERIC MOORE: Pine Street holds maybe … 1,100 people? It was oversold, I’m sure, with more people than that. The idea that a large number of people would come see bands like Tad and Nirvana was sort of new at the time … There was a lot of talk about the lineup and who would headline. Tad was considered a bigger act in some ways, but they were all headliners … I think we got tacked onto the bill because one of our band members was sleeping with someone who worked for Monqui (the production company) at the time … Tad walked up to me (he was friendly sometimes!) and complimented me on our set. Stoked! And then … someone from, I’m guessing Nirvana’s crew, stole my leather jacket from behind my amp onstage.

  KURT DANIELSON: We met with Nirvana to discuss the upcoming West Coast tour on the day of the HUB Ballroom show … an atmosphere of brotherhood infused the venue. It was an exciting time, a triumphant homecoming gig after a triumphant European tour with our brothers … while we casually joked with Kurt and Krist about the tour in Europe and about the upcoming tour, they told Tad and me that they had decided that they should headline that night at the HUB Ballroom, as well as on the West Coast tour. Tad and I were a little surprised—not so much that they should headline but that they should tell us they were going to, and yet they told us in a kind of subtle, friendly way, and there was no mention of a coin toss—because there was an unaccustomed tension in the air … It seemed that Kurt had decided that he wasn’t going to be put in a position in which he was going to lose any more coin tosses, especially not in America, where it seemed it was important to him to define his band as a headliner once and for all.

  The “underground” tag concealed a melting pot with far more unusual sounds than the relatively conventional approach Seattle was becoming famed for. That rock edge made the Sub Pop bands unique while dividing them from many of those they played alongside.

  MARC BARTHOLOMEW: I always looked at grunge as “slower punk, where you could understand the words.” We were never a grunge or punk band. I think we were confused by all of our individual influences and while we wanted to be “harder,” we always came out as more “poppy.” I was shocked when the Cactus Club manager lined us up with Tad and Nirvana.

  JED BREWER: The booking guys asked me, as a KDVS person, if they should add a local band, since it was a weeknight. I actually recommended that they just keep it two bands so it wouldn’t go too late on a weeknight … A week later I was walking to class at UC Davis and I saw our name on the flier for the show! I guess they had decided to add us but forgot to tell us. Obviously, we forgave them for the communication breakdown. So the moral of the story is, if you want to play on a legendary bill, just say you don’t want to! I think we were on the bill because we were “college radio”–sounding, but we were not as heavy and loud as them. We saved our only heavy song for the end to try and segue and/or keep up with the Joneses.

  TED CARROLL, Distorted Pony: People were really excited that we were playing with Tad and Nirvana, but to a large degree we were not kindred spirits. We played very diffe
rent stuff, but we were an “alternative” band and so were they and so it was kinda “stick them on the bill.” … It just seemed like more rock ’n’ roll to me. Not that that is bad—[it] just was not that exciting to me. We were more in touch with the K Records bands than anything else.

  VADIM RUBIN: Both of our bands were going in different directions, theirs [Nirvana’s] was a post-punk/hardcore sound. Not mainstream or anything, but different. Other bands at that time were products of the “punk scene” but were going beyond it, like Fugazi. Our band was more influenced by metal-type stuff, in particular, especially Black Sabbath.

  Nirvana had now played over one hundred shows since Chad Channing had been added to the lineup. Their experience together showed.

  MARC BARTHOLOMEW: The Nirvana guys were a few years older than us. We were all around nineteen years old. I remember admiring Chad’s drumming and thinking we played a little similar in style, though he was much more accomplished.

  VADIM RUBIN: Nirvana was great all around that night we played with them. Their drummer was good—not as good as Dave Grohl, though. They were definitely a great live band, lots of energy and had the audience in the palm of their hand.

  TED CARROLL: It was packed … I remember meeting Tad at sound check and I think I may have overconsumed the rest of the night … I sat with Krist at the bar for quite a while. He was probably amused by my inability to speak coherently. I vaguely recall telling him I was not a huge fan of Nirvana. Didn’t dislike them, just didn’t do a ton for me at the time. If memory serves me, he was a very fun, affable guy.

  JED BREWER: It was a weeknight, and there were probably about one hundred people or less … KDVS was playing the shit out of the first Nirvana and Tad albums; otherwise there would’ve probably only been about twenty people there … Nirvana seemed to be authentically young and hungry and rocked out pretty hard that night … I did notice Kurt curled up and sleeping and/or resting on the couch in the little backstage area.

  MARC BARTHOLOMEW: By the time Nirvana got onstage the place was pretty packed, as it was not a big venue at all … Novoselic is pointing out guys in the audience who look like Kurt, and he’s saying I am one of the guys who look like him. I had shoulder-length, stringy dirty-blond hair at the time and reddish-blond growth on my face … I’ve made the joke for years that Cobain stole my hairstyle!

  KEVIN FRANKE, Vegas Voodoo: It was kinda crowded. I recall there being some bad energy and I didn’t stick around for Nirvana … Tony [Macias—bassist] had heard that Kurt Cobain was “in the van.” I wanted to meet him because I thought we might be able to play together sometime. (I think people can forget that Kurt Cobain was just that guy named Kurt who played guitar and sang in a band…) I went outside to look for the van that night too because I didn’t like the vibes inside the club. I never found or talked to him, but I really think he wanted to get away from that scene for the same reason. What I mean is, he was “almost a ghost presence.”

  The first tour of the New Year progressed in an easy good humor, without flake-outs.

  MARC BARTHOLOMEW: Tad from Tad heckled us when we ran out of material and we asked for requests from the audience. Tad screamed “‘Freebird’!” So we played “Show Me the Way” by Peter Frampton. We knew the music but not the words, so Adam made it up on the spot. It was classic.

  ALEX KOSTELNIK: Timo Ellis [Nubbin] and I were in a band called Freebird. Yep, local show joke—the top heckler line when a band would break a guitar string.

  GEORGE SMITH: There were a lot of jokey arena-rock trappings people would use, like people in the crowd yelling “Freebird!” or holding up lighters—you’d have, like, twenty people in the crowd all yelling “Freebird!” and flashing their lighters. We used to like to say at shows, if we were playing in Tacoma we’d shout, “Hello, Seattle! Hi!” stuff like that. Jokey arena-rock stuff.

  As late as January 1994, Cobain would take the stage at the Spokane Coliseum and shout, “Hello, Ellensburg!” Good jokes die hard.

  10.0

  Nobody Knows We’re New Wave

  March to May 1990

  As a now-established band, 1990 could simply have been a spell of rising fortunes for Nirvana. Instead, they entered a spell in which missteps were as numerous as steps forward. They began comfortably enough by hopping the border in March for a performance in Vancouver.

  SIOBHAN DUVALL, The Bombshells: There is no such thing as a casual stroll across the Canada/US border for any band. As musicians, crossing that border is a very complex and expensive endeavor due to both Canadian and US immigration laws, and for smaller bands often involves all types of subterfuge … I don’t even think we were aware of the term “grunge” yet. We knew the show was a big deal, as the Town Pump [500-seater] was sold out, and the show was presented by Periscope [precursor to Universal and House of Blues] … The Bombshells was comprised of five blond, bright, bubbly, friendly, and outgoing twenty-one-year-olds totally excited to be playing our fourth show to a sold-out crowd. Tad and Nirvana had the big dressing room at the Town Pump, and the Bombshells had the “little” dressing room … Which was actually the teeny tiny photocopier room in the basement. So five happy, excited twenty-one-year-old blondes went bouncing into the big dressing room to say “Hi!” in our friendly Canadian manner and were literally frozen out of the room by the members of Tad, who were not happy to see us at all. So we said to ourselves Ooh, a little chilly in there, and went bouncing back to our little photocopier room. Kurt, Krist, and Chad all followed us back and spent the whole night hanging out in there with us. But Chad and Krist were very chatty and outgoing, and Kurt was really quite sweet, quiet, and shy. Kurt told me that my band was “power pop,” which was the first time I had ever heard that term. At the time we just saw them as another touring band and had lots of fun, having no idea of the impact they would have.

  “Power pop” was Cobain’s main musical interest at that point in time, as represented by bands like the Vaselines and Shonen Knife. It was also influencing his own work with simple ditties like “Been a Son” and “Stain” emerging as a result.

  LEIGHTON BEEZER: Kurt showed up at my house, early 1990, I think … it wasn’t too long after Nirvana toured Europe with Tad. He told me he had been listening to a lot of pop stuff … you know, like the Vaselines, Beat Happening, even the Beatles! He put on this Monkees record, I remember. Kurt turned to me that day [and] said, and I remember this very clearly, “I want to be a big star, and I’m gonna have to write songs like the Monkees to get there. If I can kind of combine the Melvins and the Monkees, my band could be huge.” He then said, with that sly smile of his on his face … something to the effect that he would have to pretend that he hated stardom if it in fact happened, just to maintain his punk-rock credentials.

  While Leighton Beezer’s remark is a joke, it does capture the other influences that were coming through at that point in time. Nirvana’s April recording showed them turning away from the sound of Bleach, yet their formula wasn’t yet in place. Only “Lithium” had the soft-hard dynamic that would dominate Nevermind. Sub Pop showed their devotion by investing $3,500 for a video to “In Bloom” without realizing the relationship was ending.

  KURT DANIELSON: Sub Pop bands, being generally happy to be associated with the label, did not grumble about being on Sub Pop except maybe among themselves, which is to say privately. I never heard Nirvana complain openly, that is, not until they actually had offers to sign with majors … The Nirvana guys always wanted the most for their band, and they always had a healthy skepticism about labels in general, questioning Sub Pop’s motives from the very beginning, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, Sub Pop helped build the band, and the Nirvana guys knew that. At the same time, they were never satisfied, always looking for ways to become as big as they believed they should be. If Sub Pop couldn’t keep up with Nirvana’s vision, at least Sub Pop allowed that vision to evolve.

  SLIM MOON: Sub Pop sold a lot of records. No other label from Seattle or the N
orthwest sold anything close.

  This success was relative, however. No indie label was making vast money and Sub Pop was built on a crate load of IOUs; band members working in distribution would take the chance to sell their own self-issued music in lieu of actually getting paid.

  SCOTT VANDERPOOL: The What-part-of-we-have-no-money-don’t-you-understand? days … we would sell our own label shit to record stores right along with the Sub Pop stuff.

  ROD MOODY: Sub Pop had some great people working with them, Charles Peterson, Danny Bland, Jack Endino, Lisa Orth, Rich Jensen … and they did the best they could even though they usually could not rely on a paycheck. Jon and Bruce had brilliant ideas but no money, which meant they had to be very creative … and cagey. A lot of the bands would hang out in the Sub Pop offices, grab free records, see what the label was up to, demand money … Me, I stayed out of the way.

  KEVIN WHITWORTH: Sub Pop was a big Ponzi scheme and everybody knew it. We were all trying to con some major label into throwing us lines before the ship went down. Some of us were lucky in that regard. If anything, it became less professional as time went on, with my poor girlfriend (now wife) having to go and pound on Pone-man’s (as she called him) door every month to get the rent check. But we were one of the few bands on salary at the time—which was enormous to us. We were being paid to play music. We knew our rent was covered, and that was big when you’re on tour. And they never bounced a check to us, which was also big, since that was their standard MO in those days.

  GEOFF ROBINSON: Keep in mind that this was a small town with a small scene and definitely a small label … Bruce and Jonathan were very busy securing funds for, and engaging in, record production … To be brutally frank, I do not believe the money was so much an issue for us … It was the employees hired to do our advance promo packets … They did not even make follow-up phone calls to clubs that we were slated to play, let alone sending advance promo packets. Half the shows on our tour didn’t even have posters. Booking agents told us Sub Pop was nonresponsive when it came to promo, so opening bands created posters and did our advance promo in that way.