I Found My Friends

by Nick Soulsby

  BLAG DAHLIA: We came from the Midwest, where being in a band was about on a par with child molestation, but less respectable … we were on a label called Sub Pop, which was morally opposed to giving artists any money. That’s why every artist left the label. But unlike all of them, we were too scary to attract any major labels, so we did a lot of starving and dope dealing and living off girlfriends.

  KURT DANIELSON: Whenever you mix friendship with business, it’s going to get complicated. And it was even more complicated when you consider how the dynamic that governed our interactions with them was conditioned by their personalities and how they interacted with one another, making it so that Bruce was the one we talked to about some things and Jon was the one we relied on for others.

  Nirvana wondered about the indie route, but few, if any, could offer more than Sub Pop.

  DOUG GILLARD: There was never enough money with Homestead, I think we all felt. But they did press and release the albums, and included us on two pretty great label compilations … The problem lay somewhere in Homestead’s ownership and parent company, but I mean, we recorded everything on our own and on a shoestring (with a shoestring, it sounded like, at times). They had great A&R, thanks solely to Gerard Cosloy, who is still a tastemaker to this day. He found and signed a lot of artists that shaped what became known as indie … and championed some worthy established folk that no longer had a home.

  JON WAHL: Everyone wanted to release a single with Sub Pop. But Sympathy for the Record Industry was quite prolific and through that, and the fact that we all lived in Long Beach, many projects happened. I used to typeset for Long Gone John and he’d pay me in a burrito and a beer. Good times … SFTRI gave no booking or promotional support whatsoever. That was all done by the individual bands. He’d pay you in a small percentage of pressed records, which you’d turn around and sell on tour. It worked good that way.

  ANNE EICKELBERG, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282: Here’s a comparison that pretty much explains what Matador was like then: Rough Trade took us out to a big Indian meal, then back to the offices to get high and listen to the Butthole Surfers’ cover of “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” pre-release. Matador asked us to come to their office really early in the morning and gave us a couple bagels and said they didn’t have much money. So obviously we went with them.

  Rough Trade went bust soon after, so the bagels were a wise choice. Then again, Sub Pop was achieving amazing amounts on a minimal budget.

  ROD MOODY: I personally thought it was insane … an incredibly gutsy and brilliant move on the part of Sub Pop. I mean, really [Sub Pop 200], a fancy triple-LP boxed set from a label that was broke? But it served its purpose and showed the world what our little secret was all about. We never got much money from it, but the recognition was the benefit, even though we were quickly overshadowed by many of the other bands.

  Everyone in the scene knew the guys at Sub Pop personally and had respect for them and what they were doing.

  GEOFF ROBINSON: Honestly, I do not remember the Sub Pop Sunday event that much, since we were playing so frequently anyway. We were gigging at least two times a week and sometimes three or four. We did not depend on Sub Pop for money because we knew that they were footing the bill for our time at Reciprocal—so we didn’t pester them about money. We knew they were broke because they told us.

  DUANE LANCE BODENHEIMER: We were very fortunate to have people that supported us in the life that we were doing—like Bruce from Sub Pop, Mark from Mudhoney, club owners as well—so we were fortunate enough to play with a lot of these bands that were up-and-coming … Sub Pop put out stuff for us, eMpTy Records put out stuff for us and were behind us one hundred percent … The label was Ian Wright and Volker Stewart (in Germany it was Musical Tragedies and here it was eMpTy). Most of our stuff was engineered by Jack Endino—super-nice guy. Really easy to work with, put up with our crap … I can’t express how grateful I am to Bruce and Sub Pop …

  The supportiveness of Sub Pop meant Nirvana was at least slightly more comfortable when back on the road in April.

  CRISPIN WOOD: When we arrived for the six-thirty sound check, Nirvana was loading in. (They had a station wagon with U-Haul cargo trailer) … Just another band on the road with not much change sums it up pretty well. We’d toured the country and were well aware of what they were up against. You need enough gas to make it to the next town. It’s hard to save any money, hard to do laundry, you have to think frugally about expenses. Nirvana probably woke up on somebody’s floor the day after the Man Ray show and drove to another state … In actual fact I probably saw more of Nirvana via their sound check than their actual set, of which I saw only two or three songs. I wouldn’t say they sounded tight, or necessarily well practiced, but they didn’t sound bad, either. Cobain spent a portion of the sound check playing guitar on the dance floor in front of the stage, as if to better hear the PA mix. We were definitely underwhelmed by Chad’s playing. What impressed more than anything else was Cobain’s songwriting …

  Nirvana was still not quite top rank, however, either in venue selection or standing.

  CRISPIN WOOD: Man Ray was a dance club; rock bands almost never played there. When we heard about the show, the reaction was a bit like, “Man Ray … didn’t Divine perform there a while back?” My recollection is that the Man Ray show was a “co-headline” gig, which probably meant both bands were paid the same. Nirvana closed the show, though.

  FORREST: One of my coworkers from the stock market in New York was there; we called him Spud because of Idaho Potatoes. He was home on vacation and brought his whole family there … You couldn’t get a bee in there; it was like they never saw an all-black band like Spyz before, and I bet because that was the first time we ever played there. Nirvana came on before us. They did extremely well, but they were very typical like any local band—nothing special about them … Nirvana seemed like a band traveling the road to build up a following without much support like local bands do now but, like Primus, they seemed to have had a little fan base and yes they did have a van if I can recall. I know they didn’t have a bus; that’s a fact—and they did set up their own gear onstage. I don’t remember where they slept or ate or if they even had a hotel to go to—those were beautiful days, man, I tell ya … Beautiful with plain raw talent and no excuses.

  DANA ONG, Slaughter Shack: MIT was an odd place for a show … The show took place in a low-ceilinged basement of a frat house. Nirvana was so loud, I had to listen to them from the dressing room upstairs—we all shared a dorm living room for a dressing room … I liked the first Nirvana album, which was the only one out then, loved Soundgarden, but I didn’t jump on the grunge bandwagon …

  COLIN BURNS: We played in a basement, in a corner, with cables marking the edge of “the stage.” It was less than a mile to the Middle East in Cambridge—one of the best live venues in town—but it felt as though the people from this dorm never left campus, or even their dorm. I convinced myself they were manufacturing LSD and rarely saw outsiders. This perception was mostly due to the insane reaction we got from the crowd that night. And that I’d never seen 90 percent of the audience at other shows …

  MATT HUNTER: Even in 1990/1991, there was already a post-punk canon that was heavily regional (Minor Threat if you were from DC; Mission of Burma if you were from Boston; Ramones/Sonic Youth if you were from NYC…). Nothing about Nirvana indicated that they were radically different stylistically from the rest of what was going on in the US at the time … You could argue that they were latecomers even in Seattle. That said, even in 1990 they were a big deal on the indie circuit, and had some measure of “star power,” for lack of a better term.

  Nirvana had always blurred the line between sloppiness and passionate abandon, which manifested itself on the tour.

  DANA ONG: I don’t think either band was very professional at the time, coming from an era of Jesus Lizard and Black Flag; being a little reckless and almost falling off the edge of the stage was common at live shows. We may have tried to pl
ay tight, I can’t remember. They were probably looser, more expressively raw, because we were trying to stay true to the structure of how we practiced and recorded our songs. Their approach had more emotional urgent appeal … Chad wasn’t as tight as Grohl, but their style was more messy at the time, so he was fitting.

  TIM SOLYAN, Victim’s Family: His playing was indeed sloppy, but I thought that was part of what brought the magic to it. I enjoyed watching Chad at those shows and always felt it was unique … I was surprised at how tall Krist was, and as soon as they started he was hopping up and down and his head was just about hitting the low basement ceiling. The stage at this club was only about six inches high, so we squeezed up nearly in front of Krist to get a better look. I was blown away to say the least! Thunderous bass and grinding poppy guitar. Kurt screaming and Chad and his sloppy chaotic thumping. It was rad to say the least! At one moment I lost sight of Kurt (who really only had the spot he was standing in for space between the drums and the crowd) and I looked down and he was on the ground on his back squirming and writhing out the guitar part for the song! At the end of the last song Kurt jumped backward into Chad’s drums and sent them and him sprawling and their set was over.

  MATT HUNTER: Those guys already seemed like rock stars, and were treated with no small measure of awe by the crowd. J Mascis did sound for them that night—he was already kind of a legend on the indie circuit. As a band, they sounded very much top of their game, tight and powerful, even if the result sounded kinda derivative …

  PEYTON PINKERTON, New Radiant Storm King: Kurt was everything and the band seemed dwarfed by his even-then-iconic presence. Krist constantly tried to add to the energy of the stage with his lumbering antics, but he just came off like a kid who wasn’t getting enough attention.

  ROBERT HAMPSON, Loop: I remember Krist just loping around and sort of pogoing. Kurt was rolling around all over the place. I think he spent more time on the floor than standing up. They looked like they were all having a blast. But it’s not really what I like to see on a performance level. I guess I thought it was comedic and goofy. I liked the sound, but the show more for the noise than the stagecraft.

  The tour wasn’t devoid of bonhomie, either, with Nirvana’s usual mellow attitude meaning others readily warmed to them.

  CRISPIN WOOD: We did spend a fair amount of time in the dressing room together—lots of goofy joking around. The dressing room was downstairs, below the dance floor, and fairly large. Old sofas, funky random things. The club manager brought down a case of beer. I don’t remember those guys drinking much. Lots of smoking, though. We were on a first-name basis with Krist by the end of the night. We hung with him lots, and with Chad as well. We didn’t hang much with Cobain, who was surrounded by fans the whole time. Probably college kids. He was ensconced on a sofa in the dressing room, conducting interviews. My recollection is that some locals did a video interview with Cobain—just Cobain, or mostly Cobain, not so much the rest of the band. So while we stood partying in the corner with Krist and Chad, Cobain sat in the (college/indie) media glare.

  TIM SOLYAN: The next show was in Ann Arbor at a club called the Blind Pig … Being the fifth show with Tad for us we were all becoming “tour friends” and the atmosphere was fun. I met Krist at this time as well and he was equally a very nice and friendly dude and we all chitchatted about our bands and touring Europe … I was sitting on a small couch and Tad was sitting in a chair across from me and we were talking. Just then Kurt walks in and jumps on Tad’s lap and hangs on him with his arms around Tad’s neck. Tad says, “Merry Christmas, little boy! What would you like for Christmas this year?” Kurt then says, “I’m not so happy with you Santa Tad…” Tad: “Oh really? And why is that?” Kurt: “Because last year I asked you for a rubber fist shaped like this” [gestures with his hand in a tight fist] “but instead you gave me a rubber fist shaped like this!!” [makes a gesture with his hand with all his fingers pressed together and straight forward] We all laughed.

  LORI JOSEPH: Everyone was very nice and talkative. I remember Kurt brought along his own oolong tea. Chad was super-cool and I remember being bummed when he wasn’t in the band anymore. My fondest memory is the show we played together in April of 1990. We were the opening band on the bill at Chicago’s Cabaret Metro. They asked when we would be on and then ran out and got some food so they could get back in time to see us play. How freaking awesome is that? They were well oiled in the sense when you go on tour and play your songs every day you get very good. Definitely still grunge but with better venues comes better sound and all things better. Playing for ten people in a shitty club with a crappy PA versus one thousand people with a great PA does a lot for any band. Always some gear smashing. I remember their trailer full of broken guitars in the back of their van … As far as Nirvana goes, no, I never thought of them as being mainstream or ever getting that popular. I had seen them several times with ten people in the audience.

  Yet, at times on this tour, there were clearly frustrations building.

  CRISPIN WOOD: Right before “About a Girl,” one of the band members asked for more light “so we can see.” I know the lack of light was a problem during our set. Man Ray wasn’t in the habit of booking bands, so there was no house PA or lights. The club rented a PA for the show but didn’t bother with lights. If I were to guess, the stage (which was a permanent fixture) was for DJs. There were probably one or two spots, no mounted rack of lights like you usually see at a rock show. It was dark onstage, and that definitely had an effect on the playing.

  At the MIT dorm show Novoselic upset some of the audience by tearing one of their mascots down.

  COLIN BURNS: There was a common room that was the “backstage” area. I can’t remember if this was before or after our set, but definitely before Nirvana played. A friend of ours began de-tuning Krist’s bass. Then proceeded to take the strings off completely. It may have started as a prank, but felt almost malicious by the end. I didn’t know what was behind it. And it made me uncomfortable. And I left the room. I think if it had been anyone’s gear I would have been uncomfortable.

  DANA ONG: We didn’t have a nice introduction. While Nirvana was onstage, a friend, who will remain anonymous, took all the strings off Krist’s bass. He wasn’t a fan of Nirvana, maybe he was drunk, I don’t remember. But the next day I got a call from another local band manager who told me we were weren’t allowed to open for Nirvana again; we were banned! That’s hilarious that Krist may have defaced some part of MIT and then was upset about the string incident, if the account of his actions are true. Wouldn’t that be a little rock ’n’ roll hypocrisy?

  VICTOR POISON-TETE: In all honesty, fanboys, I don’t remember anything memorable about the ten-minute temper tantrum “FM Jesus” might have thrown on that particular night, as I secured my personal belongings, exchanged pleasantries with friends—I believe I saw Iggy Pop at the rear of the club (not an actual friend, but you will take me serious if I drop a name), and prepared to walk the four blocks from the Pyramid Club to my apartment, and prepare for work the following morning … in the middle of the first song Kurt started flinging instruments and kicking amps; it seems the current drummer continued to fall off beat; and Cobain, still somewhat asleep, couldn’t “find a pony to ride.” I believe they played maybe ten minutes, and although people where eager to hear them, the overcrowding of the club and length of time already spent standing and pushing for airspace resulted in an early night.

  Things came to a head on April 27 at a Hampshire College benefit show for Amnesty International.

  PEYTON PINKERTON: Novoselic had just shaved his head the night before after being heckled off the stage by David Berman, later of the Silver Jews in Hoboken! He looked like an eight-foot-tall five-year-old.

  PETER IRVINE: Krist might have been on something, but to us he was friendly, chatty, and even apologetic. I recall hanging out with him outside the venue. We were next to the backstage parking area, and he came up and engaged in conversation. He told us that Nirv
ana had a really terrible gig the night before, underattended, and out of frustration he had shaved his head … Hampshire College did have a thriving music-appreciation scene. They had funding and a good group of organizers who brought in a lot of cutting-edge bands. The Amnesty show was just another of a series of events at Hampshire that consistently brought in interesting new bands.

  JIM ROY, Sweet Lickin’ Honey Babes: Just Gobblehoof, Cordelia’s Dad, and Nirvana were the big fish. So basically, the folks putting on the show had most of the Hampshire bands that were active on that bill. It would have been practically impossible for us not to be playing … I knew who Cordelia’s Dad were, and liked them; I didn’t know Gobblehoof and I didn’t know Nirvana at all. At all! I mostly paid attention to getting set up/wound up for our set, and beer … there was some generalized pissing contest between Gobblehoof and Nirvana and this had escalated to the point that Cordelia’s Dad got fed up and played a free acoustic set out in front of the venue.

  CHARLES SHIPMAN, Three Merry Widows: We played right before Gobblehoof … They dithered endlessly during their sound check so that we never got to have one and had to rush up and start right away when they finally got off. Terrible breach of etiquette—we took such things very seriously in those days! And then one of their guitar players continued fiddling with his pedals even while we were trying to start, so our drummer went up and screamed in his ear, “Get the fuck off the stage!”

  PETER IRVINE: Nirvana was late. There was some problem with the sound, so we kept waiting to do our sound check. At some point there was some talk of switching the sequence of bands … I overheard someone ask, “Who is Cordelia’s Dad?” and I believe it was J Mascis who responded, disparagingly, “They’re just an Amherst College band.” This was annoying, as we actually had a good following in the area (above and beyond a typical “college” band), and were appropriately placed on the bill … What Mascis was suggesting was that we get bumped to an earlier spot so that, I think, Gobblehoof, who were friends with Nirvana, be put in a more prominent spot. After waiting around some more it became apparent that we were not going to get a sound check. I don’t know if it was Nirvana’s fault, or someone else, but the whole show seemed to be falling apart. We were annoyed at the petty jockeying and feeling disrespected, so we decided that instead of playing inside, we would play an acoustic set outside. When we moved outside, a lot of people followed us … We had no way of knowing but were told by several people that there were far more people watching our set outside than were inside watching the other bands. In some ways this night encapsulates our whole career—when faced with the threshold of popularity, we take an intimate turn, break the rules, and end up outside.