by Nick Soulsby
JOSH KRIZ, Anxiety Prophets: We were constantly rocking out to them, and were floored when we were approached by Allen Ireland (our band promoter/manager…) to ask if we would be interested in opening for Nirvana. They were cool. They introduced themselves (and even offered us beers, wow!). We chatted with them for about thirty minutes or so before our sound check, and they didn’t seem elitist or cocky like some of the bands that we had opened for in the past … They seemed fairly down to earth, and maybe a bit subdued or tired or maybe just a bit apathetic in general. But to the young teens that were Anxiety Prophets, they were like kings among men (we looked up to them in a big way) and were so surprised when they invited us to sit at their table at the Zoo with them. Their stage presence was phenomenal. The throwing around of the heads and hair, the tossing of guitars in the air, kicking the drum set, lighting guitars on fire … Their feel was natural and free-flowing, do whatever the hell they wanted while onstage type of attitude, and the crowd ate it up (as did we). They blew me away … Seeing Nirvana live really put in perspective their ability to put on an amazing show. Of special note was the lighting on fire of guitars and the kicking and breaking of the drum set during the performance. But the songs like “Love Buzz” and others sounded just as good live as they did on the studio recording.
The first true inkling of what was to come emerged at an all-ages show at Seattle’s OK Hotel in April.
TIMO ELLIS: They played “Teen Spirit” for the first time live; everyone went completely fuckin’ nuts … and it seemed like Kurt hadn’t even finished writing all the lyrics yet! I remember driving back to Olympia with friends and we were all singing the melody of the chorus and raving about how rad that song was.
RYAN VON BARGEN: I noticed it profoundly when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was played. I was standing up at the soundboard with Stuart Hallerman watching Nirvana play. They had just played “Floyd the Barber.” You know how “Teen Spirit” starts, the little guitar riff, then boom, and then the decrescendo before the first verse. I watched how everyone was brought up, and then gently sent back down to dig this incredible new tune few, if anyone, had ever heard before. I felt how badass it was. I was happy for them that they had written such a cool and dynamic tune. It was very inspirational as a musician and artist. I didn’t realize it would change rock ’n’ roll and usher out all that overproduced hair-band shit that had kept its place for far too long in dominance over the radio waves. Thanks, guys!
Life changed when Nirvana entered the studio in May to begin Nevermind. Until that point, it’s no exaggeration to say that the demise of Kurt Cobain would have passed leaving barely a vapor trail in history. By late summer, Nevermind would still have become a fine could-have-been cult recording. It was only with the release of the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video that flicking the blinding spotlight off became impossible.
AL BLOCH, Wool: We had been hanging out with them quite a bit when they were recording Nevermind … We’d stop by the studio and have a listen, and Grohl would come hang out with us. Of course, he was very close to Pete and Franz Stahl. One time, Dave and Kurt stopped by the record store I worked at and picked me up and I took them to a rock club where I was on the list. It was horrible hard rock/heavy-metal crap … I think Grohl and I got a kick out of it, so bad it was funny, but Kurt was disgusted and asked us to drop him off so he could go to a bar.
RYAN VON BARGEN: We stayed with Nirvana at the Oakwood Apartments in the Toluca Hills area while we were there. We originally had no shows in L.A. and too much time off for three dudes with no money. Those kind Nirvana fellows hooked us up with a show with a band called Urge Overkill at a venue called Club Lingerie … I think that was Krist’s doing. I remember hanging out with him at that gig. Krist was very generous and I have always appreciated the effort he put into helping us. There was talk of trying to get a show going with Nirvana at the Jabberjaw. I recall that Nirvana agreed to do the show on Sunday and the show was set for the Jabberjaw on Wednesday … Kurt had a sore throat because he had just finished vocal tracks for Nevermind. I also recall listening to their rough mix tapes and loving the tunes they were working on. The Nirvana guys would leave us in their apartment while they would do whatever during the days we were there, so with those tapes sitting around the boom box, they had to be heard, right? I am glad I never took any of those tapes … We got to go to Sound City on Tuesday with Krist to get Nirvana’s gear … I saw the gold records on the wall, the carpeted walls and all that, but I wasn’t star-struck or anything and I now regret not paying closer attention. How was I to know the world of rock was about to be changed forever by the recording session that had just taken place in that building? It was just one of many studios in L.A. to me. Krist gave us a cool little tour of Sound City. We got to meet Butch Vig and his assistant. At that time they were working the tune “Something in the Way” using the antiquated music-editing software … I watched them using a Yamaha DX7 to play notes and compare those notes to the cello recorded on the “Something in the Way” track for the purpose of retuning the cello track by adjusting the waveform on the screen. In addition to adjusting the tuning, they took out clicks and other imperfections. I was blown away and had never seen anything like that. When we went into the studio where David’s drums were, I can remember seeing a music stand standing in front of the glass to the control booth with a spiral notebook on it. While the equipment was being gathered up, I paged through the notebook and read the lyrics to “On a Plain.” I thought that it was so cool to be able to read the lyrics no one had yet heard but Kurt had just finished laying down. We ended up spending about an hour there playing pinball. While doing so, we ended up meeting Mick Fleetwood and Fleetwood Mac’s manager …
Nirvana had played California plenty of times but always on underground soil; the Sound City Studios was their first step onto the mainstream’s turf, the kind of place where celebrities showed up out of the blue.
RYAN VON BARGEN: The show at the Jabberjaw was packed! For a show that was agreed to just three days before it was to happen, it was amazing how many people were there. Packed, I say!… I had the best seat in the house. The stage at the Jabberjaw was at the rear of the building if you were standing in the street facing the venue. To enter the Jabberjaw, you had to walk down a narrow alleyway at the back of the building. The stage would then be immediately on your right as you enter the venue. There was a two-tiered stage that bands would put gear on the higher tier against the wall to the back of the room, which would then be behind the drummer. It was an amazing place to see Nirvana play; on that riser, right behind David Grohl … I remember Krist saying to me after we played the show, “Hey, did you know Iggy Pop is here?” Which was an amazing illustration of how many people heard about the show so quickly, but kind of a bummer, as we had been playing the Stooges’ “1969” on that tour but randomly we elected to play Kiss’s “God of Thunder” instead. It was cool to briefly meet Mr. Osterberg, but oh man I wish we would have played “1969” … I hear Nirvana’s management was a bit upset about them playing the Jabberjaw gig because they were to play a show at the Palladium not long after and “the management” was concerned that it would take away interest or draw from the Palladium show. Suits! Out of touch almost every time.
As late as August, even Hollywood shows were still pretty casual.
AL BLOCH: The gig was a showcase, so people from the label (and other biz people) could see them at a comfortable venue—so they wouldn’t have to make the trek to some shitty, smelly, sweaty club!… It was all still pretty organic at that point. I knew Nirvana’s manager, John Silva, and he was pretty cool—and other than a bunch of major-label record people at the show, and that the show was on the Sunset Strip, at the Roxy, there was nothing “business” about it. The crowd down in front were all fans, jumping and slamming away. The sound probably was better than at a punk club, but it certainly wasn’t overly “professional.” I was standing back at the soundboard with Craig Montgomery, their sound man. It was the end of
the set and they were smashing their gear and making a huge racket. I think the crowd was just exhausted, because it was an amazing show and I watched Craig push all the faders on the soundboard all the way up, making the noise even more brutal! It was unreal. After the show, there were a couple people handing out fliers asking for extras for the video shoot the next day … it wasn’t any big deal.
Major label or no, the gentle mingling of musical life in Olympia continued. Cobain and Grohl joined Slim Moon’s Witchypoo at shows in April and June.
JUSTIN TROSPER: Those shows, which were really just house parties, were fairly informal in-the-know kind of events … this thing like, “Hey, the Nirvana guys are around, maybe they can do some impromptu show.” At one of those parties, Krist was working or something, so Nirvana became Witchypoo and then the other party was just an actual Witchypoo show with Kurt playing guitar and Dave on drums for part of the set … Slim did all the vocals. Some of the songs were part of the normal Witchypoo set and then these kind of noise-rock jams. As I remember, Billy Karren from Bikini Kill and Joe Preston and folks from Bratmobile may have jumped into the mess as well. It was pretty common to have people picking up or offering their instruments at the end of the night at some of these parties. Kurt did this really Midwestern acid-damage guitar thing that you hear on some of the solos on their records.
The completion of Nevermind was a cause for satisfaction, but for Cobain it also marked a definite end. He had been thrown out of the Pear Street house in which the majority of what now stands as his legacy was created.
STEVE MORIARTY: Kurt, I think he was just a quiet guy … He was just kind of a lonely, semi–street kid who grew up in a tiny town. It’s like logging trucks and the smell of low tide—a pretty depressed area. Can understand him wandering to Olympia … I have friends who Dumpster-dived with him for sweaters to stay warm—getting in the garbage to get stuff. It was also kinda trendy back then. The punks in London would dress in ripped-up sweaters and hand-made T-shirts, that was more his aesthetic. So going Dumpster-diving they might find a bunch of clothes, sell some to a thrift store, a secondhand store—same with books, whatever they could find to make a little money.
JAMES BURDYSHAW: Nirvana were still pretty much a struggling band until Nevermind was released. I talked to Krist at a Sub Pop party in 1991 and he wanted to sell me his Honda for $500 because he needed money.
RYAN LOISELLE: Kurt wasn’t a close buddy, but when they start[ed] getting kind of famous, he was kind of an introvert, but at the same time as being socially not comfortable, he’d seek out John and I and be like, “Hey man…” There’d be hundreds of people and he’d be embarrassed they were all there to see him so he’d come talk to us kinda like quiet but crazy, super-nice—the nicest guy … he would always find us.
There’s no sign that Cobain intended to leave Olympia; the world simply began moving too quickly for him to return.
Nirvana was now right behind the leading lights of the indie scene; chosen as touring partner in June for Dinosaur Jr., another band straddling the underground/major divide.
NEIL FRANKLIN, Kai Kln: Kurt dazzled everyone by climbing on a tall speaker and wailing on guitar … They sounded huge compared to the Cattle Club gig, much tighter with Grohl on drums … downstairs there was just one big room. They had cold-cut platters and Becks beer and I asked Krist Novoselic if they were going to eat their food (this was during Dinosaur Jr.’s set, so the food has been sitting there awhile). He said they were vegetarians so go right ahead. I did. We had polished our beer off long ago so I helped myself to a Becks or two also. I remember Kurt sitting in a chair with a towel over his head looking kinda miserable. He did say hi when I introduced myself earlier around sound check, so I did shake his hand. This is when our manager (Marc Malakie) was grilling Novoselic about their record deal and asking advice about our dealings with majors. I also had my most memorable moment of the night (in retrospect) at this point. I asked Novoselic what the song was that Kurt said “hello, hello, hello” in. It was one of the few in their set that I didn’t recognize. He said, “It’s ‘Teen Spirit,’” like it was no big deal—which it wasn’t at the time. Little did any of us know … I also talked to Grohl about his previous band, Scream, which I was a huge fan of, still am! He was preoccupied with some lovely lady, which I could understand.
SCOTT ANDERSON, Kai Kln: Music has to really move me to get me on the dance floor or out in the pit. Was moshing to a couple tunes having a blast, then a song ended. I suddenly was wondering why my left hand was hurting so bad: looked at it and realized my bandages had come unraveled. Music was so good that I forgot I had a third-degree burn from red-hot cooking oil and was bandaged up. Played five painful gigs in that condition, but Nirvana’s music ripped my flesh open again … [I] was walking out, saw Kurt and said hi. He lifted his head long enough to say hi back, then his gaze went back to the floor as he kept walking. Suffering my own bipolar issues … I could tell this guy was deeply depressed. I played more than half of our shows in a very depressed state, which is tough to keep it together. Not talking much before or after, usually not very friendly, and pretty much kept to myself most of the time. In the brief moment I met him I could feel and see the pain in his eyes and the way he carried himself.
People had stopped talking about Nirvana in terms of heaviness and started focusing on the rock/pop side of their personality. Meanwhile, Cobain’s yin-yang nature was rarely affected by what was happening around him.
The underground’s friendship network was already passing the word—or, more accurately, the tape. Musicians worldwide, those in the know, had copies and were whispering how good it was long before Nevermind’s release.
COLIN BURNS: I wasn’t much of a fan at the time. I remember checking out a little of their set … It wasn’t until a year and change later that I spent August in a borrowed car with a cassette of Nevermind demos on permanent repeat that I was converted.
KEVIN ROSE: A friend gave me a copy of Nevermind and we fell in love with it right away; a few months later it blew up.
MICHAEL MCMANUS, The Guttersnipes: A friend had given me a tape of a pre-release copy of Nevermind a few months earlier, and I’d been listening to it nonstop.
GERARD LOVE, Teenage Fanclub: We already had a pre-release copy of Nevermind and it was played on repeat in the van; we all knew it was a top-quality record.
AL BLOCH: I remember talking to John Silva and telling him how much I liked the Nevermind album because we had been listening to an advance cassette Grohl gave us. I thought it was going to be a big album, and he asked me if I thought it would sell two hundred thousand copies. I think I told him not to get his hopes up.
14.0
Takeoff
August to December 1991
Nirvana was on a major label but still saw themselves as part of the underground, no different from their indie-label friends. In the late summer of 1991 they had just finished work on Nevermind—a record they had polished for months, doing everything they could to ensure it might be a hit (at least, an underground one)—and were preparing for its release in September with various industry showcases for media and record-industry executives. Yet alongside the major-label business, they were still planning an appearance at the International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia and chipped in a three-year-old song to the accompanying compilation—it was a statement of their continued allegiances.
SLIM MOON: I called them up and they immediately contributed. It was part of a two-day whirlwind in which Calvin and I were calling a lot of bands. We put together the lineup to that album in less than forty-eight hours. Nirvana were initially scheduled to play the IPU but changed plans later to play Reading. At the time that they gave me the track, we all believed they’d be playing the fest.
“Beeswax” was the first Nirvana original since the previous September. There had been over eight silent months between the Blew EP and the song “Mexican Seafood” on a C/Z compilation then for the year after that, just one single a
nd three unremarkable cover songs; Nirvana’s rep had built despite almost no new music.
Nirvana would never play Olympia again. They had to cancel their festival slot to support Sonic Youth. Having performed 160 shows since the start of 1989, the band hammered out a further 76 between August and December 1991, their heaviest spell of touring ever.
DON FLEMING: The three of them all had an intense vibe, serious. Dave, super-serious, Kurt serious in a sadder way—more of a deer-in-the-headlights look at times with Kurt. But at least at that moment they were genuinely wanting to be a great band; that’s what was fun about catching them at that moment. A band enjoying playing with each other, enjoying the friendships they were making. I think it meant a lot to them to have Sonic Youth being their mentor and a champion at that time, I think it gave them a lot of confidence that wouldn’t have happened as much otherwise, not getting that record deal—maybe that wasn’t a good thing actually … Backstage we were sharing a dressing room, I remember mainly that there was one bottle of whiskey and we were fighting over it. During their set Krist had taken it out and had it onstage and one of us, maybe me, snuck behind him and got it from behind the amp, brought it back to the dressing room. I loved them, a great band—Kurt was a great songwriter; it was fun to play with them. But at the time they weren’t Nirvana yet, they were just a cool band I was psyched to see and play with.
