I dunno, what do you think? Is it tacky for Sub Pop owner Bruce Pavitt to have his wife selling the test pressing for the new Nirvana Bleach reissue on Ebay? Before it's even come out? Seems like if you were the label owner, you could make say 100 test pressings and make a lot of money selling them... hmmm. Regardless, Jyoti Pavitt is doing just that right now on Ebay. Closing in 20 minutes and already past a grand... for new vinyl that we don't yet know is very rare.
Update: It actually is out, I just never got my pre-ordered copies! I emailed Sub Pop and it sounds like they misplaced a few of the pre-orders and are on it, shipping tomorrow (thanks Sam at Sub Pop!). The test pressings sold for $1,776. I think that's pretty steep for something that just came out and the buyer doesn't know how many were made of. Also considering someone has been trying to sell the test pressings of the original Euro release on Tupelo on white vinyl for 5K for a long time and no one is interested. But the price always goes higher when no one is sure what to peg the value at, when a couple more of the test pressings show up on Ebay, which is sure to happen, they will sell for a lot less.
Showing posts with label Nirvana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nirvana. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
20th Anniversary of Nirvana's Bleach
This past June marked the 20th year anniversary of the release of Nirvana's "Bleach" album. Whether you were a fan of what got known soon after by the international press as grunge or not, this was still one heavy kick-ass album that captured at least in part what was going on in local music at the time. I personally love this album, it's really the only Nirvana album I ever listen too, they went too far in a pop direction and got soooooo much hype when "Nevermind" came out that I just stopped paying attention. But "Bleach" was the perfect era of Nirvana for me and it's when I saw them the most live. Today Sub Pop releases a 20th anniversary deluxe vinyl version of "Bleach." It's a double album, the first being the original album remastered and on white vinyl, just like the original first run. The second album features a live recording from a February 9th, 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland. Sweet! I just ordered mine, if you're a fan, you should too! You can order it directly through Sub Pop here.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Nirvana's "Nevermind" record release show
Nirvana
Live at Beehive Records in the U-District
9/16/91, free and all-ages
Nirvana was already a somewhat big band around Seattle before the release of "Nevermind" rocketed them onto the world's stage. Their debut album "Bleach" had sold a couple thousand copies, local college radio station KCMU would regularly blast "Recess," and they were getting bigger drawing shows, including huge crowds at University of Washington HUB and International Sports Garage in 1990. The same year, while local heavies TAD were recording in the studio and left for a dinner break, members of Nirvana with Dan Peters of Mudhoney drumming laid down a few tracks on TAD's equipment. Those songs became 1990's "Sliver" single (the flipside was "Dive"), which was decidedly more pop than Nirvana's debut album. The "Grandma take me home" line repeated again and again at the end of "Sliver" pretty much got stuck in the head of anyone that listened to it. So it was no surprise that the "Sliver" single (released in the US by Sub Pop and Glitterhouse in Europe) really jumpstarted the band's career outside of the Northwest. It broke the top 100 in the UK, was written about in Melody Maker by Everett True, and started getting airplay outside of college radio in the US. Nirvana had gone from an opening band to headlining band pretty quickly, but that was nothing compared to what would follow.
I was working in the mailroom of the Seattle monthly music paper The Rocket when we got an early review copy of Nirvana's "Nevermind." There was cassette tape of the album making the rounds through The Rocket staff and everyone was dubbing a copy. Funny sidenote: the paper's owner Charles Cross later went on to write a Nirvana book, but I swear he didn't like "Nevermind" at the time and had to be talked into featuring Nirvana on the next cover by the younger staff at the paper. The new album definitely followed in the path the "Sliver" single had hinted it and seemed like a really catchy album blending heavy rock and pop. The single "Smells Like Teen Spirit," was released to the public, I'm pretty sure first being played by local station The End. It was an instant hit. Then an announcement came out that the band would play a free record release party at Beehive Records in the U-District. Sweet! Beehive Records for most of it's lifetime had been Peaches Records, but had recently been bought out. I was going to school at the nearby University of Washington and had a shit ton of friends that worked there and pretty much visited daily to rent movies and record shop. I remember it being the place where I bought my first Dwarves album, "Toolin' for a Warm Teabag," the one with the skull and crossbones on the cover, only the crossbones were made of giant cocks, ha ha ha!
So anyway, the free show was announced in a few days and everyone on the planet was planning on going. Great. It was about 8 blocks from my apartment, so my girlfriend and a few friends and I drank some beers, then cruised over for the show about an hour before Nirvana was to play. The place was packed solid. The record store staff barely knew how to deal with the situation, I'm sure tons of shit got stolen that day. By the time Nirvana played the place was chaos, kids were crowd surfing over the record stacks, the whole store became a moving mosh pit. My girlfriend couldn't handle it anymore and went across the street for a beer at the Blue Moon, so I squished up front and rocked out. Fun, crazy show!
Afterward the band hung around for an hour in the parking lot talking with kids and signing autographs. I watched a girl pull out one of the coveted white vinyl copies of "Bleach" (the first 1000 were on white) to have the band sign and then drop it in a big mud puddle. Ooops. I had brought two records with me to have them sign, a live bootleg 7" and the "Sliver" single. What kind of idiot brings a bootleg to have a band sign? Why, that's me! Kurt Cobain signed it: "I hate fucking bootlegs... Kurt" and then stabbed a pen through the cover where the hole in the center was. Awesome! For some stupid reason I sold the bootleg about a year later for $17 to some kid when I needed beer money. I hope he held onto it, it's probably worth a ton now. I still have the "Sliver" single signed by everyone in the band that day and cherish it, as well as the memories of that day.
Live at Beehive Records in the U-District
9/16/91, free and all-ages
Nirvana was already a somewhat big band around Seattle before the release of "Nevermind" rocketed them onto the world's stage. Their debut album "Bleach" had sold a couple thousand copies, local college radio station KCMU would regularly blast "Recess," and they were getting bigger drawing shows, including huge crowds at University of Washington HUB and International Sports Garage in 1990. The same year, while local heavies TAD were recording in the studio and left for a dinner break, members of Nirvana with Dan Peters of Mudhoney drumming laid down a few tracks on TAD's equipment. Those songs became 1990's "Sliver" single (the flipside was "Dive"), which was decidedly more pop than Nirvana's debut album. The "Grandma take me home" line repeated again and again at the end of "Sliver" pretty much got stuck in the head of anyone that listened to it. So it was no surprise that the "Sliver" single (released in the US by Sub Pop and Glitterhouse in Europe) really jumpstarted the band's career outside of the Northwest. It broke the top 100 in the UK, was written about in Melody Maker by Everett True, and started getting airplay outside of college radio in the US. Nirvana had gone from an opening band to headlining band pretty quickly, but that was nothing compared to what would follow.
I was working in the mailroom of the Seattle monthly music paper The Rocket when we got an early review copy of Nirvana's "Nevermind." There was cassette tape of the album making the rounds through The Rocket staff and everyone was dubbing a copy. Funny sidenote: the paper's owner Charles Cross later went on to write a Nirvana book, but I swear he didn't like "Nevermind" at the time and had to be talked into featuring Nirvana on the next cover by the younger staff at the paper. The new album definitely followed in the path the "Sliver" single had hinted it and seemed like a really catchy album blending heavy rock and pop. The single "Smells Like Teen Spirit," was released to the public, I'm pretty sure first being played by local station The End. It was an instant hit. Then an announcement came out that the band would play a free record release party at Beehive Records in the U-District. Sweet! Beehive Records for most of it's lifetime had been Peaches Records, but had recently been bought out. I was going to school at the nearby University of Washington and had a shit ton of friends that worked there and pretty much visited daily to rent movies and record shop. I remember it being the place where I bought my first Dwarves album, "Toolin' for a Warm Teabag," the one with the skull and crossbones on the cover, only the crossbones were made of giant cocks, ha ha ha!
So anyway, the free show was announced in a few days and everyone on the planet was planning on going. Great. It was about 8 blocks from my apartment, so my girlfriend and a few friends and I drank some beers, then cruised over for the show about an hour before Nirvana was to play. The place was packed solid. The record store staff barely knew how to deal with the situation, I'm sure tons of shit got stolen that day. By the time Nirvana played the place was chaos, kids were crowd surfing over the record stacks, the whole store became a moving mosh pit. My girlfriend couldn't handle it anymore and went across the street for a beer at the Blue Moon, so I squished up front and rocked out. Fun, crazy show!
Afterward the band hung around for an hour in the parking lot talking with kids and signing autographs. I watched a girl pull out one of the coveted white vinyl copies of "Bleach" (the first 1000 were on white) to have the band sign and then drop it in a big mud puddle. Ooops. I had brought two records with me to have them sign, a live bootleg 7" and the "Sliver" single. What kind of idiot brings a bootleg to have a band sign? Why, that's me! Kurt Cobain signed it: "I hate fucking bootlegs... Kurt" and then stabbed a pen through the cover where the hole in the center was. Awesome! For some stupid reason I sold the bootleg about a year later for $17 to some kid when I needed beer money. I hope he held onto it, it's probably worth a ton now. I still have the "Sliver" single signed by everyone in the band that day and cherish it, as well as the memories of that day.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
An update on the Crocodile Cafe soundboard recordings
The Stranger recently finally reported on a story I wrote about back in March concerning the archive of the soundboard recordings from the Crocodile Cafe getting donated to the University of Washington by soundman Jim Anderson. Check out their blog story here, Anderson chimes into the conversation and provides a little bit more information.
Not much has moved along in the project since I mentioned it seven months ago, Anderson says the official announcement that it's happening is coming soon. Apparently it's taken a long time to organize the files, which are on a series of hard drives, and their has been some discussion of how they will be hosted at the Undergraduate Library Media Center. For music fans anxiously awaiting this awesome resource, I think you have to cool your jets. It's possible this project could take a long time, possibly years, to get up and running. Funding something like this may prove hard as the state squeezes the University of Washington's budget, plus it's fifteen years of live recordings to organize, convert to a streaming format, and to serve to the public in a way that won't be ripe for bootlegging.
Let's hope the project gets rolling soon though! I know Nirvana fans especially are dying to hear the recordings of the band on stage, as well as the banter between band members and the crowd between songs and during set up that often isn't present on the crowd-recorded bootlegs of their shows. Anderson explains, "What makes this collection unique is that in archival recordings from other clubs, there’s not a whole lot of the between song banter. I did blanket recordings, and was able to capture everything... Bands and people talk about politics, sports, events, the environment, equipment issues, technology, and so on. There’s a lot of stuff that gives you the flavor of what people were thinking and talking about at that point in time."
Plus, the sound quality I've heard on the recordings Anderson gave to bands (he'd offer to burn a copy of the show for a band for a small fee) were excellent. The Nirvana live music in particular should be a lot better than bootleg recordings done from the crowd that most people have heard of Nirvana playing at the Crocodile Cafe.
Not much has moved along in the project since I mentioned it seven months ago, Anderson says the official announcement that it's happening is coming soon. Apparently it's taken a long time to organize the files, which are on a series of hard drives, and their has been some discussion of how they will be hosted at the Undergraduate Library Media Center. For music fans anxiously awaiting this awesome resource, I think you have to cool your jets. It's possible this project could take a long time, possibly years, to get up and running. Funding something like this may prove hard as the state squeezes the University of Washington's budget, plus it's fifteen years of live recordings to organize, convert to a streaming format, and to serve to the public in a way that won't be ripe for bootlegging.
Let's hope the project gets rolling soon though! I know Nirvana fans especially are dying to hear the recordings of the band on stage, as well as the banter between band members and the crowd between songs and during set up that often isn't present on the crowd-recorded bootlegs of their shows. Anderson explains, "What makes this collection unique is that in archival recordings from other clubs, there’s not a whole lot of the between song banter. I did blanket recordings, and was able to capture everything... Bands and people talk about politics, sports, events, the environment, equipment issues, technology, and so on. There’s a lot of stuff that gives you the flavor of what people were thinking and talking about at that point in time."
Plus, the sound quality I've heard on the recordings Anderson gave to bands (he'd offer to burn a copy of the show for a band for a small fee) were excellent. The Nirvana live music in particular should be a lot better than bootleg recordings done from the crowd that most people have heard of Nirvana playing at the Crocodile Cafe.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Courtney Love
Less than 60 seconds after I handed a copy of my zine to Kurt Cobain and walked back over to my friends, I heard an awful ear-shattering squeal. The crowd lingering after Fugazi’s powerful show began parting like the Red Sea from the source of the racket, through the entire club, towards me. At the end of this corridor of music fans stood Courtney Love. She was drunk, irate and yelling someone’s name. I quickly realized as the crowd parted right up to where I was standing with friends, that it was my name Courtney was yelling. Holy shit! I gulped fear as I saw her eyes widen, honing in on the obvious target of her anger… me! As Courtney began charging through the club towards me and I prepared for an unavoidable confrontation, I took a moment to think about how I got myself in this situation.
I’d been publishing my fanzine 10 Things since 1991 with the help of a bunch of friends. We wrote about local Seattle bands, reviewed zines and music, interviewed musicians, and usually had tons of columns and editorials on everything from recipes and fashion to politics and social issues. After two years our hodgepodge of underground music and alternative ideas had grown into a fairly popular zine, slapped together in what I hoped was an entertaining package--written, designed, assembled and distributed totally by my friends and I.
One night at one of my favorites clubs, The Off Ramp, I spotted Courtney Love and some of the other members of her band Hole sitting in a booth. The newest issue of 10 Things was hot off the presses and I knew I had shit-talked about Love moving to town and sinking her claws into Kurt Cobain. Since I had brought a pile of my zines to the club, I did what any self-respecting zinester would do--I walked over to Courtney, introduced myself, and gave her a copy. It couldn’t have been five minutes before she came running over to talk to me and I was sure I was going to get yelled at. Love’s reputation had got around Seattle fast. She was known as a drama queen that was usually wasted and loved to make scenes. And boy was she wasted when she came to talk to me. Luckily it turned out she was a bit too wasted to read and hadn’t gotten to the part in my zine yet where I gossiped about her. It wasn’t a lengthy editorial on my part, but I had mentioned she seemed to have moved to town and was clearly after Kurt Cobain’s money and fame. But Courtney said nothing of my comments at all. Sweet, I thought to myself, I’m off the hook! She instead told me she liked my zine and went on a 20 minute ramble about how crappy Seattle’s college radio station was. The station, KCMU (now KEXP), was embroiled in a huge controversy after trying to limit the heavier music DJs played--ironically at the height of the grunge explosion. Over half the DJs were on strike. Courtney said she and Kurt wanted to lodge some kind of protest, but her drunken ideas didn’t seem very well thought out. She then proceeded to tell me the reason she was at the club that night was to steal the bass player of Janitor Joe, the Minneapolis band that was about to take the stage. Janitor Joe was Joe Breuer from The Bastards new band and I loved their 7” singles I had picked up. I was there to see them rock out, however, rather than steal one of their band members. Love continued, saying she helped break up Joe’s previous band and was going to break up Janitor Joe, like she had The Bastards. Nice! I completely thought she was talking shit, but sure enough, within a few months bass player Kirsten Pfaff had left to join Hole. Janitor Joe, however, continued with a new bassist. In June of 1994, Kirsten Pfaff died of an overdose, a little over a year after joining up with Courtney Love.
Even though Love was loaded and shit-talking when I ran into her at the Off Ramp, I ended up having a decent conversation with her. She was funny and flirty, and while certainly not someone I’d trust, I definitely saw a bit of her human side shine through that night. I went home and listened to a couple of my Hole singles (I don't think they had an album out yet) and came to the conclusion I had been kind of an asshole in what I’d written. So I wrote a small editorial for next issue of 10 Things in which I mentioned finally meeting Courtney. I apologized for printing gossip about her. Over the next few months I spotted Courtney at a party or two (once at the Jalepeno House in the U-District), but avoided talking to her until my new zine came out with the retraction.
Fast forward to the Fugazi show where this story began. I had seen Kurt Cobain sitting on a bench staring around aimlessly like he was pretty high, just after Fugazi finished their encore. “Nevermind” had already bolted Kurt and Nirvana into being mega-stars. It was actually the first time since the album was released that I had seen him out at a club trying to blend in. It wasn’t working of course. Everyone was whispering about Cobain being there, but no one was talking to him. So I did. I walked up and said hi, made some small talk about the show we had just watched, and I gave him a copy of my zine. Kurt smiled, said thanks, he like my zine, and started reading it as I walked away. Courtney Love must have walked up soon afterwards, seen him reading the zine, and began screaming for my head on a spike.
So there I was talking to my friends when the crowd parted and a yelling and irate Love came charging at me. She instantly got up in my face and told me she had read the zine I’d given her months before and was totally pissed at me. She said she felt betrayed because she thought we had a great conversation, then got home and read my editorial. I tried to explain I wrote it before meeting her, but she cut me off again and again. Courtney was truly an amazing piece of work, she laid into me for what seemed like five minutes without stopping to breathe. She ranted and raved about a wide variety of things that had nothing to do with me. It seemed like I represented everything bad that had been said about her in the press. She told me that she really was smart, that she was an accomplished musician in her own right, and how much she loved Kurt. About then she stopped, smiled at me, and asked to bum a cigarette. Immediately after I lit her smoke, her smile faded and Love started back up with the verbal assault. How pissed could she really be at me? And how weird was this whole experience? I was barely absorbing what Courtney was saying, I had too much going on in my head and she was droning on and on. A rockstar was screaming at me in a club because of something I’d said in my little punk rock fanzine. And there was a good-sized crowd gathering around us to watch the spectacle unfold. At some point I just started laughing. Thankfully, Love started smiling too. While she continued to yell at me, her volume level dropped a little and it seemed like she was just doing this for fun. Fun at my expense, sure, but at least she wasn’t entirely serious or angry. She was soon smiling the entire time she continued to rant at me. Eventually the situation calmed down and she paused long enough for me to blurt out, “Courtney, after meeting you I wrote an apology in my new zine!” We walked over to where Kurt Cobain was and took a look at the copy I’d handed him together. She made a half-hearted attempt to get him involved, saying “Kurt, this is the guy that thinks I’m just after your fame and money!” He seemed a bit too high or bored to care, he just kind of smiled and handed her the zine. After the longest pause in her now 15 minute rant, she read the paragraph with my apology. Then Courtney looked at me, smiled, and said, “Oh, it’s all good then. No big deal.” I quickly used the opportunity to leave the drama of the situation and rendezvous with my friends.
As I walked away I thought about Courtney’s final words. “No big deal?” I had just gotten yelled at for 15 minutes in a crowded club by Courtney Love with Kurt Cobain by her side. No big deal my ass, that was fucking awesome!
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