4.52am Issue: 025 16th March 2017 - The Kurt Cobain Nirvana Issue

KURT COBAIN
Nirvana Personified
It is hard to overstate just what a change
Kurt Cobain, Nirvana and Grunge
generally had on music, but if it was
never known for anything else, getting rid
of spandex in Rock Music for a few years
was particularly satisfying in my neck of
the woods.
Even Def Leppard ended-up wearing
black, the world would never be the same
again.
Looking back, Nirvana were of course the
focal point of the whole Grunge
movement, aided and abetted by MTV’s
heavy rotation of some punter-friendly
singles, but pop fame hadn’t been the
point up front when Kurt Cobain, Krist
Novoselic and a perplexing variety of
drummers worked their way through any
number of names for the band before
finally settling on Nirvana. Cobain
explained,
"I wanted a name that was kind of
beautiful or nice and pretty instead of a
mean, raunchy punk name like the Angry
Samoans."
At this point, the band were starting to
find their feet, with their first single, a
cover of ‘Love Buzz’ gaining reviews in
the UK as well as garnering radio play in
the U.S. Like so many Grunge bands,
Nirvana had signed for Seattle label
Sub-Pop on a one release deal,
although the surprising success of the
single saw the band sign to do an
album, although given the realities of
life the band had to fund the recording,
the princely sum of $606.17 which was
paid for by the then second guitarist
Jason Everman. Whether he only got to
join because of the funding, is unclear
even now, but despite appearing on
the album’s credits, he is believed not
to have played on the recording.
‘Bleach’ was recorded with many signs
of the bands influences at the time –
Mudhoney being an obvious one, but
the guitar sounds of Black Sabbath
were also a big factor. This is the raw
album that defined Nirvana and
Grunge, with the songs being a primal
scream of pain when compared to the
later melodies that would appear on In
Utero and the Unplugged album.
On its release ‘Bleach’ very much
spread the word and saw the band off
on both national, U.S, tours and then
visiting Europe, with a handful of dates
in the UK including a session at the
BBC’s Maida Vale Studio.