by Nick Soulsby
RYAN AIGNER: You’ve seen the “Love Buzz”/“Big Cheese” single? Have you noticed the inscription on the vinyl? Around the label it says “Why don’t you trade those guitars for shovels?” That quote happened during a rehearsal with Robert Novoselic, myself, and a friend called Brett Walker. We were at Krist’s house; we’d gotten together after school … trying to rehearse and learn some cover songs. Krist came home, came upstairs, listened to what we doing, and gave us his opinion about what was going on, helped us out—showed us some guitar leads he knew—then Krist and Robert’s father came home. He was a construction worker and he wasn’t happy about this noise, so he came upstairs to the boys’ bedroom, forced the door open. He was yelling. Krist was yelling back, “Aw, leave them alone! They’re just kids, you know!” Finally they let him in. We didn’t know him well; we introduced ourselves and let him know who we were. And he says with a frown on his face, “You kids, why don’t you kids go sell those goddamn guitars and buy something useful like shovels or something?” That’s where the quote came from—many years later, the story had a mythological life-span and kept coming up. They found it pretty funny so they had it engraved.
The front cover of the single was a statement of intent foregrounding only two textual elements; the band’s name and Sub Pop’s—all Sub Pop releases enforced this equal billing. The style was so identifiable that Steel Pole Bath Tub and Melvins would eventually put out a parody.
MIKE MORASKY: The idea to parody the Mudhoney/Sonic Youth split seven-inch was the Melvins’. I think they originally wanted to do it as a split with Nirvana, who I think were uncomfortable with the idea. We were big Sonic Youth fans, so we immediately volunteered. The Sub Pop explosion was just getting rolling and people were taking Sub Pop so seriously that the Melvins, us, and Tom [Flynn] at Boner Records found it funny to take the piss out of them a bit.
Sub Pop latched onto the old Detroit Motown wisdom of making a label synonymous with a location—ergo Soundgarden’s “Sub Pop Rock City” song. They created a situation where it was hard to mention music from the state of Washington without the label’s name appearing.
PETER LITWIN: On our show posters we started seeing “Seattle” and “Sub Pop” before our name. We did do one seven-inch record on Sub Pop, so that might be why concert promoters thought they could benefit from associating us with Sub Pop.
PETER IRVINE: One thing we saw was that at some of our gigs in Europe, the promoters would toss around the “Seattle” adjective in the marketing either as a bold misdirection, or else a geographic misunderstanding.
SHAMBIE SINGER: They were explicit about trying to marshal a particular sound they could market. I think at one point maybe Danny Bland—a Sub Pop PR guy and member of the band Cat Butt—likened the Sub Pop approach to Motown. He felt like Bruce and Jonathan were pretty proud of that strategy … Jonathan, who I knew the best of the two of them, was very candid about cultivating a certain sound and image for his label as a primary means toward financial success.
KURT DANIELSON, Tad: Sub Pop was an unbelievably supportive, visionary, fertile, and energetic label, one with a genius for innovative promotion … In a way, they were extensions of the band itself in terms of creative input when it came to things like ideas for album titles, contributing creatively to ideas about promotion and image … We always knew that both Bruce and Jon believed in the band, and this gave us a great sense of self-confidence. This was one of the greatest things about Sub Pop: how supportive they always were, even during the toughest and most tense times. We always felt as if whatever we accomplished ourselves musically, it was for our benefit as well as for theirs. It was a family atmosphere, and there was a sense of family pride, a feeling that whatever we did, we were doing it for the good not only of our own band but also for the other bands as well as the label itself and beyond that for Seattle and its music community.
Sub Pop’s focus on regional identity wasn’t particularly unique; the label was reproducing a common underground trend of the period.
TOM DARK: By 1983, cities and record labels everywhere started to put out lots of compilation albums, putting their scenes and bands on the map. For some reason, northeast Ohio didn’t have one, so I decided to put one out myself. While helping out bands, putting on shows and benefits, I raised enough money to put out the New Hope compilation album on my own New Hope Records.
DAVID YAMMER, Bayou Pigs: Houston was good because of its size and its geographical location. We were sort of a halfway point between Austin and New Orleans for touring bands … Anomie Records was run by Scott Ayers [and Bliss Blood] of the Pain Teens. We recorded a song at Scott’s studio for the Houston Loud compilation that was released in 1988. Actually it was Bliss and Scott who suggested that we change our name to the Bayou Pigs from the Bay of Pigs (it seems that there was a band who already had that name), and it made sense since Houston is known as the Bayou City … Anomie Records and Scott Ayers were a driving force in the Houston scene—he’s hardworking and bright if not outright brilliant!
C/Z Records had planted the Northwest seed in early 1986 with the Deep Six compilation. In 1988, the new label caught up with a compilation that would feature only the second Nirvana original to see release, “Spank Thru,” on Sub Pop 200.
JAMES BURDYSHAW: Sub Pop 200 was Bruce Pavitt’s next compilation release after his US compilation Sub Pop 100 from 1986. 100 was from a bunch of indie-punk bands across the US … For 200, Bruce wanted to showcase all the Northwest bands he loved … He really dug Cat Butt from day one and wanted to have us on his Northwest compilation. There was nothing formal about handing over the song; it was simply to have Jack Endino mix it and give it to Bruce to include on the record. No money was exchanged or contracts signed. Bruce was running the label out of his apartment at the time … It’s still a compilation, which never sells as well as a full-length release by one single group, but I made more money off that one song than anything I’ve ever put out. The first check was a $450 payout from Sub Pop about seven years after the record was released. Then there was a residual trickle for the next couple years.
SCOTT VANDERPOOL: We got a song on Sub Pop 200, but Jon said at the time “I’m not putting you out; you’re a twee jangle-pop band.” But then they put out the Walkabouts, so go figure. I made fun of that, even though I’d known Chris Eckman since junior high school PE. “They’re sensitive hippies with big amplifiers!” … Bruce loved that and used it in their promo shit … In any case, they liked us just enough to put one song on a compilation that I think over the years made each of us about $800 total …
Nirvana probably made not a penny off this release for many years to come. But given the label’s relaxed attitude toward it, the band must not have had huge expectations.
LEIGHTON BEEZER: I ran into Bruce at the beach and sat down next to him. I said that I heard Sub Pop was putting out a compilation album, and he said yes, and I said he should put the Thrown Ups on it and he said sure. It was a simpler time.
TERRY LEE HALE: Grant Eckman, drummer for the Walkabouts … told me that one of the bands that was supposed to be included on the Sub Pop 200 album had missed their deadline for submissions and that if I had a song ready and could get it to them immediately I might have a chance to be included. I just happened to have two recently recorded songs ready to go … I put them on a cassette tape and got it to Jon/Bruce right away. The rest is history. I don’t remember even having a conversation with them.
While awaiting Sub Pop 200’s release, Nirvana continued at a leisurely pace—three shows a month at most, all usually bottom of the bill.
ABE BRENNAN: We opened the show, Nirvana played second, Swallow played third, and then Soundgarden finished things off … Nirvana—we were into them by then … The thing that stood out for me was the songs—they rocked, but there was a pop sensibility to many of them; and underneath it all lingered a sense of emotional raggedness and desperation. Or maybe that’s hindsight … “Floyd the Barber” is the first song I remember heari
ng on the demo tape that [John] Purkey had—that was my favorite song then, super heavy and syncopated—so my strongest memory is them playing that song and me hurting my neck via ridiculous head banging. Soundgarden made a mistake in the first song, quite a jarring gaffe, actually very noticeable, and they all looked at each other and laughed. Then they proceeded to destroy. It was nice, though, seeing a band that good make a mistake.
KEVIN WHITWORTH: We’d just finished recording our first half dozen songs at Reciprocal with Jack Endino, and he called to say that he had this band in the studio, and that we should go and see them while they were playing in town. So we all went down to Squid Row, which was just a couple of blocks away anyway. The crowd at the small tavern was thin. I am sorry to say I was not particularly impressed, other than observing how tall the bass player was, compared to the singer.
His impression was not much changed a few weeks later.
KEVIN WHITWORTH: The Annex Theatre on Fourth Avenue downtown. “Love Buzz” had been all over KCMU by this time, and it was great—but it was a cover, so it was hard to get a handle on their music … they just stood around and swayed in prime shoegazer fashion as they played the first time I saw them, and they were much the same at the Annex. It’s been said that opening for Mudhoney and Tad opened their eyes, and I believe that’s true. Mark and Tad had always been crazy onstage after Tad came out from behind the drums, and before long Kurt was jumping around too.
October 30, 1988, saw a piece of Nirvana’s future mythology falling into place.
JASON MORALES: All the dorms were lettered A through whatever, and it just so happened that K Dorm was the last in a line, so that’s where they’d put the people who were inclined to party and get crazy. It’s where I saw Nirvana for the first time: the legendary party that shook the floor so hard it caused structural damage? That party. Just one of those early keg parties where there were so many people stuffed into the second floor jumping up and down that it damaged the floor of the dorm.
SLIM MOON: Kurt always had a theatrical flair, it’s just that the way that flair got expressed changed appropriately when the venues got bigger and the audiences got bigger … opening for Nirvana at K dorm, I got mad at Ian [McKinnon] and kicked over his drum set, so he punched me in the face. That was the first night I ever saw Nirvana smash their instruments, and I’ve always suspected that it was partially motivated by Kurt being unwilling to be upstaged by the violent drama of our set just before theirs. We broke up live on the radio a couple weeks after that.
PAUL KIMBALL: When Kurt smashed his guitar at the K Dorm Halloween party I was in the hall with no visibility to the band. But I remember people howling, just going ape shit, and then seeing someone charging out the front door with the neck of a guitar raised above their heads.
A lightbulb went off when faced with that reaction; gear smashing rocked. Just as Jimi Hendrix’s guitar burning was provoked by his competitiveness with Pete Townshend, Nirvana knew live performance was a friendly contest. This wasn’t the last time those they played with suspected one-upmanship, but what the hey, everyone was doing it.
ROBIN PERINGER, Heavy into Jeff: I did almost burn down a Seattle club after lighting my guitar on fire. I had done this a couple of times, but on this occasion, Michael [Anderson] stepped on the bottle of lighter fluid, spreading it all around the stage. We did finish the song, though.
A final key aspect of the Sub Pop aesthetic was the sense of humor; as far back as 1986 Sub Pop 100 carried the message “The new thing, the big thing, the God thing: a mighty multinational entertainment conglomerate based in the Pacific North West.” The label even released the ironically titled Fuck Me, I’m Rich compilation, paraphrasing a line from Mudhoney, when the money certainly wasn’t rolling in. The label was constantly self-referential—everything was intended to reinforce Sub Pop’s budding mythos. Jokes were simply the default communication. Consider the following gorgeous whimsy regarding the Sub Pop 200 party, Nirvana’s last show of 1988 …
LEIGHTON BEEZER: I was invited to play by default, I guess, since it was a record-release party and all the bands were on the bill. But from here on out it’s hard for me to give an accurate answer, since I got very seriously drunk that night and my memory is a little fuzzy … They were really just another band among equals at the time … But here’s what I do remember. Kurt and I used to occasionally have a beer together before he played. He used to stink for some reason … like, really bad BO. And so, one night, as a joke, I brought along a roll of my girlfriend’s deodorant and gave it to Kurt before he took the stage that night. He laughed, and then quickly disappeared. The next thing I knew, I saw Kurt onstage with Nirvana, rolling some of this stuff on, like, in the middle of a song … I can’t remember which one. He then picked it up and showed it to the crowd. The band stopped playing, looking kind of bewildered. Kurt held up the deodorant, Teen Spirit, and said something like, “Leighton Beezer said I stink and gave me this. Now I smell like Teen Spirit.” … A couple of weeks before the Sub 200 show, Kurt stopped by my house on the Hill, just to shoot the shit. He picked up my guitar, a Squire Jagmaster, as I recall, and played these four chords for me. He said he’d been listening a lot to the first Boston album and wanted to use those chords in a new song he’d been working on. I said, “But you’re ripping off ‘More Than a Feeling,’ dude.” He smiled and said nothing.
Returning (alas) to consensual reality after Leighton’s teasing, of note is how casual the release party was and how little Nirvana mattered.
GEOFF ROBINSON: I admit I still have this awful mental image of a cocktail bar with canapés when I know that’s utterly false … It was just another gig for us. The big draw was that we would be able to play with our friend Jesse Bernstein. I am still kicking myself for not getting to know him better, and mostly for not patronizing his material and other venue appearances more. He was truly a genius, and to this day I rank him up there with Burroughs and Ginsberg. Once Blood Circus got to know Jesse, our output appeared to me to be more amateurish than I had ever imagined. He was a master, and I miss him. He would probably call me an emotionally indulgent jellyfish for saying so, but there it is.
MARIA MABRA, Hell Smells: Jesse … He was hard to get to know, we were kicking it with him … I was in the trailer where he died, where he killed himself, just days before he did it—that was a shock, we were all like … It just came out of the blue. “Did you hear what Jesse did?”/“What?!” It felt crazy. I see people now with his T-shirts and I always say, “Hey, that’s a Jesse T-shirt!” and they say, “Yeah, he’s cool.”
JAMES BURDYSHAW: I kept hearing things about Nirvana but didn’t see them live until summer of 1988. They played with Monica [Nelson]’s band in Seattle at a new club called Squid Row. I didn’t really think much of them that night. They were super-loud and sloppy. They fell on the stage and screamed a lot. Kurt seemed very drunk and Monica told me she thought they sucked. I could hear the Melvins influence, for sure, but thought Buzz [Osborne] did it much better. I was thinking, What was all the buzz about these guys? I saw them at the Vogue in late August and liked them a little bit this time. They were tighter and started playing heavy riff songs instead of just screaming, but it wasn’t until I saw them open the first night of the Sub Pop 200 record-release party at the Underground that I really had a change of opinion. They played first of five bands that night—before the Thrown Ups, even. The place wasn’t even half full and I stood with Rob Roth [of Truly] and both of us were dumbfounded. I remember him saying, “Damn, these guys suddenly got really good!” I can distinctly see Kurt and Krist playing with confidence and going into the songs seamlessly. Then I heard Kurt sing these melodies I’d never seen him do before.
Although Nirvana ended 1988 still just a footnote alongside greater legends, they could still feel genuine hope for the year to come. Their music was getting released: They’d recorded an album initially entitled Too Many Humans but soon to become known as Bleach. They were now an established presence in three reg
ional music hubs and could enjoy the holiday season with friends in Seattle, Olympia, and Tacoma.
6.0
First Tour, First Lessons
February to July 1989
Two years’ work amounted to only thirty shows for maybe a few hundred Washington natives, plus two original songs out. But January saw completion of Nirvana’s first album, and some songs were already impressing their fellow musicians. Unfortunately, it’d still be months until Bleach would see release, and Nirvana was still just a local name.
NATHAN HILL: King Krab were playing at a club called the Vogue and they were in town recording Bleach. They came down to the show and played us the rough mixes out in our van. It blew us away. At that time Matt Varnum was the only one in the band who was old enough to drink in a bar, so we drank in the van. It was a good time.
STEVE TURNER, Mudhoney: Well, the first time I saw them, at the Vogue, I thought they were OK, a bit too much of a Melvins influence maybe. Then they quickly came into their own, more confidence, more hooks. By the time we played with them in California … they blew me away. So much energy! And Kurt rolled around on the ground at one point and somehow managed to balance on his head while still playing guitar …
The question remained whether Nirvana would make it past local buzz, whether they would make the first cut and then succumb before leaving a lasting scar.
Nirvana’s first step outside of Washington was a logical one: Portland.
BEN MUNAT, Grind: As far as how connected Portland and Seattle are … there have always been Seattle bands coming down here to play and Portland bands going up there. A band could actually easily do Vancouver BC, Bellingham, Seattle, Olympia, Portland, and Eugene as a little mini-tour, with no more than a couple hours’ drive between each … there has always been a rich local scene in Portland.
For a band that had started while one member lived in Tacoma, another in Olympia, and their drummers in Aberdeen, the distance was no big deal.