by Everett True
“The streets over here are paved with grunge,” Arm joked in a remark he later grew to regret.
It would be Mudhoney that would go on to introduce grunge to an unsuspecting world via the UK. Their shows were mayhem; sweat, stamina, stagediving, sex and spontaneity. There couldn’t have been a student union during the early Nineties that didn’t explode into a riot of moshing at the sound of the opening chords to ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’. At their laconic best, Mudhoney were untouchable.
Jack passed the Nirvana demo to a few friends; among others, Dawn Anderson, Shirley Carlson and Jonathan Poneman – their first press, first Seattle radio play and first record contract respectively.
“I loved it,” says Dawn Anderson. “I was just starting [rock fanzine] Backlash and looking for bands to write about. I was really into Malfunkshun, Green River, Melvins, Soundgarden, Skin Yard . . . all those bands. I remember the first of the many times that scene was pronounced dead. It was early 1988, when Green River broke up and the Melvins ditched Matt and moved to San Francisco. Feast had also hung it up. Then of course, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Tad and Nirvana came along, so it was a great time to put out a zine.”
Backlash had a 10,000 circulation and was pretty close behind The Rocket in sales, despite always being on the verge of bankruptcy. It got a reputation among the city’s commercial music establishment and at The Rocket of being ‘that zine that always writes about bad garage bands’ (like Soundgarden and Nirvana!).
“Jack was sitting in my room when he called Sub Pop to ask if they’d heard the tape yet,” Dawn continues. “Jonathan told Jack he loved it but that Bruce thought it was ‘too arty’, causing Jack to explode, ‘He’s into mediocrity!!’ It seems weird to think of that early stuff as ‘arty’, but it wasn’t entirely off the mark. It was more inventive than a lot of the other grunge bands.”
“I was enamoured of the idea of there being a musical insurgency from this part of the world,” explains Jonathan. “I knew how many great bands were out there because I was booking these shows. I’d ask Jack regularly whether he’d heard anything new. And then he says, ‘Dale Crover came in with this guy from Aberdeen. It’s awesome. But I’ve never heard anything like it before.’ So he made me a tape. I remember listening to the first song, ‘If You Must’, and going, ‘This is kind of cool, nice guitar riff, mumbly Tom Petty-like vocals’ . . . and then I came to that crescendo, that ‘ RAAAA’ . . .! It was the first time I heard Kurt’s roar. I sat there looking at the tape deck going, ‘Oh my God.’ I literally popped the tape out of the deck and rushed down to the Yesco offices where Bruce was working: ‘You have got to listen to this tape.’ ”
Yesco was a Seattle company that had bought out Muzak, the company that makes synthetic elevator and shopping centre music. “The worst job you could get there was the one I had when I started,” says Mark Arm. “We would get these dirty, gross, old tapes and scrape off the labels so they could recycle the cartridges. It was in this tiny place where dust was flying around and you couldn’t hear shit because sanders were going on all day. It was horrible. But it was fun. Chris [ Pugh] from Swallow worked there, Grant from The Walkabouts, Tad, Ron from Love Battery18 . . .”
When Sub Pop moved to the Terminal Sales a few months later almost everyone who worked there came from Muzak. So of course Bruce played the tape during the lunch break when all the musicians were sitting around . . .
“Mark said something about how it sounded like a fifth-rate Skin Yard,” recalls Jonathan. “To which I was like, ‘Boo! Man!’ Mark has impeccable taste, but that was the one time. He has since denied ever saying that. It could be Bruce was attributing to Mark something he felt himself.”
Originally, Sub Pop wasn’t part of Kurt’s plans. And even while they were engaged in early discussions he continued to look elsewhere. Sub Pop was new, with no track record. During 1988, Kurt sent the demo with lengthy handwritten letters to various US labels that housed his favourite bands – Chicago’s Touch And Go (Scratch Acid, Big Black, Butthole Surfers), SST and San Francisco’s Alternative Tentacles (Dead Kennedys). In fact, he even referred to the tape as ‘the Touch And Go demos’ in his journal: he estimated that he sent 20 copies to the Chicago label, enclosing with each copy a gift, ranging from small toys to confetti to paper towels encrusted with snot. He never received a reply.
“We are willing to pay for the majority of pressing of 1,000 copies of our LP, and all of the recording costs,” he wrote. “We basically just want to be on your label. Do you think you could PLEASE! send a reply of Fuck off, or not interested so we don’t have to waste more money sending more tapes? Thanks. Nirvana.”
Impressed by the demo, Jonathan booked the trio to play in Seattle.
Both Jon and Bruce separately insist that there was a show in early ’88 that happened prior to The Vogue on April 24 (long held to be Nirvana’s debut Seattle performance). It took place in Pioneer Square, at the Central Tavern: a long brick tunnel with a stage at one end and a bar at one side. The Central was known for its liberal booking policy. Sonic Youth played there. Butthole Surfers played there.
“At the first [Seattle] show there were three people present: Jon, me and the bartender,” recalls Pavitt. “And their songs were bad. And Kurt had a good voice. And they played one good song, and it was by Shocking Blue. None of their original material was outstanding in the least. I thought we could probably get away with putting out the cover. That was my initial impression. And that the drummer had a moustache, and that was problematic.”
Was that Aaron?
“Yeah. And to see this band and think, ‘This is going to be the biggest band in the world in three years’ – no way. I’d put that at about a billion to one. But we were singles-orientated, and I felt that they had enough material for a good single, and that their vibe complemented what we were doing. And that was most important because Sub Pop was cultivating a certain vibe, à la Blue Note19 or Factory. They fit in.”
“There was a Central show that was cancelled,” says Jonathan, “but there’s a second show that happened. It was Aaron Burckhard who was playing drums. And yeah, it was Bruce, Tracy, myself, and one or two other people, at the Central Tavern. Kurt threw up, as later became his custom. Bruce was standing there with a ‘prove it to me’ vibe. He was getting into it a bit, but when they played ‘Love Buzz’ he leans over and goes, ‘That’s the single.’ It was that moment, coupled with Nirvana getting props from his friends in Olympia, that Bruce was won over.”
He said there was a problem with the drummer’s moustache.
“That’s true,” laughs Jonathan. “I can’t express it any better than that. That’s succinctly put.”
So the second show that Nirvana played in Seattle was at The Vogue, a small alternative dance club owned by cross-dressing Monty and his stripper girlfriend. The Vogue mostly played industrial dance music, but it also featured live music, including Sub Pop Sunday once a month. It was small, not overly disgusting. There weren’t too many people present: the usual enthusiasts and a handful of Seattle musicians. The burgeoning Sub Pop crowd, in other words.
Nirvana had to wait outside before playing, since Foster was under age: when they took the stage they played 14 songs, no encore, with ‘Love Buzz’ as the opening number. By all accounts, it was ordinary.
“I wasn’t overly impressed,” recalls Dawn. “I thought Kurt acted a little self-conscious, albeit cute, and hadn’t quite gotten the knack of playing lead guitar and singing at the same time. There were maybe 20 people there: Tracy, Shirley and . . . were the Sub Pop guys even there? I talked to Kurt afterwards and he said his stomach hurt and that he had puked that day. Then a Backlash photographer took some pictures.”
In the Rich Hansen photos – Nirvana’s first shoot – Kurt looks unshaven, with shoulder-length blond hair and a dark cardigan: he’s sitting on Krist’s knee, the bassist dwarfing the other two members: Dave has his baseball cap on backwards and wears a white sports T-shirt. His moustache really doesn’t fi
t.
“Nirvana were playing after Blood Circus, not favourites of mine, but they had the big hair grunge moves down and were exciting to watch,” says Charles Peterson. “Nirvana were anything but exciting to watch. It was three mopey guys, the definition of downer rock. I was not impressed at all and didn’t take any photographs. I figured, why bother photographing a band’s first and last gig? I remember saying to Jonathan, ‘Are you sure you want to sign these guys?’ They had a pot of ‘Floyd The Barber’ at KCMU [a pot is like an eight-track cassette on a loop] that Shirley had been playing occasionally, usually late at night when I was at work. I found it somewhat interesting, but grating. That, on top of seeing them live, I thought, ‘This band is just a snooze.’
“That’s why I was photographing for the record label, not running it,” he adds, laughing.
“There was a representative from every Seattle band there just watching,” Kurt complained in a letter to Dale Crover, somewhat exaggerating the crowd size. “We felt like they should have had score cards. So after the set Bruce excitedly shakes our hands and says, ‘Wow, good job, let’s do a record’20. . . Now we’re expected to be total socialites, meeting people, introducing etc. FUCK I’M IN HIGH SCHOOL AGAIN!”
“We were uptight,” Cobain told Anderson. “It didn’t seem like a real show. We felt like we were being judged.”
“Kurt was fairly shy,” Dawn explains, “but I was used to that. Most of the Seattle bands I wrote about weren’t exactly studs, and whenever I interviewed one, they had to get past the fact that an actual female was speaking to them. I thought Kurt was nice, maybe a little baffled by the attention, since they’d only had one show in Seattle. He did act more comfortable later. I didn’t get the impression Kurt was the bandleader, even though he was obviously the main creative force. Krist definitely came across as more confident. I didn’t interview their drummer. I don’t even remember his name. He was ‘that guy with the moustache’. When that issue of Backlash went to press they’d just kicked him out of the band, so we cut him out of the photo at the last minute.”
The show might not have been that good, but it was enough for Jonathan to call a few days later and suggest that Sub Pop put out a Nirvana single. He arranged a meeting at Café Roma up on Broadway.
It wasn’t an auspicious encounter: Krist got hammered on 40-ouncers beforehand, and belched and insulted Poneman throughout their chat. He also yelled at the other customers, “What the fuck are you people looking at? Hey! Hey!” (Kurt told Michael Azerrad it was “one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen”.) Tracy didn’t like Jonathan’s long trench coat. Kurt liked the fact that Jon had some money squirrelled away21 that he was planning on putting into the label’s initial output of limited edition singles and EPs – mostly from local bands. But he didn’t like the fact that Sub Pop was unwilling to commit to anything beyond one single, and not even one featuring their own song as the A-side – or that they seemed to have zero business acumen.
“Sub Pop is always broke,” Kurt wrote in a letter to Mark Lanegan. “So we’re openly looking for any other offer. They mean well but we don’t think it’s fair for Mudhoney to be favoured and catered to on a higher level than the other bands.”
Still. It was a start.
“The meeting at Café Roma was just Kurt, Tracy and I initially,” explains Jonathan. “ Krist came trundling in later. He was wicked pissed but a lot more gracious than has been portrayed. He was definitely suspicious and said as much but he was intrigued. We all were.”
“They were disappointed that Sub Pop didn’t like them enough to put out a seven-inch of their songs,” comments Slim. “ ‘Love Buzz’ was a compromise because Bruce didn’t like them so much. Sub Pop went back and forth. Kurt got frustrated. I couldn’t believe it when they hired my friend Alice [Wheeler] to shoot the cover and it had to be black and white. Hearing all their stories about Sub Pop really brought the label down a peg in my estimation.”
“The thing that Slim and all of them seem not to consider is that I was nervous as fuck,” Jon says. “I was in awe of Kurt’s talents. I knew he was going to have an impact. It’s a fun but awkward part of being a fan. Also, I had to lure my Sub Pop crew to seeing the light about Nirvana. So any reluctance was just the art of hem-and-haw until folks felt comfortable. The cliquey shit was a bummer but it also made our scene congeal.”
“Here’s a classic Nirvana story,” says Candice Pedersen. “Tracy gave me a tape of some stuff they recorded, and I was like, ‘Hey Calvin, you should put this out.’ He said, ‘I’m not putting out some girlfriend’s boyfriend’s band.’ And it sat on the windowsill for years. He wouldn’t even listen to it. I was like, ‘But they’re fun, I go see them every weekend in Tacoma.’ Oops. But you know, ‘oops’ moments often save you. Who knows what would have happened?”
What made them so fun?
“They were bad and stupid,” she replies. “Silly and outrageous and fucked-up all the time. Not like fucked-up people, they just fucked up every song. Krist might have been a little loopy, but everyone else was sober. It was pure stupidity, how rock’n’roll should be, stupid and fun.”
Gradually accepted into the Sub Pop clique, Nirvana started playing other shows in Seattle – usually with other nascent grunge bands. It took them a while to impress the locals, however.
“The first time I saw Nirvana was at the Central,” recalls James Burdyshaw. “They were just another loud, bad band. It was obvious they were trying to sound like the Melvins. All Kurt did was scream. Second time I saw them, they opened up for The Obituaries at Squid Row, summer of ’88. I was still drunk but this time they were better. Just. My memory of Kurt was of him going, ‘ WaaaaaAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!’ and the band being ‘Chung-chung-chung-CHUNG!!!’ I mean, Melvins Jr, completely.”22
“They opened for Bundle Of Hiss,” says Dan Peters. “Nirvana start playing and everybody is sitting around like, ‘What are they doing?’ The PA isn’t even turned on. We were all like, ‘Hey you guys, you might want to wait until the PA gets turned on.’ ”
It wasn’t until the Squid Row gig on July 30 – where Nirvana were supporting Skin Yard – that Dave Foster realised he was no longer in Nirvana. He’d actually been out of the band for a couple of months by that point, but he was never officially sacked. That wasn’t Kurt and Krist’s style. He found out via The Rocket: he picked up a copy to check out the gig guide, and noticed Nirvana was playing the same night.
Kurt wrote him a dismissal letter but never sent it, perhaps fearing Dave’s response: “Dave,” he wrote, “A band needs to practise, in our opinion, at least five times a week. We’re tired of total uncertainty every time we play a show. The two main reasons are Chris and his work, and you and your location. Instead of lying to you by saying we’re breaking up, we have to admit that we’ve got another drummer. His name is Chad and he’s from Tacoma and he can make it to practice every night. Most importantly, we can relate to him.”
Addenda 1: Grunge
So it’s all your fault, right?
Jack Endino: “Well, I invented grunge, didn’t I? No, that’s your line [laughs].”
No, I gave that up years ago.
Jack: “Oh, did you? Well, thank God for that. Good for you.”
So it’s your fault . . .
Jack: “Oh no, not entirely. You could blame Mark Arm.”
I could, but I’m going to blame you because you’re sitting right here in front of me.
Jack: “All right, all right, that’s fair. You know, Steve’s been doing this longer than I have, Steve Fisk . . .”
Steve’s got nothing to do with it.
Jack: “You could blame Bruce Pavitt. You could make a pretty good case there.”
Yeah, you could. Well, in terms of the music, then . . .
Jack: “No one cares about the music! [laughs] I’m just kidding. I’m feeling so testy . . . the grunge thing became such a huge tragicomedy after awhile it’s hard to even speak about it with any degree of seriousness at thi
s late remove. You just want to throw your hands up and . . . giggle. ‘What the hell was that? How did that all happen?’ ”
Well, it was your fault. I’m sticking with that.
Jack: “OK, but only to the extent that if the records had sounded really shitty instead of just sort of shitty then maybe none of it would have happened because it would have just been like every other indie scene in the US making shitty sounding indie records for no money.”
You were using shitty instruments but making them sound good.
Jack: “Yeah. And shitty recording equipment and making it sound good. That was my contribution: I made sure the records were listenable, which meant people would actually take these bands seriously . . . sort of. Seriously on the level they were trying to be taken seriously. Such as that was. If it wasn’t for that, probably a lot of these bands would have stayed obscure, and there wouldn’t have been anything for Sub Pop to have a label with. I get demo tapes every day that are god-awful sounding and I think, ‘Thank goodness Bleach sounds as good as it actually does.’ Because look how many people ended up hearing it. Even ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ is a wonderful sounding record. It sounds exactly like it’s supposed to sound. But you know what I said to Mark and Steve at the time? I said, ‘Are you sure you want that much distortion on your guitars, guys?’ ”
Tell us about grunge. Aren’t you the Godfather of Grunge, one of the many?
“There’s a phrase,” laughs Leighton Beezer, former ‘guitarist’ with Thrown-Ups.23 “ ‘The Godfather of Grunge.’ No. I never claimed that one. Jack Endino probably claimed it, although I’ve heard it applied to Neil Young. That’s way after the fact though, [Young] just kind of came in and said, ‘I like this!’ So Jack’s the Godfather of Grunge, and I’m the Leon Trotsky of Grunge. It wouldn’t have happened without me, but I was way too extreme to ever make it in the real world.”