Well, the Youtuber known as Alt Copperpot5 has done it again, uploading more amazing, previously uncirculated live footage of Nirvana. We told you about two of the other recent times Alt Copperpot5 has premiered such video (see links at the end of this post), and like those clips, the footage is superb.

This Nirvana performance was recorded at the “No More Wars” benefit concert, held on the campus of Evergreen State College, a liberal arts school in Olympia, Washington. Nirvana headlined the event, which took place on January 18th, 1991, not long after the US-led Gulf War began in Kuwait. Before Nirvana played, bassist Krist Novoselic gave an impassioned speech about the war. Dave Grohl is on drums, having replaced Chad Channing in September.

Here’s Paul Kimball of Helltrout, the group that played right before Nirvana that evening:

Evergreen was a very socially conscious environment, sometimes to a fault. But we and other bands were really feeling it. It was an intense moment. Krist Novoselic spoke at length from the stage that night, and though I remember it being less than eloquent, it was definitely right on…The big difference at this one was Dave Grohl. All of sudden what Nirvana had been trying to do finally became undeniable. The songwriting, the time on the road…The fact that Dave could harmonize with Kurt is something that pushed the songwriting way up front, and his drumming—well, c’mon! (from I Found My Friends: The Oral History of Nirvana)

Someone videotaped Nirvana, and a couple of songs (and perhaps even more), including “Breed,” aired on a public access TV program in Olympia. It’s believed that Nirvana’s entire 33-minute concert was captured, but very little has circulated.
 

A photo from the show. Can you spot the videotaper?

On March 15th, Alt Copperpot5 uploaded a nine-minute collection of clips from Nirvana’s set—partial video of six songs, as well as a portion of Krist’s speech. The recording contains performances of new tunes that were unreleased at that time, including the earliest known live versions of “Territorial Pissings” (with a guitar solo not heard in the familiar studio take) and the unnamed hidden track on Nevermind, a song later titled “Endless, Nameless.” The taper did a nice job, and the footage looks great, appearing to have been sourced from a low generation tape. As Paul Kimball noted, the band sounds incredible. 

Here’s the order of the clips:

1. Tuning
2. Krist’s speech
3. Aneurysm
4. Breed
5. Pay to Play (early version of “Stay Away”)
6. School
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Endless, Nameless

As the video comes to an end, Kurt can be seen smashing his guitar to bits with a hammer.
 

 
By the time this show happened, Nirvana had made the jump from indie Sub Pop to DGC Records, the major label that would release Nevermind in September. Nearly a year to the day after the “No More Wars” benefit, the record would top the US Billboard album chart.
 

The first image of the group a purchaser of the ‘Nevermind’ CD sees after opening the package.

A couple more photos of Nirvana from the “No More Wars” gig, then the video:
 

 

 

 
As a bonus, here’s the full version of “Breed,” taken from the aforementioned public access TV broadcast:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Blistering, previously unseen Nirvana footage captured the night before ‘Nevermind’ was released
A young Nirvana opening the ‘Sup Pop 200’ record release party in 1988—newly unearthed footage!

 
It’s incredible that, over 25 years after Kurt Cobain’s death, previously uncirculated Nirvana video continues to pop up. We recently told you about the freshly unearthed 1991 footage, and now we’re here to inform you about a newly uncovered clip, one that dates from the group’s formative years.

In late 1988, Nirvana were still very much a young band. Their first record, the “Love Buzz”/“Big Cheese” 45, which was the inaugural release for the Sup Pop Singles Club, came out in November, and the following month, the Sub Pop 200 compilation was issued, and that included the group’s song “Spank Thru.” Sub Pop 200 was the boldest offering yet from the label, a lavish, limited edition vinyl box set containing twenty songs from twenty bands, pressed on three EPs, with a booklet.
 

 
To celebrate the release of Sub Pop 200, a two-night party was held at the Underground, a club in Seattle. On December 28th, the first night, Nirvana opened the sold-out show. An audio recording of their set has been online for years, but no video was known to exist. That all changed this week, when the first song Nirvana played that night, “School,” appeared on YouTube. Footage taken from two different camera angles were edited together and synched with the audience recording, giving us our first glimpse of this early Nirvana performance.
 

 
The band are introduced by local poet Steven Jesse Bernstein, and after a bit of tuning, the group launches into “School.” The song would be included on Nirvana’s debut album Bleach, which was being recorded during this period.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Blistering, previously unseen Nirvana footage captured the night before ‘Nevermind’ was released
Audio surfaces from a Nirvana acoustic gig that took place in a bar during the ‘Nevermind’ tour
Nirvana playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ live for the very last time

 
On September 23rd, 1991, Nirvana headlined a sold out show at the Boston nightclub Axis, with support from Smashing Pumpkins, and area acts Bullet LaVolta and Cliffs of Dooneen. The occasion was the birthday party for local alternative rock radio station, WFNX. At the time, Nirvana were on the rise. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was released to radio on August 27th, then to retail two weeks after that, and MTV was airing the “Teen Spirit” video here and there, though it wasn’t ubiquitous on the channel—yet. It was the eve of the U.S. release of Nevermind, which would come out September 24th.

Excitement about Nirvana was growing at a fast pace. The night of the gig, a line formed outside of Axis as far as the eye could see. Once everyone lucky enough to have a ticket was inside, the club was so packed the fire marshal nearly shut it down. But the show did go on.
 

 
While a few minutes of video from Nirvana’s September 23rd gig at Axis has been online for a while, previously uncirculated footage from the show has recently been uploaded to YouTube. This new video is of the first four songs from their set, “Aneurysm,” “Drain You,” “School,” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” plus the closer, “Negative Creep.” Only “School” is complete, with the footage synched up with an audience recording of the show; for the remaining initial numbers, still images from the gig were added where there isn’t any video. The conclusion of “Negative Creep” was essentially tacked on at the end. In all, there’s fourteen minutes of footage in the clip, which is just shy of seventeen minutes total.

Though it’s incomplete (it’s possible it’s all that was taped that night), and the camera work is messy at times, the picture quality is incredible, appearing to be sourced from a low generation tape. The footage we do get to see is blistering, captured as Nirvana were on their way to becoming a cultural phenomenon. Enjoy.
 

 
H/T: LiveNIRVANA.com

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Audio surfaces from a Nirvana acoustic gig that took place in a bar during the ‘Nevermind’ tour
Nirvana playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ live for the very last time
Watch Nirvana sabotage Buenos Aires stadium show, opening with (still) unreleased song, 1992

 
While the approximate year of when punk rock actually “broke” into the mainstream differs from who you talk to or the weight of cultural references, it could be said that the year 1991 was an indication of a shift in the underground. Or at least it is according to Dave Markey, filmmaker and denizen of the West Coast punk rock scene, known for certain achievements as the We Got Power! fanzine, The Slog Movie, Sin 34, and the Black Flag music video for “Slip it In” (filmed at my high school). After seeing Mötley Crüe perform “Anarchy in the UK” on TV while on a European tour with Sonic Youth and Nirvana, Markey proclaimed that 1991 was the year punk rock finally broke, which became an ongoing joke throughout the tour. The catchphrase even became the title of the Super-8 documentary that Markey was filming.
 
In ways, the tour was a “calm before the storm” for Nirvana, who were supporting Sonic Youth on the run and on the verge of colossal mega-fame. Just a month later, they would release Nevermind and we all know what came after that. If you haven’t seen Markey’s incredible documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke, do yourself a favor and check it out. An incredibly genuine behind-the-scenes look at indie-grunge royalty as they traverse Europe during a pre-Lollapalooza era. Oh, and some pretty memorable live performances by Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Babes in Toyland, and the Ramones (sans Dee Dee).
 

Flier from Sonic Youth / Nirvana show in Cork, Ireland
 
While the doc originally saw limited release in 1992, legal disputes with Nirvana’s estate kept the film from making its way onto DVD - that is until 2011, when Universal coincided the release with Nevermind’s 20th anniversary. Eyeing its eventual reissue, Markey began to assemble a postscript companion piece made up of unused outtakes and other footage from the documentary, titled (This is Known as) The Blues Scale. The name originated from a statement that Cobain yelled to Markey while ripping through a guitar solo on stage.
 

Thurston watching Nirvana at the Pukkelpop Festival
 
Since it is all b-side material, the film presents a unique look at another side of the tour - more-so how these performers were ‘performing’ offstage. There are a few live cuts, but since they were originally excluded from the opus concert doc, it’s more focused on the hijinks and personalities of the tour. And in that sense, Blues Scale is an even more raw and honest look into 90’s rock history. Like, for instance, there’s a story about how Nirvana got kicked off MCA after Kim Gordon wrote “Fuck You” on a card the label left in their dressing room. Or that Kurt Cobain thought up a gimmick that involved him hanging himself onstage. There are also scenes with Sonic Youth at an amusement park, a giddy Cobain playing spin the bottle, Thurston Moore’s take on emocore (“Mick Jagger is the king of emocore”), and cameos by Courtney Love, J. Mascis, Epic Soundtracks, and longtime Black Flag roadie, Joe Cole.
 
More after the jump…

The invitation for the ‘Nevermind’ record release party held at Re-bar in Seattle on September 13th, 1991.
 

“Nevermind Triskaidekaphobia, Here’s Nirvana. On Friday the 13th, join Nirvana and DGC Records for a release party in honor of Nirvana’s DGC debut album Nevermind. Edible food, drinks, prizes you might want to take home, a few surprises, people to meet, the band to greet… But nevermind all that, the important part is the music. Hear Nevermind in its entirety and loud.”

—the details for Nirvana’s album release party for Nevermind.

The first signal that things at Nirvana’s record release party for Nevermind might get out of hand was it was a strictly “beer only” event. To remedy this, Kurt Cobain’s pal Dylan Carlson of the band Earth snuck in a huge bottle of whiskey (allegedly Jim Beam) served it up covertly in a photo booth inside the infamous Seattle entertainment mecca/gay-friendly watering hole, Re-bar. Smuggling booze into a bar is a thing thrifty drunks do, but you also might be asking yourself why did it have to be smuggled into a bar hosting a party full of industry types from Geffen Records, local label Sub Pop and thirsty musicians? To explain this, we have to consider Seattle’s long, complicated history with hard liquor. Prior to the 1970s, it was illegal for people to drink whilst standing up, and women were not permitted to sit on bar stools.

Additionally, and until very recently, all sales of hard liquor were controlled by Washington State and obtaining a license to sell booze in clubs, restaurants, and other establishments was challenging. Getting a license to sell booze was even more difficult for venues that catered to lovers of “black” music or that was welcoming of gay people. The Washington State Liquor Board started watching Re-bar (a gay hotspot) microscopically, and would often roll into the club close to closing time to check up on Re-bar’s clientele and essentially harass patrons and employees.
 

A photo of Nirvana (apparently with former publicist Susie Tennent) taken inside the whiskey bar/photo booth at Re-bar.
 
In Everett True’s book Nirvana: The Biography, author and journalist Carrie Borzillo remembers she was told the reason Re-bar wasn’t able to serve liquor at the Nevermind record release was due to the venue also serving food (or the frightening promise of “edible food” as the invitation at the top of the post notes). Borzillo arrived at the party, and after surveying the food, spotted Cobain allegedly knocking back a fifth of Seagram’s straight out of the bottle. There were several kegs of beer but the free suds disappeared quickly. Sub Pop’s Bruce Pavitt was DJ’ing the party, and around the time the beer ran out, he had already spun Nevermind twice and twice was enough for Kurt, Krist, and Dave, who started feeding Pavitt requests to play new wave and disco hits. Naturally, Pavitt, a purveyor of good taste, complied. It wouldn’t be long before some of the edible food offered up at Re-bar starting flying, and Borzillo’s new dress was covered by onion dip.

The first food item that became a projectile was a tamale hurled by Krist Novoselic at Kurt and Dylan Carlson.

Since Nirvana was no newbie to food fights, Kurt whipped some guacamole back at Krist, though Nirvana fan club founder Nils Bernstein was certain (as noted in Nirvana: The Biography) Kurt actually threw Green Goddess dip at Krist, because these details are fucking important. Amid the flying food chaos, someone thought it would improve the party’s awesome anti-ambiance by rolling the tapped kegs around the bar. Steve Wells, the owner of Re-bar at the time collected the three knuckleheads who started the food fight, the guests of honor, and tossed the trio (as well as Bruce Pavitt) out on Howell Street, where they would proceed to puke, because it’s not really a night to remember until someone barfs.

Recently, Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Connor shared his memories of the night recalling that after Nirvana got booted, he heard Krist egging on the people still inside their party through a barred open window, sarcastically “begging” to be let back in. Since this is Seattle in the magical year of 1991, Susie Tennant, the band’s publicist at the time, pulled up in a limousine and brought the band and a few friends back to her house to continue the festivities. Kurt slingshot eggs at her neighbor’s cars with Fastbacks vocalist, the always well dressed Kurt Bloch. Now that’s a fucking party. A few photos of the night Nirvana got kicked out of their own party because they knew how to party follow.
 

A photo taken at the Re-bar party by Jennifer Finch of L7.
 

Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
 

A thrilled looking Kurt Cobain at the Nevermind record release party. Photo by Charles Peterson.
 

Dylan Carlson (standing), Screaming Tree’s vocalist Mark Lanegan and Kurt playing dress up at Susie Tennant’s apartment. Photo credit.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989’: Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt on his new book
Incredible early Nirvana gig at a tiny East Coast goth club, 1990
Watch a very tired Nirvana being interviewed just a few weeks after ‘Nevermind’ came out
Nirvana, Mudhoney, and the audience battle shitty security guards during Sub Pop’s ‘Lame Fest,’ 1989

 
Wait, Nirvana covered an aria from an opera?! That was my reaction when I learned that it indeed happened, and on more than one occasion. Often unrecognized and misidentified on circulating recordings, since fans of Nirvana—and I include myself in this group—generally aren’t into 19th century classical works. But apparently the band was.

“L’amour est un Oiseau Rebelle” or simply “Habanera,” is an aria in Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, Carmen. The piece comes in act 1, and functions as an introduction to the Carmen character. The English translation of “L’amour est un Oiseau Rebelle” is “Love is a Rebellious Bird,” and the lyrics address the wild, untamed nature of love.

An interpretation by legendary vocalist Maria Callas recently gained some attention, as it was featured during a scene in the popular biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.
 

 
Nirvana played “L’amour est un Oiseau Rebelle” now and then, with a just a handful of identified airings (no studio recording exists, as far as we know). It was something they’d jam on, usually acting as a kind of informal show opener. And, no, Kurt Cobain didn’t get his Pavarotti on—it was performed instrumentally.

Carmen is one of the most popular operas, but it’s unclear how the song came into the band’s orbit, exactly.
 
Continues after the jump…

 
Sub Pop is one of the most important and influential American record labels. Started in 1988 by Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt, and based in Seattle, Sup Pop put out early recordings by such groups as Mudhoney, the Afghan Whigs, the Flaming Lips, Soundgarden, the Screaming Trees, and Nirvana. Poneman and Pavitt not only have good taste and a keen sense for what will sell, but are also masters at branding and marketing. For example, their Sub Pop Singles Club, in which subscribers willingly fork over their money with no prior knowledge of the participating bands, was a game changer, and the label came up with a t-shirt with the word “Loser” emblazoned across the front, and the Sub Pop logo on the back. The shirt is now iconic.

On June 9, 1989, Sub Pop’s “Lame Fest” was held at the Moore Theater in Seattle. Nirvana, Mudhoney, and another young Sub Pop group, TAD, were on the bill. It was a wild night, with the bands and the crowd battling the security guards.
 

 
Dangerous Minds has an excerpt from the upcoming Gillian G. Gaar book, World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story, in which details of the event are told. The passage also gets into the second Lame Fest, as well as the Nirvana contract, insisted upon by the band, that would one day benefit the label. The text begins with reference to the recent attention Sub Pop acts had received in the British press.

Sub Pop’s profile was further heightened stateside at the label’s first “Lame Fest,” held on June 9 at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, featuring Nirvana, TAD, and Mudhoney and billed as “Seattle’s lamest bands in a one-night orgy of sweat and insanity!” Initially, there had been doubts that the show would make any money; local bands played clubs, not a fifteen-hundred-seat theater. But the concert ended up selling out.

“Booking the Moore was an epic gesture, which is how we did things,” Bruce Pavitt notes with pride. “The bands were killing it live, so we knew Seattle would go o if we could get people there. The theater’s manager let most of his security staff go prior to the show, thinking that nobody would show up. And there was complete pandemonium. Google those YouTube videos, kids, it’s an epic moment!” The show doubled as a release party for Nirvana’s first album, Bleach (the first thousand copies on white vinyl).

Nirvana had also recently become the first act to sign a record contract with Sub Pop. Earlier in the year, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic had turned up at Bruce’s house one evening, demanding a written contract; previously, Sub Pop had only made verbal agreements with its artists. Jon [Poneman] hastily drafted a one-year contract, with options for two further years; the contract was signed on June 3 but backdated to January 1, 1989. “Righteous heaviness from these Olympia pop stars,” was the Sub Pop catalog’s assessment of Bleach. “They’re young, they own their own van, and they’re going to make us rich!”

The success of the first Lame Fest led to a second one being held overseas. “Jon and I had very little resources but a lot of enthusiasm at that time,” Bruce recalls. “And we were constantly brainstorming and trying to piece together strategies that would help convince the rest of the world that Seattle had an amazing rock scene. Once we saw that model work in Seattle, we were really dead set on getting all three bands playing in London and getting as many press people and photographers there as possible.”

With Nirvana, TAD, and Mudhoney all touring the UK and Europe that fall, a Lame Fest date was arranged for December 3 at London’s Astoria Theatre. Bruce cites the concert as “a true turning point in the international stature of the Seattle music scene.”

 
Much more after the jump…

 
As the son of Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller—both alums of Second City—Ben Stiller was an early inheritor of the improv tradition that today is a key element of all big-budget comedies. Stiller’s career got an early boost after he wrote, directed, and starred in “The Hustler Of Money,” a remarkably dead-on and suitably high-octane takedown of Martin Scorsese’s 1986 movie The Color of Money, which appeared on Saturday Night Live when Stiller was just 21 years old. It took only a few years for Stiller to be running his own sketch show on Fox, a show that more than any other can be said to contain the originating DNA for the coming generation of comedy (which is now entering its dotage). The writing staff of The Ben Stiller Show featured not only Stiller but also Judd Apatow as well as Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, who would spearhead their own daffy sketch intervention called Mr. Show, which HBO fitfully supported for several years in the late 1990s.

In January 1992 Nirvana played Saturday Night Live, in a moment that cemented the status of grunge as the sorely needed generational response to the calcified pop scene in which the likes of C+C Music Factory, Paula Abdul, and Bryan Adams could dominate the charts. The first season of The Ben Stiller Show began in the autumn of the same year, and sure enough, it aimed its satirical eye at Nirvana and its Seattle cohort of Gen-X rock bands.
 

 
In “The Grungies,” the eponymous quartet, occupants of a single Seattle apartment, has the imprudently uncommercial practice of destroying its instruments onstage. Wearing flannel and Doc Martens (of course), Stiller’s “Jonsie” has the goatee of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and (eventually) sings like Kurt Cobain, while the fellow playing the wordless goon “Tork” is assigned the task of adopting Cobain’s trademark blond mop of a hairdo. Stiller and Co. brilliantly adapt the Monkees TV template to land its barbs; the conventions of that show are mimicked with such loving perfection that one suspects the presence of a ringer—a hunch confirmed when Micky Dolenz himself materializes promising a pile of major-label cash.

Watch it after the jump…

Dutch band Shocking Blue.
 
On February 7th, 1970 the number one song on the Billboard Chart was “Venus” by Dutch band Shocking Blue, which the band released as a single in late 1969. Tom Jones quickly followed with his own cover of “Venus” on a self-titled compilation album put out by Decca in 1970. Sixteen years later, Bananarama got the top spot on the Billboard Charts with their energetic version of “Venus.” The weird kids loved Shocking Blue, too: Krist Novoselic of Nirvana was once quoted referring to Shocking Blue’s Klaasje van der Wal as “a bass god.” Compliments don’t get much better than that, do they? In fact, Nirvana’s very first single on Sub Pop was a cover of Shocking Blue’s “Love Buzz.” The Prodigy also covered the song with samples from the original song.

Shocking Blue experienced a lot of success thanks to “Venus,” “Mighty Joe,” and many of their other psychedelically-tinged singles, though “Love Buzz” really didn’t get through to their fans—but vocalist Mariska Veres did. Veres’ voice had both the deep, sensual tones of Cher, and a strong similarity to Jefferson Airplane powerhouse, Grace Slick. Veres’ good looks didn’t exactly hurt the band’s popularity either. Known for her long black hair (which was in truth an incredible wig), huge green eyes enhanced by massive lashes and black eyeliner, and her groovy outfits, Veres was impossible to ignore. After replacing original Shocking Blue singer, Fred de Wilde, Veres would help the band score their first gold record with the success of “Venus.” Veres wasn’t new to rock and roll when she joined Shocking Blue at the age of 21; she had been performing with bands in and around The Hague since she was sixteen. Shocking Blue hung around until 1974 when the band called it a day. Veres dove directly into a solo career but wasn’t able to recapture the same hit-making magic as her collaboration with Shocking Blue produced.

Mariska Veres was sadly lost at the way-too-young age of 59 in 2006.
 

Veres posing with a gold record in Amsterdam.
 
Much more after the jump…

Dennis Flemion, Mark Arm, Kurt Cobain, and Jimmy Flemion (via Matador)

When Everett True recalls watching “videos of puppet sex created by insane Midwest band The Frogs” on Nirvana’s tour bus, he means Toy Porno, this two-hour video the Flemion brothers made for Kurt Cobain in 1993. It depicts the erotic adventures of a group of polysexual knickknacks, which are intercut with live performances by the Frogs. There is no mistaking the brothers’ sensibility: both the toy porn and the rock numbers delight in jokes that are in questionable taste, especially if you happen to be Rich Little, or the estate of Joseph Cotten.

The Frogs, of course, are famous for their homophile Homestead LP It’s Only Right and Natural, an enduring statement of gay supremacy.

I don’t believe this movie has ever been officially released, though the Frogs once sold the soundtrack on a C100 tape.

Toy Porno is NSFW in every single way. RIP Dennis Flemion.
 

 
As hard as it is to overstate the significance of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and their Nevermind album, it’s equally difficult to address the impact these releases had on music and culture, without rehashing what has been written before—and I ain’t gonna try! Instead, I’m offering a kind of mini history of “Teen Spirit” in a live setting, including video of two historic performances and one that came during Nirvana’s ascent, which I happened to be present for, with just a smidge of cultural commentary.
 

 
On April 17th, 1991, shortly before Nirvana entered the studio to record what would become Nevermind, they headlined a benefit concert. Organized by Kurt Cobain, the gig was held at the OK Hotel in Seattle. It was during this show, that Nirvana debuted “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Even in its formative stage, it’s obviously a powerful song. Just watch, as the audience collectively goes crazy, even though few—if any—had ever heard it before. The multi-camera clip embedded below was included on With the Lights Out. For a version with less distorted audio, though it’s from a single camera angle, is missing Kurt’s verbal intro, and lacks any crowd shots, click here.
 

 
Nirvana’s rise really begins on August 27th, 1991, when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was released to radio. On September 10th, the single went on sale, with Nevermind coming out two weeks later. I was in the audience for Nirvana’s Detroit stop on the Nevermind outing, which took place on October 11th, 1991 at St. Andrew’s Hall. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the song of the moment. As was often the case during this tour, the tune was played early on that night (it was song #6). Though it can’t be detected on the recording of the gig, as Kurt played the opening riff, a collective gasp filled the room.
 
Keep reading after the jump…

 
On December 1st, 1991, members of Nirvana played a stealthy acoustic gig in a Scottish bar. The group’s second album, Nevermind, had been released a few months prior and was steadily increasing in popularity. The “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video was all over MTV, and the band were consistently covered by the rock music press. It was in this moment that Nirvana were asked to play a benefit show in Edinburgh. Recently, after 26 years, audio has surfaced from this historic performance.

Nirvana was in the midst of a U.K. tour when they played Calton Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 29th, 1991. Scottish group Captain America, led by Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines, and Shonen Knife opened. Kurt Cobain was ill, and the gig was nearly called off when a doctor advised Kurt not to perform. But Kurt blew off the suggestion and loaded up on painkillers prior to show time.
 

Dave Grohl and Kurt during the Calton Studios gig.

Edinburgh band the Joyriders had asked Nirvana if they’d like to join them for a December 1st show, which would benefit a local children’s hospital. The event would take place at a nearby bar. The group agreed, and after Nirvana’s Calton Studios performance, the Joyriders passed out handbills for the upcoming benefit, noting the appearance of “very special guests.”
 

 
The night of the show, a large crowd assembled inside the Southern Bar. Since it was only a rumor that Nirvana would appear, many eventually split, leaving less than 30 in attendance when the band walked in.

Kurt and Dave set up on the bar’s small stage for an acoustic performance. For reasons unknown, bassist Chris (now Krist) Novoselic didn’t take part, though he was present. Rather than play the drums, Dave borrowed Chris’s acoustic bass. The duo was introduced as Teen Spirit.

After some amusing pre-show banter with the rowdy locals, they launch into “Dumb,”  then an unreleased tune (it would turn up on In Utero), followed by a Nevermind number, “Polly.” The third and final song on the audio recording is the Vaselines’s “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”, which Nirvana had been opening their shows with, and would be played during their 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged (as would the previous two songs). Unfortunately, it fades out before completion. Witnesses have noted that they also played Shonen Knife’s “Twist Barbie,” (the band members were in attendance) and one or two more.

Listen after the jump…

 
The Stinky Puffs’ Simon Fair Timony was “underground rock’s coolest adolescent,” according to Trouser Press, which also said the boy had been “raised among the Residents.” At the age of seven, Timony could have been the subject of his own rock band “family tree” poster. His parents, Tom and Sheena(h), had both worked at Ralph Records, and his stepfather was Jad Fair of Half Japanese. Cody Linn Ranaldo, son of Sonic Youth’s Lee, played guitar and maracas in the Stinky Puffs. Kurt Cobain loved them.

Enriched, perhaps, by his line of Stinky Clothes (available in “men’s blazer,” “ladies’ jacket,” turtleneck, pants, and “dress skirt” styles), Simon Timony hired one hell of a band for his set at the first Yoyo A Go Go festival in July 1994. Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl of Nirvana, and stepdad Jad backed Simon on “Buddies Aren’t Butts,” “Menendez’ Killed Their Parents,” “I’ll Love You Anyway” and “I Am Gross/ No You’re Not.” Newspapers and rock media reported that Novoselic and Grohl had reunited to play with a ten-year-old in their first show together since Cobain’s suicide. The New York Times mentioned it that August, when you could see Von LMO at CBGB for $8 or Jad Fair and the Stinky Puffs on the Coney Island Boardwalk for $6.
 

Kurt Cobain, Simon Timony and Snakefinger on the cover of ‘Songs and Advice’
 
After the San Francisco Giants won the 2012 World Series, Timony was badly hurt trying to stop a mob from destroying a Muni bus and its passengers; SF Weekly says the city rewarded him with free Muni rides for life. His current band is Gaviotas.

In the audio clip below, the Stinky Puffs’ “Pizza Break” is followed by the Super Stinky Puffs’ “Menendez’ Killed Their Parents,” live at Yoyo A Go Go. The Super Stinky Puffs’ full six-minute live set appears on A little tiny smelly bit of…... The Stinky Puffs, and Timony’s full musical response to Cobain’s death is Songs and Advice for kids who have been left behind.
 

 
In 1989 Nirvana released its debut album Bleach, famously recorded at Seattle’s Reciprocal Recording for six hundred bucks (this information was cheekily included in the album art). It was difficult to conceive of an album as sludgy and heavy as that becoming an authentic indieland sensation, but that’s exactly what happened. Bleach was one of those albums that, all through 1990 and the first half of 1991, got passed around endlessly on homemade cassette (it wasn’t shared on CDR because CD ripping technology had not yet reached the home consumer). I know, because I probably made a half-dozen dubs for friends.

Point being, when Nevermind came out that September, there was plenty of built-up demand, but even so, nobody was expecting a cleanly produced grunge masterpiece whose infectious hooks and palpably felt angst would power the album to #1 on the Billboard charts. Even after “Smells Like Teen Spirit” became the earworm of the autumn, none of my circle of friends knew which one of the trio blurrily pictured in the CD art was “Kurdt Kobain,” as he sometimes styled it. Indeed, I can remember one chum asserting that he fervently hoped it wasn’t the jerky-looking blond dude in the middle.
 

One of these dudes is the genius who wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’......
 
Those few months to close out 1991, while we all grooved to “Come As You Are” and “Polly” and “Territorial Pissings,” the band members, whose latest album was not a product of Seattle’s Sub Pop but was their first release on Geffen, were looking to reach out to the weird freaks who had gotten on board the Nirvana express in a timely fashion (they didn’t know it, but never again would they be able to distinguish for certain their “true” fans from meatheads who banged their heads to the big dumb riffs). In October of 1991 they sent out a witty, playful newsletter to their “fan club” (well, actually not, as you’ll read) that I believe is the only such missive the band ever sent out (the Internet doesn’t seem to have any others, anyway).

To read that “form letter” is to enter a pre-Internet realm in which access to an Apple IIe and a copy shop provided the chance for countless struggling musicians to forge connections with their peers and fans—and generally crack wise. The double-sided sheet is festooned with some vague precursor to clip art—consider it was less a badge of honor than a positive survival requirement for any self-respecting DIY visual artist (Kurdt definitely had strong leanings in this direction) to hoard any curious or odd-looking printed matter for collage/inspiration purposes later on.

I don’t think I’d sent my name and address to Seattle, but a good friend of mine had. I can vividly remember poring over this exact newsletter at a pizza place in the West Village…. the only thing I actually remember was the funny reference to Dinah Shore Jr.—the light bulb on that pun went on as we consumed our slices. When I saw the images of the newsletter on the Internet recently, the first thing I did was to seek out that reference, and sure enough, there it was, just as I had remembered. Similar is the silly business about the band’s first drummer, Chad Channing, being the son of actress Stockard (not true).

People may have forgotten, but Nevermind‘s ascent to the very peaks of pop acceptance did not happen quickly. It hit #1 in January of 1992, five months after it had come out—during the same month, the band appeared on SNL and Kurdt and Krist (still going by “Chris” at this point) made out during the closing credits to goose the intolerant dumbasses in the home audience. So this newsletter is basically the last moment before Cobain and Co. hit the big time, became disillusioned with success, and all that jazz. Those tragic later circumstances make this a poignant read indeed, esp. when the band shrugs off a request for more precise lyric sheet with the tip to insert “gun” or “I don’t care” whenever one isn’t sure what Cobain is yammering on about.
 

 
Read the rest of the newsletter after the jump…....
 

 
Krist Novoselic’s band after Nirvana, Sweet 75, opened for L7 on their tour for The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum. Novoselic cast L7 as the stars of his surrealistic Super 8 tour movie, L7: The Beauty Process, and released it as a now-scarce home video. It’s good fun.

A collection of live clips linked by skits, this vid’s amateurish 8mm vibe recalls Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth about De-Evolution. Musicians and other non-actors ad lib unsteadily through single takes filmed in conference rooms and parking lots.

Because it captured the specific emptiness of its time and place, I think of Gregg Araki’s Nowhere, a movie I last saw in 1997, as a cousin to L7: The Beauty Process. In one scene in the L7 movie, a guy from market research subjects the members of the group to the year’s hot new sounds. It’s a tour of everything awful: confessional singer-songwriters, third-wave ska, and “Nirvana-lite angst crybaby middle-class-white-boy grunge.” Then a record industry sleaze takes the band to lunch and offers them anything on the kids’ menu. Straightforward and entertaining enough, but the scene where the devil himself officiates a graduation ceremony for the four women of L7 is the one you take home. (They are graduating from having souls, I think?) And the live footage is, of course, a blast.

The bullshit copy on the sleeve is a good indication of the picture’s tone:

The Beauty Process is a bonafide Rock ‘n’ Roll film. The sensational rock group, L7, take us on a musical flight into the stratosphere only coming down to burrow deep into the sub terrain of music commerce. Bitter and irresponsible, it is a cautionary tale to those who aspire merging art with commerce. Ultimately, The Beauty Process is a moving inspiration demonstrating personal triumph and liberation in the face of adversity. Including the songs; Fast & Frightening, Drama, Shitlist, Andres & more!!!!

More after the jump…