News 03/2001
"Just to let you know that the radio station 'The End' will be having a Nirvana
day on April 5th in order to celebrate Kurt and Nirvana's music. They will
be playing songs throughout the day and at 10pm pacific they will be
playing the people's choice countdown where listeners have chosen the
Nirvana songs they like best ... and at 11pm pacific they will be
playing a concert of theirs. You can listen to it from anywhere at
www.1077theend.com" Thanks to "Cobainela" for this info.
"On VH-1 UK, there is a series called the 'Classic Years'. It started
from 1970 (I think). Well tonights show was about 1994, and it briefly
talked about Kurt's death, and the final song shown of the episode was
the amazing unplugged performance of 'The Man Who Sold The World'". Thanks
to Matthew.
Here is a story that, while it might be very gossip'ish and possibly untrue,
is very interesting; "Courtney Love and 'Gladiator' Russel Crowe were seen
schmoozing it up at a pre-Oscar party, and the two were getting pretty flirtatious
with each other, until later during the party when the DJ put on a NIRVANA song.
A little after the song commenced (I'm unaware of which song it actually was),
Courtney got up rather abruptly and stormed off almost in tears. The source
who reported this was unaware if it was something Russel Crowe said about
Kurt, or if the song had some sorta special meaning to Courtney. But she later
returned and screamed: 'You dont understand, he was the greatest rock star ever!'
Russel and Courtney eventually left in seperate vehicles in seperate directions."
This was apparently published earlier this week in the Canadian newspaper 'The
National Post'. Thanks to Brian for passing it on. Somehow, Courtney smooching
with one of the biggest stars of Hollywood today doesn't surprise me :)
"On April 16th the UK comedy/music satellite channel 'PlayUK'
are going to broadcast the top 100 Music videos of all time voted
by the viewers. Nirvana have two videos in the voting ballot, 'Come
As You Are' and 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. You can get people on
your site to vote at http://www.playuk.tv" Thanks to Rich.
"The Mirror, a UK news paper, published a story about
a site called www.flipflopflyin.com which has many computer
icons/small pictures of famous people, and the paper published a
page full of them, one of which was Nirvana (bottom left of page 3)."
Thanks to Daniel for that one.
"Alternative Press' website (alternativepress.com) has a section where they
dig up old articles, this time including a Jan/Feb 92 article on Nirvana.
It touches on things like the background of the band, Kurt's thoughts on
guns and more." Visit it here.
Thanks to Scott for this tidbit.
The NFC FAQ was updated. A few new interesting questions and
answers were added - and some corrections were done to a few
of the old ones. Also, the FAQ had a little facelift and was
spiced up a bit. Remember to always look through this document
before e-mailing questions, or posting them to the discussion
board. Check the FAQ here.
Scott, an old friend of mine and one of the operators of
the #NirvanaClub channel on IRC, became a father a couple
of months ago. All my love goes out to Scott and his lovely
wife. The best of luck to you and your son! Check out a picture
of the little baby boy here!
The infamous "Kurt and Courtney" documentary will also be aired
on the Finnish channel 'Yle TV2', on Wednesday the 28th of March
at 11 PM, Finnish time. Thanks to Harri and Matti for this news.
CDNow/All Star put up a story about the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame ceremony,
including a blurb on Nirvana; "Foo Fighters Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins
had the most fun. Animated and loose, Hawkins said, 'I begged to induct Queen.
I learned how to play drums to 'Night at the Opera.' Queen and the Police were
my favorite groups.' An extremely animated Grohl told reporters that he's still
working on a Nirvana box set, which has been in the works for some time now."
I like the "for some time now" part. Good thing even the media has started to
realize that fact :) Read more about the actual ceremony here
and here.
Both stories courtesy of AllStar news. Thanks to Nathan and others for the link.
"Foo Fighters singer-songwriter Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins were
on hand to induct Queen into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at the Waldorf-Astoria
hotel in New York City on Monday (March 19). Queen played 'We Will Rock You,' and
Grohl took the vocals for 'Tie Your Mother Down.' Notably missing was bassist John
Deacon, but Grohl was thrilled nonetheless. 'John Deacon didn't come out tonight,
but even two members of Queen is more than you'd ever imagine being on stage with.
I mean, dude, it's Queen.' " Full story here,
courtesy of Yahoo! and LAUNCH.
Don't forget that the current NFC Competition ends in just a week! This competition
features four spectacular prizes; a rare Nirvana book autographed by it's three authors,
a book documenting un-authorized Nirvana CDs, a copy of the "NFC Compilation" CD and
finally a bundle of cassettes with Nirvana recordings. Hurry up and check out the
competition here!
The "Kurt and Courtney" documentary will be aired this Thursday,
March 22, on the French/German channel ARTE at 8.45 PM, CET (Central
European Time). Thanks to Stephan, 'Schoofs' and a few others for
the news. More info here.
"In Q 101's March Music Madness, Nirvana has just been
defeated by Creed of all [the] bands. They lost by about 8%"
Thanks to Mike and Jon for this news.
"There's this show called the 'Loop' on a Canadian Music channel
called Much More Music. Anyways, it always posts a question on their
website and today's was 'Which is the best album cover?'. Beatles won
with 'Sgt. Pepper' at 54% but Nirvana's 'Nevermind' was in second place
with 35%." Thanks to Daniela and Stephen for that tidbit.
"A certain british Indie/rock magazine 'BackBeat' reported that Kelly
Jones of the welsh rockers Stereophonics had approached Dave Grohl about
collaborating and doing a cover of the Nirvana song 'About a girl'. Kelly
has already covered 'Something in the way' as a b-side to one of the 'Phonics
singles' and names Nirvana alongside AC/DC as one of his favourite bands. This
was reported in the March edition of 'BackBeat' magazine." Thanks to Pete
for passing along that story.
"Today I found out that the biggest newspaper in Sweden had an article that
says just about the following if I translate it for you: 'New [Nirvana] material
that has never been released before might be on it's way out to the market.
Courtney Love says that Kurt Cobain wrote and recorded unreleased material that
hasn't been put out officially. The Hole singer is also claiming that the company
who owns the right to Nirvana's songs has threatened not to give out the songs,
writes Vision. Also the bands basist Krist Novoselic has recently spoken about
lots of unreleased live recordings, alternative versions and videos with Nirvana.'"
The stuff from Courtney seems to be a summary of the news previously posted here,
while the Krist info seems a bit questionable. Thanks to Kristoffer for the story.
"In a recent edition of People magazine, the one with Julia Roberts on the cover,
on page 51, they have this interesting tidbit; 'To kill time during the filming
of The Mexican ... budding musician Brad Pitt traded guitar licks with director
Gore Verbinski. 'He plays well,' Verbinski tells us. After their movie wrapped,
Pitt gave the director a custom-made Ferrington--only the instrument doesn't
exist yet. Once Verbinski picks out the guitar's shape, color and special
details, Danny Ferrington, a friend of Pitt's who has designed guitars for Eric
Clapton, KURT COBAIN and Jewel, among others, will build it by hand. The price?
At least $3,000.'" Thanks to Keo for this one. Now we're getting a little far
out, with respect to publishing Nirvana-related news, but oh well :)
A few sources, such as the Dutch TMF, have reported that Courtney will be releasing the two
Nirvana songs "On a Mountain" and "Drown Soda". This is a bit odd, considering that the first
song is (most likely) correctly entitled "You've Got No Right" and will most definitely be
included with the upcoming boxed set. "Drown Soda" is a Hole song and it's been performed live
by the band. It is not known for sure whether Nirvana recorded [a cover of] it at all. but it's
doubtful. Thanks to Sebastiaan and others for the news.
An interesting story from NME; "Former NIRVANA bassist KRIST NOVOSELIC has appealed for the
US to dump its 'antiquated and archaic election system' and to embrace a version of proportional
representation. Dubbing the national electoral college system as 'democrazy' (rather than democracy),
the Nirvana founder turned politico has appealed to politicians in his home state of Washington to
adopt 'Instant Runoff Voting', a method already in use in Australia and Ireland." - "As president
of music industry pressure group JAMPAC (Joint Artists and Music Promotions Political Action Committee),
Novoselic claims IRV is not just fairer but would also increase voter turnout and eliminate the
problem of spoiler candidates. He said: 'Instant Runoff Voting is a serious solution to the State's
primary problem. It can help restore many people's shattered faith in democracy. There can be no such
thing as a 'wasted vote' in the United States of America.' " The man has a point. Check out the full
story here, courtesy of NME.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) compiled a list of the '365 Songs of
the Century'. "'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' — originally sung in 1939 by Judy Garland for the
movie The Wizard of Oz — tops a list of 365 Songs of the Century compiled by the Recording
Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Also ranking high
were Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas,' Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land,' Aretha
Franklin's 'Respect,' and Don McLean's 'American Pie.' The two organizations released the
list to highlight a new music-history education project that will be introduced to 10,000
fifth-grade teachers next fall." Story courtesy of Wall of Sound. You may view the complete
list here,
courtesy of CNN. Nirvana made it to spot #80 with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". "The list was put
together for young people to 'help further an appreciation for the music development process,
including songwriting, musicianship, recording, performing, producing, distributing and the
development of distribution and cultural values,' according to an RIAA press release." Thanks
to Daniel and Nuno Simoes for the links. Read more here,
or here.
"The historic SEATTLE venue where NIRVANA performed 'SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT' publicly
for the first time nearly 10 years ago, is to be knocked down. During the recent earthquake
that shook Seattle and measured 6.8 on the Richter Scale, city centre venue the OK Hotel
suffered extensive structural damage and building inspectors have ordered that it has to
be bulldozed. A popular venue with many local grunge musicians, including Pearl Jam and
Soundgarden, the OK Hotel achieved notoriety for being the place where Nirvana first played
their earth-shattering hit on April 17 1991. Rare footage of the performance featured in
Doug Pray's 1996 'Hype!' documentary." Story courtesy of NME. Thanks to Michael Farrington
for passing it on.
"In the new issue of The British mag Q, they named the 50 greatest rock books ever and
Michael Azzerad's 'Come as you are: The story of Nirvana' was on the list, plus a new
interview with him talking about the book. Also there is a pic of Kurt, and also in the
magazine there is a pic of Frances Bean and Courtney." Thanks to Jordana for that one.
"About a year ago I bought Q magazine, and it had "The Top 100 Most Influential Stars
of The Century". I thought the results were quite interesting with Kurt coming in at number
three. He was beaten by Lennon and McCartney". I might have published this story earlier.
Jack Endino briefly commented on Nirvana in his latest newsletter; "Courtney and Universal
Records are suing each other so don't be expecting the long-rumored Nirvana Box to be finished
anytime soon." Courtesy of Jack Endino.
"A Philadelphia radio station Y-100 (100.3 FM) has a contest every year with 64 modern rock
bands going for the title of the best. The last two years Nirvana has won (last year they faced
311 in the final)."
Tonight the Danish channel 'TV2 Zulu' are scheduled to air the controversial
documentary "Kurt and Courtney". The program will air at 8:55 PM, CET (Central
European Time). The documentary mostly focuses on Kurt's life and his relationship
with his wife. It includes interviews with his aunt, his ex-girlfriend Tracy and
various other people.
guitar.com recently published their list of 'The Top 100 [Guitar] Players of All
Time' in a "Millennium Guitar Squad" special. Kurt Cobain made it to spot #41;
"Just as Kurt Cobain's howling voice and tortured songs reflected the natural
turmoil of his soul, so did his guitar playing, which seemed to come from a traumatized,
unstable place deep inside him. More instinctive than technical, Cobain was responsible
for taking the dropped D tuning (most likely from the Melvins' King Buzzo) and writing
proper melodies with it. He also had a manic, hamfisted string-bending technique that
made his left-handed style look even more unorthodox than it was. Today, Cobain's 'Smells
Like Teen Spirit' has become the 'Smoke on the Water' [Deep Purple] of every young guitarist's
practice regime." For some reason they name 'Spank Thru' as a classic moment and 'Bleach'
as an essential moment. Guitar legend Joe Satriani made it to place #45 on the questionable
list. Story courtesy of guitar.com
"Nirvana has been getting an incredible amount of airplay on Q104.3 - the classic rock
station of New York. Songs like 'All apologies' and 'Where did you sleep last night', as
well as masterpieces like 'Come as you are' are all getting unbelievable airplay." Tidbit
courtesy of Morris.
"On a Chicago radio station, Q101, they hold their annual March Music Madness. They put
to bands against eachother, and people vote on them. Nirvana, of course, is one of them.
They already beat Prodigy, and are soon to face Creed, who beat Hole. If you would
like to vote, go to Q101.com, and click on March Music Madness. Last year, Nirvana made it
to the finals with The Smashing Pumpkins, a chicago band. Nirvana lost by literally 8 votes.
So to help Nirvana, win go to Q101.com." Thanks to Jon for this one.
"From the Foo Fighters timeline: 01.01.1994 Dave records 2 of his own songs at the
Laundry Room Studios in Seattle, WA while in studio with Nirvana. The songs that are
recorded are a cover of the Angry Samoans' 'Gas Chamber' and 'Exhausted'." Thanks
to Scott for sharing his observation. This is the same session that yielded a (yet
to be released) studio version of Nirvana's "You've Got No Right". It's believed
that the only song of Dave's to be recorded was an instrumental version of "Exhausted",
but it's possible that "Gas Chamber" was done also.
I previously mentioned the new A*Teens album entitled "Teen Spirit" and wondered if
it had anything to do with Nirvana. As I figured, it didn't; "Yes, the four members of
the A*Teens know the title of their sophomore album, Teen Spirit, harks back to Nirvana's
anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' — even if the music couldn't be further from it. 'We've
heard that a lot,' 16-year-old Dhani Lennevald says of the Nirvana reference. The title,
he says, came from A&R man Anders Johansson, and the Swedish quartet heartily approved.
'We weren't thinking of [Nirvana],' says Lennevald. 'People are like, Yeah, do you know
that [Nirvana] song, and we're like, 'Yeah, but that has nothing to do with it.'" This
story was courtesy of Wall of Sound. Thanks to Daniel for the link.
"On 3/3 on VH1 in the US, there was a program on called The 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.
Nirvana came in at number 6 only topped by: 5. Metallica, 4. AC/DC, 3. Jimi Hendrix, 2. Black
Sabbath and 1. Led Zeppelin. The Foo Fighters were also on, but I can't remember which spot they
were at." Thanks to Kyle for that story.
"The Magazine 'Q' have selected the best Singles ever, and of course Nirvana is in the Top 100
of this list with the single Smells Like Teen Spirit. Actually they're 1st. U2 got a 24th place,
Smashing Pumpkins 87th. The last one is the Waterboys with the single The Hole Of The Moon. Here's
parts of the top 100:"
Thanks to John Doe for this story. In case its not obvious from the Top 10 above, Q is a British magazine :)
The Internet Nirvana Fan Club won a little award; "I [have] started a new award on my page to award the
best Nirvana sites on the internet (read more about it on my page). Of course your site is the first one
I think about that deserve this award ... so I'll list you as [the first] winner." Thanks to nirvana1.de
for this award.
"Just thought you'd like to know that Dave was spotted at a weezer concert the other day. At the
Weezer site they have a picture of him at the show; http://www.weezer.net/karl/karlscorner.htm"
Thanks to Nick for that observation.
Earlier today, Courtney Love posted another message on the Hole.com discussion board,
mentioning the boxed set. First, however, she talks about Kurt Cobain's will; "KC also
plainly stated in this 'draft' ... that he did NOT intend to keep the same members in
his band - and that he desired that the two members of his band have absolutely no say
in his future recordings. I also expressed the same thing about myself - we both left a
chunk to Pat Smear and to Eric [Erlandson] and to Patti [Schemel]." As for recordings;
"Eric is the person solely responsible for going around the house after KC died and
grabbing all the tapes. The people in the house; [John] Silva (the manager), the lawyers,
and the Nirvana members were all stealing like crazy. Not Krist, but Dave Grohl mysteriously
owns a couple of Black Flag vinyl LPs and a Flipper LP that have Kurt's name on them, and
Silva has a song - that when I ordered a catalogue for this "boxset" (which is taking forever) -
he had a tape of a song no-one has but me. He only got it from ONE place - my house. Eric is
the one who got the 109 tapes and then sat on them for the last five years." These quotes may
make more sense if you read the complete thread in which the message was one of the responses.
Read it here,
courtesy of holemusic.com.
A new poll has been put on the main page; "What should be the main content of
the box-set?". To participate, just go to the main page and use
the form in the bottom right side of the page.
Due to some problems with the site, the discussion board is currently disabled.
It will be back again shortly.
"I just wanted to say that on the 22nd of march at 20:40 (GMT+1), the French
educational channel ARTE are going to broadcast the movie 'Kurt & Courtney' by
Nick Broomfield. By the way, there will also be a documentary to celebrate Sonic
Youth's 20 years existence on 16/03." Thanks to Ashvin for that one.
The whole site was down for about 7 hours today. I believe the @nirvanaclub.com
e-mail addresses were also un-available during this period, but the e-mails sent
to the server were saved and reached their destination - just a bit delayed. I apologize
for any inconvenience this may have caused. The server should be back to normal now.
The reason for the server becoming unavailable is not completely known at this point.
Apparently, Courtney Love, who owns the rights to Nirvana's music, is working
on putting out an album of unreleased Nirvana songs on the record label Epitaph.
SonicNet reported that; "[Courtney] announced that she intends to create a union
for recording artists; said she wants unreleased Nirvana recordings to come out
on Epitaph Records; and revealed plans for an all-star, all-women punk band." In
addition, she won the right to sue Universal (see February 28 story for details).
Additionally; "In another statement released Wednesday, Love accused Universal of
threatening her — unless she agrees to their terms, she said, 'no record of mine or
of Nirvana's will ever see the light of day.' Love controls the catalog of Nirvana,
who were led by her late husband, Kurt Cobain. 'There are amazing songs that Kurt wrote
and recorded that no one has ever heard. I can't wait to put these recordings out,' she
said. 'Of course, Universal had also threatened to destroy the Nirvana catalog by not
releasing these unheard songs.' She said she hopes Epitaph Records will consider releasing
the songs, but so far Epitaph has only agreed to help her assemble a 'femme-punk' supergroup
and fund work on her next album while she wages war with Universal." - "'I'm driven by the
misfortune of other artists who don't have my privilege and ability. Beyond protecting my
music and Kurt's music and Kurt's family, I want to protect and create opportunity for other
artists,' Love said in her statement." Interesting indeed! This story was courtesy of
SonicNet and Wall of Sound. Read the full stories here
and here.
There is some more info on the Universal lawsuit here
and here. You
may also want to read "Love's Manifesto" -- a lengthy article about the music business,
recording contracts and so forth. Read it here.
Link courtesy of hole.com.
An interesting story from LAUNCH; "Various artifacts from the career of Nirvana's Kurt
Cobain and Jimi Hendrix will be featured in a traveling museum sponsored by Seattle's
Experience Music Project, slated to kick-off a national tour in Los Angeles on February
15-21. Fragments of an electric guitar that Cobain smashed and a 1968 Martin acoustic once
owned by Hendrix are among the displayed items on the EMP's so-called Electric Bus." For
the dates and places of the tour, go here.