Krist Novoselic has been selected as one of the recipients of the new Northwest IMPACT Award: "The Pacific Northwest Branch of the Recording Academy will hold the first annual Northwest IMPACT Awards on Wednesday, April 2 at the Westin Grand Ballroom in Seattle. The event will honor Northwest music professionals whose creative talents and accomplishments have been recognized as an asset to the local music community. The following day, Memphis Chapter will hold the 18th Annual Premier Player Awards at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Memphis, honoring the Memphis music community's best musicians, singers, songwriters, bands, rap artists, producers, engineers and other creative and technical professionals. Selected as the first Northwest IMPACT Award recipients are Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson; legendary jazz drummer and educator Clarence Acox; and GRAMMY-winning recording artist (as a member of Nirvana) and JAMPAC (Joint Artists and Music Promotions Political Actions Committee) founder Krist Novoselic." Story courtesy of the official Grammy website. Thanks to Jeff for the link.

Apparently a new Nirvana photography book is in the works, to be released by Barnes & Noble Publishing. Details are few at this point but it may see release sometime this year. The popular photography book, NIRVANA, by Steve Gullick and Stephen Sweet was released in a new luxery limited edition late last year. See the Jan. 25 story for details.

MTV2 recently featured a '22 Greatest Voices of the past 22 years' list. Kurt cobain was voted #7. The list was compiled by viewers.

The Swedish newspaper Okej mentioned this website in their latest issue, stating that it provides information for fans as well as newcomers to the band. Click here for a screenshot. Thanks to Sofia!

Sub Pop Records will soon be releasing an album to mark their 15th anniversary: "2003 marks Sub Pop's 15th anniversary, and we're putting together a compilation to commemorate the event. Terminal Sales (Sub Pop's offices were originally located in the 'Terminal Sales Bldg.' here in Seattle) will be a two-disc set spanning 1988 to the present, featuring a very subjective chronological collection of 'greatest hits and rarities' (including a slew of as-yet-unreleased-on-CD tracks, many issued originally as part of the infamous Sub Pop Singles Club). Among others, Terminal Sales will include tracks from: Sebadoh, Beachwood Sparks, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Shins, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Iron & Wine, Soundgarden, The White Stripes, Ugly Casanova, Les Savy Fav, Hot Hot Heat, Rapeman, Nirvana, The Murder City Devils, Bright Eyes, and Ween. Sub Pop Records 1988-2003: Celebrating 10 Years of Great Records." The album, Terminal Sales, is released on June 3. Thanks to subpop.com and Chris D.

The VH-1 special "Driven: The Secret Life of Kurt Cobain" finally aired recently after having been re-scheduled about 10 times. The show promised to deliver the story behind the "real" Kurt Cobain. It would focus on "the man, his creative vision and his off-stage personality." The show is based around the Kurt Cobain Journals book, picking out quotes and pages from this compendium of his personal notebook entries. Some of the more interesting aspects of the book are then presented in the show, mixed with comments from authors, musicians and other people close to the singer.

Those interviewed for the special include: Michael Azerrad (author of Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana), Mark Arm (of Mudhoney), Jesse Reed and Dylan Carlson (longtime friends of Kurt Cobain), Charles R. Cross (author of Heavier Than Heaven), Jonathan Poneman (co-founder of Sub Pop Records), Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth), Alex Coletti (producer of the MTV Unplugged series), Jeff Mason (Nirvana production manager) and photographer Kevin Mazur.

The show tries to tell the story behind the "real" Cobain, re-cycling many of the themes and topics that have been the subject of countless other TV specials and Cobain books. The only twist was to use the Journals book as the focal point, trying to merge Cobain's own words with those who knew him best and those around him. Thus, the show didn't offer many new details, but merely provided the widely used lowdown of his drug use, his rise to stardom (and the problems he had dealing with this status), the many contradictions of his nature, the childhood memories, depression and everything else that has been heard so many times before. Found in between the interview clips were flashes of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana photos (some rare, some not), concert footage, clips from the January 1992 MTV Studios performance, Unplugged, Reading '91, the MTV Video Music Awards performance of Lithium, the 1994 Kurt Loder interview with Courtney Love and of course the 1993 MTV interview with Cobain himself. In other words, mostly material that's been used in tons of MTV/VH-1 specials previously.



Generally, while the new interviews were fairly interesting, "Driven" didn't offer anything new and seems unnecessary. At best, the purpose of the program can be boiled down to depicting the most interesting aspects of the Journals book (for those who are either not familiar with the book, or haven't read it), while getting the Nirvana experts to present their usual anecdotes and already well-documented memories. A comment from Charles R. Cross concluding the special was arguably the best part of it, contrasting what had comprised the entire show: "[What] all the talk has been about [is] the tragedy, the headlines ... it's not been about what this man [Kurt Cobain] created. That's ultimately what really matters about this man." The show will be aired again on March 15 at 2.30 AM (EST). You can find more information about the show at the VH-1 website.

The PayPal donation button was removed from the main page today, as virtually no-one (apart from two friends) thought it was a good idea to support this site with a donation. Instead, an ad banner has been put back, in an effort to secure the funds that are needed to keep the server online. In the unlikely event that someone wants to make a donation, the PayPal button is now placed in the right column of this news section. Thanks to those that did donate.

A couple of sections have been updated recently. The links section was in desperate need of an overhaul as it was last checked and updated more than two years ago. I went through each and every link, visiting some 900 sites. The ones that were no longer active or were not Nirvana-related got removed from the list, leaving only links to actual Nirvana sites that are still online. All non-Nirvana links were removed from now. At the same time the layout of the links section was changed and a better form to add a new link was implemented. Now the section offers links to about 420 different Nirvana-related websites on the Internet. Check it out here.

Also updated was the archive of the NFC Discussion Board. All of the index files to the zip's provided are now on this website instead of inside the actual zips. The index was furthermore expanded so that you can now see the date of when the thread was started, the topic, and the name of the person that started it. Finally, it is noted what period each zipped archive covers. To view the updated zip-file based archive, go here. This archive (containing all posts made between August 5, 2000 and October 23, 2002) is now searchable from the actual board. This means you can locate specific topics made in this period, or view all threads by your favorite user for example. Thus, currently more than one million messages from the board are available at your disposal. A new section also opened today: The Pencil Pages. This section offers a range of well-written editorials about various Nirvana-related subjects, all written by the talented Joseph Vilane. Previously hosted by LN, this resource has now been moved to NFC. You can find it here.

The March 2003 issue of Hit Parader features Kurt Cobain on the cover. The cover promises to give the "inside story" on Nirvana and Cobain, the "reluctant superstar". It also comes with a free poster of Kurt. The actual article on Nirvana is mostly repetition of material already published in earlier years around April. Thanks to Holly and others.

LAUNCH recently talked with Butch Vig - engineer of the Nevermind album - who revealed some interesting details about unreleased Nirvana songs:"Garbage drummer Vig told Launch that while he didn't work on the band's recently unearthed and re-released track You Know You're Right, which was produced by Adam Kasper, he was happy to see the 1994 recording surface at last. And he also revealed he's been helping compile the group's long-awaited box set. He said: 'There's still a few raw things that I know haven't come out yet. But there's not a lot of stuff left out there that is as good as You Know You're Right. So I think it's great. 'You know, I worked on that boxed set that got put on the table and there's some really cool stuff on that — a lot of weird outtakes, some jams, and some acoustic demos — and I hope that comes out sometime in the near future.' He said of You Know You're Right: 'It's a great song. I mean, the first time I heard it, a chill went down my neck. It's like, I heard Kurt (Cobain)'s voice again and, I miss him. I mean, he'd still be making great music if he was out here.' " Story courtesy of NME. Thanks to Nick.

NME have published a '100 Greatest Albums of All Time' list where Nirvana's Nevermind is found on place #19 and, surprisingly, In Utero is higher on the list - on spot #15. The greatest album of all time, according to NME, is the self-titled album by The Stone Roses. View the full list here. VH-1 in the US have also made a '100 Greatest Albums of Rock & Roll' chart where Nirvana was placed as #2 with Nevermind. You can view the Top 20 albums of that list here.

"There is an art exhibit going on in Seattle at the Greg Kucera Gallery, running until March 29th. It will have photographs taken by Alice Wheeler of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. These photographs are for sale and were taken from the early years on. You can check them out at www.gregkucera.com." Thanks to Kristi.