NFC News 11/1999 |
The Nirvana photo exhibition in London, as mentioned several times here, has apparently received
some mixed reviews from the critics. Story follows; "Although the selection of photos is wide-ranging,
with half of them being black and white pictures from concerts in the U.S. and Britain, it's the other
half of the shots, which are posed and scream 'magazine feature,' that bring the exhibition down. Shots
of Cobain standing on a street near Times Square in New York with a sign that says 'Men Don't Protect
Anymore' in the background, taken by Sweet in July 1993, are particularly stiff. There's something too
staged about the pictures, with Cobain hiding behind dark glasses and his stringy dyed hair that puts
the viewer off. The photo tries too hard to convey that Kurt is a rock rebel and superhero. Close-ups
of the band, taken by Goodacre in 1990, are also very contrived, as Cobain has put on some out-of-character,
heavy eyeliner for the occasion -- which just happened to be a session for the cover of NME. This photo
has actually been criticized a lot; for instance, in the forward to the book, The Nirvana Companion: Two
Decades of Commentary by John Rocco, Everett True writes, 'It looks nothing like the Kurt Cobain I knew,
presents such a one dimensional, distorted picture of him... I have nothing against Martyne Goodacre, it's
the lack of context I can't handle.' Yet, there are also some more natural moments that have been luckily
immortalized. Steve Gullick, who was a personal friend of the band, took many candid photographs of them
in 1990 when they were staying at a hotel in Shepherd's Bush, West London. One hotel room shot especially
captures the group's casual attitude towards stardom and their teenage mentality as all four sit on the
floor and Cobain gives the cameraman the middle finger as he covers his head with a sleeping bag. Another
bemused shot of Cobain, taken by Gullick in Seattle in 1993, wrapped in a long tinsel Christmas wreath
demonstrates that deep down he was just an average guy who happened to play guitar and make millions from
it. The commercial aspects of the show seem to be far reaching as it's sponsored by Levi's and prints are
priced from £420 ($675) for the small ones up into the thousands for the larger ones. However, fans who
kept up with the music scene during this time period will be asking themselves what's all the fuss about
as they've probably seen most of the shots before. In fact, this exhibit is more a tribute to the band's
ironic, snowballing success since Cobain killed himself in '94, than the group itself -- the scruffy looking
boys who made 'grunge' a household word." Story
courtesy of CDnow, Inc./All Star News.
As discussed in NFC Newsletter #26, it was proven a
couple of months back that a song, previously known as 'In His Hands', was actually called
'Verse Chorus Verse'. A title that was previously believed to belong to a whole different
song. To sort this out, Mike of 'The Happening' contacted Krist Novoselic to get his comment.
He confirmed that the song we previously called 'In His Hands' (or 'In His Room') was actually
called 'Verse Chorus Verse'. He also confirmed that the song on the No Alternative compilation
is really called 'Sappy', as it was also believed to be. The only part that is still a bit up
in the air is whether or not this song ('Sappy') has also been officially referred to as 'Verse
Chorus Verse' -- for one, Chad Channing said it was renamed from 'Sappy' to 'Verse Chorus Verse'.
This is obviously somewhat unlikely considering that this title was already used by the other
song. So, for now we will just say - as Krist confirmed - that the song on the
No Alternative compilation is called "Sappy". We'll also say that the song performed at the 4/17/91,
11/25/90 and 8/17/90 shows is called "Verse Chorus Verse" -- the song previously referred to
as 'In His Hands'. The latter is believed to have been recorded during the Nevermind sessions. "Sappy" was
recorded for No Alternative and on a couple of other occasions. It was also performed live several
times. You may download a clip of Sappy or download
a clip of Verse Chorus Verse. Don't
worry about the 'ID3 tags' that are incorrect in both of these cases. Thanks to Mike
Ziegler for this news. You may take a look at Krist's e-mail to Ziegler here.
Thus, the top 10 listings in that category. I pretty much agree with that perspective, though I don't see how the hell Robbie Williams ended at place #6. Whoever sees him as a bigger influence than Mozart and Bach needs a head examination. But then again, without knowing the answer, I'm willing to bet a million bux that this magazine is British which would explain place #6 ... pretty much down to the bare bone.
At first I didn't get the idea behind Krist's new band, The WTO Band, but after listening
to the news today I started to see what was going on. As it turns out there is a WHO summit
in Seattle on Tuesday (November 30), the same day Krist's band will do a show in Seattle as
I mentioned in the November 24 update. Here is a little background on that story; "Initially
welcomed by boosters as a way to highlight Seattle's rising status in global commerce, the
economic [WHO] summit may be remembered instead for thousands of protesters intent on shutting
down an organization they see as a juggernaut of ruthless capitalism." - "For every campaigner
lying down on a sidewalk this week to protest the WTO's efforts to reduce trade barriers, there
is a happily employed Seattleite whose job depends on free commerce with the world" Read full
story, courtesy of CNN.
Here is a little more info on the event, courtesy of Reuters; "Trade ministers from 135 nations,
meeting here this week, hope to narrow their differences over farm subsidies, labor standards and
other thorny issues and launch a new round of global trade negotiations. Under pressure from farmers
and other groups who see freer trade as a threat, World Trade Organization (WTO) members have been
hard-pressed to agree on an agenda for the new round, which aims to reduce tariffs and other trade
barriers in industries ranging from agriculture and construction to entertainment and telecommunications."
Full story. More information
here and here.
If you have a lot of money to burn, you might be interested in this; an original Univox
guitar owned by Kurt Cobain is currently up for auction on eBay. While a lot of frauds
operate there, this one should be for real. The guitar was used in Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped
Box" video. Here is the seller's description of the item; "White 1970's Univox Hi Flyer
(#037472) owned by Kurt Cobain and used in Nirvana's 'Heart Shaped Box' video. Kurt bought
the guitar from a pawnshop in the Chelsea District, while in NYC to play the Roseland Ballroom
in July of 1993. Modified for his use, this guitar has hand painted dots on the underside of
the neck, Gotoh Tuners, roller type string trees, straplocks, and a Badass bridge cut and
intonated for left handed playing. Kurt had this guitar shipped to Los Angeles for the filming
of the 'Heart Shaped Box' video when he couldn't find his favorite Mustang, which he later
discovered under his bed. This guitar was smashed by Kurt at Memorial Hall, Kansas City, on
the third date of the group's final U.S. tour (10-21-93). Included is the case, which has on
the outside: A) shipping label from; Juke Box City (where the band rehearsed material for 'In Utero'),
to; (tour manager) Alex MaCleod c/o L.A. International Airport (guitar was airline shipped from SEATAC
to LAX for video shoot the next morning) B) Rock-It cargo sticker C) LAX destination label D) 2 airline
FRAGILE labels E) Fed Ex tracking label dated 15SEPT93 (guitar was later shipped back to Seattle via Fed
Ex) F) top corner of an early black Nirvana sticker G) white gaffer's tape labeled WHITE UNIVOX Also
included is a setlist from the Portland Meadows show. This guitar is listed on several Nirvana sites
including: here and
here. A letter of provenance will accompany the sale
of this instrument." - at the time of writing, the highest bid is more than $10.000 US dollars. The
auction ends on November 28, 1999 at 5:30 PST. Several pictures to supplement the description above are
also available. Thanks to Brian H. and Neno for the link. Check out the Univox Guitar auction here.
Here is some very interesting news I received from Alex Proud, the owner of Proud Galleries
in London, UK. As I have reported a couple of times before on this page this gallery is, at
the time being, hosting an extensive exhibit of rare Nirvana photos. Full details; "[The Proud
Galleries] have just opened the largest European exhibition of Nirvana pictures, in central
London. As well as being the biggest photo Gallery in Europe (we expect about 20.000 people
to visit this exhibition), this is one of our biggest ever shows, we have had TV crews from MTV,
BBC, CNN to cover it, and it has featured in all the UK newspapers and magazines, 8 pages in
Mojo [a British music magazine] etc. The three photographers are Stephen Sweet, Marty Goodacre
and Stephen Gullick, and between them have a large chunk of the most famous images of Nirvana.
We have also published a major new book to go with the exhibition, called 'Winterlong' ... 120
pages of pictures and text from the photographers, it is selling out here in the UK."
Following the demise of Sweet 75, Krist Novoselic has now joined another band. 'The
WTO Band' features Krist Novoselic, Jello Biafra (of The Dead Kennedys), Kim Thayil
(of Soundgarden) and Gina Mainwal (of Sweet 75, I believe). The band will do a show
in Seattle, WA at the 'Showbox' on November 30 1999. The gig is headlined by Spearhead
and presented by JAMPAC, the organization that Krist is president of. According to an
ad, the show is "a benefit for the institute for consumer responsibility" and is thus
a protest of the World Trade Organization [WTO]. This could indicate that the band is
only temporary, though considering the terrific lineup ... let's hope not! Should you
be so lucky to have a chance of attending the show on November 30, you should be able
to get tickets at TicketMaster.
The 'Showbox' is located at 1426 1st
Avenue in Seattle, Washington. The show begins at 9:00 PM and admission is $12.00 USD.
Have in mind that you must be at least 21 years of age to be admitted. The doors open at
8:00 PM. I think that's about all the info I can squeeze out of this one :) Thanks to Jeff,
TicketMaster and Krist's website for this excellent info.
In the winter 99 special collectors edition of "Entertainment Weekly" they listed the
top 100 Greatest Performers from 1950 to 1999. Kurt was listed #72. The Beatles were #1
and Elvis Presley #2. Thanks to Ralph for this story.
Today, exactly 10 years ago, Nirvana did a show at some obscure small club in Linz,
Austria. To mark that anniversary I have added 50 video captures of the show to the
site. The captures are not in such a good quality but most of them should be ok.
The captures are taken of a low generation complete video that surfaced not so long
ago. Before that the show was only available in a cut version, in quite poor quality.
I have made a soundclip of the show as well which I might put up sooner or later. For
now, check out the 50 video captures that are - as with the Unplugged shots - divided
into two pages of 25 pictures each. Click here to view the
video captures. Depending on your connection speed, it might take a while to load the page.
In a recent edition of the VH-1 show "The List", Nirvana's "Nevermind" made it to place #2.
The legendary Prince album "Purple Rain" made it to #1 and the Beatles were #3 with the "White Album".
Not exactly Nirvana-related news, but I thought this story was so amazing that I just
had to put it here; "In what is shaping up to be one of the biggest artist-driven online
events in history, the decade's biggest selling band, Metallica, will make available for
the first time ever an entire album for audio streaming prior to its scheduled street date,
Nov.23. Metallica and Elektra Records have aligned with more than 150 websites, radio
stations and retailers to provide exclusive song-by-song access to their fans for their
much-anticipated new album S&M, Metallica with The San Francisco Symphony Conducted By
Michael Kamen. S&M, a double album, will be streamed in its entirety track-by-track
around the clock, hosted by Elektra in conjunction with Entertaindom.com, the new
entertainment site from Warner Bros. Online launching on November 19th. Online music
listeners will not only be able to hear these songs first, but they will be made
available on demand, which means Metallica fans - via streaming audio - will be able
to listen to a track as many times as they want, whenever they want, for an incredible
seven day run. This unprecedented promotion will be offered through a single Elektra-
controlled host links to the promotion will be available from Metallica.com, Entertaindom.com,
UBL.com (part of the Artistdirect Network), MTV.com, and an awesome array of radio station
and online retail sites, all working in tandem to bring the new Metallica album to as many
fans as possible. In total, S&M on Demand will be syndicated to more sites than any content to date."
For years, Metallica has been a band that is 110% dedicated to their fans -- and this event just proves that fact once again, beyond any doubt whatsoever. As much as I love Nirvana, I do not know of a band caring as much about their fans - and doing as much for the fans as possible - as this one; Metallica. It's just amazing. For more info on this incredible event, check the official Metallica website. News courtesy of The Metallica Club. If one asked me to compile a list of all Nirvana books ever written, I'd need a couple of weeks to type up the list. More or less. Joining this list is the forthcoming Nirvana book 'Nirvana: Winterlong' (?) Full story; "The works of NME [New Musical Express] photographers Martyn Goodacre and Steve Gullick are to feature in a new book on Nirvana called Nirvana: Winterlong, published on November 23 by Vision On. The book coincides with an exhibition at London WC2 Proud Galleries which kicks of the same day. Goodacre took the classic image of Kurt Cobain that graced NME's cover the week after he died and has cropped up on bootleg t-shirts, posters and calendars all over the world. Steve Gullick photographed Nirvana in their pre-Nevermind days including a cover session for defunct rock weekly Sounds, the first of the UK music paper to put the band on the cover." The exhibition in London was mentioned in a previous news segment here. This story was courtesy of nme.com news, November 16 1999. Speaking of NME, they recently compiled a Top 100 chart of "How Rock Shook Up The World". On place #1 we find the death of Kurt Cobain; "The End Of Music. So Kurt Cobain named his publishing company. And so it was when Cobain took his own life with a single shotgun blast to the head. The day the music died." - "The Alternative Era was underway and nothing, not even the suicide of its unwitting (and unwilling) architect, could be allowed to halt its advance. But after Cobain, after Nirvana, things were irrevocably different. No-one could claim with any degree of conviction or credibility that music really mattered any more. Because to Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, music had been everything. Indeed, to them, music had mattered too much." One place #2 is "Bob dylan going electric" (!) and on place #3 they put the event "Belle and Sebastian Winning a Brit Award" ... which was ... erhm, quite important ;) Story courtesy of nme.com news.
Later this month there will be an online auction, offering some limited edition Nirvana
t-shirts; "Limited-Edition Nirvana T-shirts To Be Auctioned Online To Benefit Home Alive
and Groups Working to End Violence Against Balkan Women. 136 limited edition Nirvana T-shirts
featuring a reproduction of Pablo Picasso's Massacre en Corée (Massacre in Korea, 18 January/1951)
will be auctioned online at http://www.speakeasy.net/homealive
beginning November 17 at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. The t-shirts to be auctioned online are
the last remaining from a run of 2000, which were originally produced for a 1993-benefit concert
[04/09/93 to be exact ... NFC] featuring Nirvana, L7, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and the Breeders
at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The concert was organized by Nirvana to raise awareness about rape
and other human rights violations that were being perpetrated against women and girls in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia and Serbia at that time. The auction is being sponsored by Seattle-based Home Alive, an organization
dedicated to providing free and sliding scale self-defense classes in Washington State. Proceeds from the
auction will benefit Home Alive and organizations working to end violence against women in former Yugoslavia."
- thanks to Ruth White for this news. In 1996 a double-CD was released by the Home Alive organization. The set
featured a previously unreleased Nirvana clip -- "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" recorded in France, in 1994.
Another new Nirvana-related domain, breed99.com, opened recently. The domain primarily
consists of a download link to a piece of software called "KurtWare - The Tom Grant
Documents". As the title indicates, the program is about the murder theories. When you
open it, you get to see a couple of Cobain images and a menu where you can click to read
the various parts of Tom Grant's documents. The actual menu seemed to work fine, but when
you click on a link, to a document, you just get an empty text window saying "Rich Text"
Hmm, maybe it's just my computer. In any case I will not be mentioning this website or
software again since it deals with the murder theories. Still, if you want to try out
the software, get ready for a 10 MB download. Get it here.
Thanks to Jay and a few others for the link.
The Internet Nirvana Fan Club is mentioned on the official Britannica website;
"Exhaustive and meticulously researched resource on this influential Seattle grunge
band. Provides a biography, a discography, a gallery of photographs, audio and video
clips, an archive of interviews and articles, lyrics, and guitar chords. Includes a
complete listing of concerts, a bulletin board, and bootleg recording information.
Visitors may also read Kurt Cobain's suicide note and Courtney Love's eulogy for him."
- this site received a four-star rating. The highest possible rating is five stars,
given to 'Best of the web' while four-star sites are described as 'Superior'; "The
Britannica Internet Guide is a selective directory of websites. Britannica's editors
strive to include only the best websites, as judged by the following criteria:
a) accuracy, usefulness, depth, and breadth of information. b) credentials and authority
of the author or publisher. c) quality of design, graphics, and multimedia. d) ease of
navigation. e) timeliness of revision."
A couple of minutes ago, the 1999 Europe Music Awards from Dublin finished off. MTV's
award shows usually feature today's biggest artists in the music industry and this show
was no exception to that rule. The show took place at the Point Depot in Dublin, where
Nirvana did a show on June 21, 1992. Though, apart from that there was not much Nirvana
related with the show. Unfortunately the Foo Fighters weren't present as they weren't
nominated for any awards, and weren't scheduled to play. There were still a couple of
highlights, such as a live performance by Offspring (who won the award for 'Best Rock')
and Alicia Silverstone presenting the award for 'Best Pop'
to Miss Britney Spears. This year's "Free your mind" award
went to Bono of U2, for his dedicated work to help third world countries, for helping Greenpeace
and much more. The award was presented to Bono by Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones. You should
be able to find a full list of a winners over at MTV Europe's website.
Once again the page with info on the Pennyroyal Tea single was updated. The update is mostly due to an interesting story I received from Dominik. I also added some keypoints, in the beginning of the file, to make it a little easier to determine which singles are authentic and which are not. Thanks to everyone who have contributed to this section.
A few minor updates were done today. This includes some corrections of errors in the
NFC FAQ and a little bit of new info. Four pictures of the Cobain residence were moved
to the rare pictures section, and the new section for video captures was added. Also,
the 'Misc files.' section was updated with a couple of new links. In a short while, a
bunch of new video captures of a November 1989 show will be added, so look out for that.
Today, ten years ago, Nirvana did a show in West Germany. Amazingly on this same day
the Berlin Wall was torn down. Unfortunately a recording of this particular show has
not surfaced - though most of their shows in Germany around this date has. My thoughts
and prayers today goes out to those who lost their lives trying to beat the Berlin wall.
I finally got my copy of "There is nothing left to lose" today. I thought most of the
CD was pretty good. Right now I think their 2nd album is better, but perhaps after I've
listened to the new one enough times, I will come to love it. My initial favorites were
"Stacked Actors", "Breakout", "Learn to fly" and "Generator". Very cool songs. Though it
was a little dissapointing that the album is only about 45min and only 11 songs. Perhaps
they inherited that bad habit from Nirvana! One greatly positive thing about the album is
that it comes with an Enhanced CD Part which you can play on your PC or Mac. This consists
of album lyrics, great pictures and the 'Learn to Fly' video in Quicktime format. Very cool.
If you're wondering whether or not to buy it ... I'd say go for it. Foo Fighters is a great
band and this CD more or less proves that. I'd put up sound clips of it here, but for now you
can probably find some at all the Foo Fighters websites out there. That of course includes the
official site at foofighters.com which is maintained
mostly by Ed Dame. Ed is the founder of 'Breed: The Nirvana Webring' that I offered Ed to host
on this server, a year ago or so. It is now being maintained by Tyler. But that's another story!
As I mentioned in an October update, the semi-official Nirvana site at Geffen Records is down. This means that none of the links I have to movie files, in the movie gallery, are working at the moment. Though, I recommend you check out the two links I have provided in the bottom of the movie gallery. That should put a halt to your urges for movie files. In addition, I plan on adding my own movie files soon. I just need to get my TV-tuner card to behave properly first :) In Britain, Channel Four has been running a 'Music of the millennium' poll in association with the popular record store chain HMV. Apparently more than 600.000 people voted. Here are some results:
Best Band:
Best Male Singer:
Best Songwriter:
Best Song:
Best Album:
Special thanks to Neil Manson for this chart. Neil added that the British Q Magazine
named their choice for the best 90 albums of the 90's. They chose 10 for every year
except 1999. For 1991, "Nevermind" made it to the Top 10. For 1993, "In Utero" was
named the best album and for 1994, "Unplugged in New York" made it to the Top 10 as well.
In about 10 days, it's been exactly six years since Nirvana performed their legendary performance
on MTV Unplugged. To celebrate that I decided to add some video captures of the show, to this site.
I decided to add not 10 ... not 20 ... but 100 (!) captures off the show. So there should be a good
chance of finding an image you like. The quality on some of the captures is not that good, but most
of them should be fine -- Nirvana's MTV Unplugged.
In the November issue of the magazine 'Maxim', there is an interesting review of the
new Foo Fighters album: "Taking a cue from the big winners at this year's MTV Awards,
the Foo Fighters' third album is nothing but rap/metal fusion, moody electronica, and
latin dance pop. And if you believe that we've got a used Space Needle in Seattle we'd
like to sell you - dirt cheap. Despite the bummerish title, frontman Dave Grohl is
standing his ground and fighting the rock 'n' roll battle like he's got an avenging
army marching behind him. The Foo hit the fan from the very first track, the searing,
snotty 'Stacked Actors', and keep driving through 10 more songs - without even a whiff
of mood-killing filler. Hanging some red meat on the band's always sharp hooks, "Breakout"
and "Live-in Skin" meld a propulsive drum bedrock and frequently ferocious guitar attack
with an appreciation for melodic vocals missing from most modern rock, evoking everyone
from Pink Floyd to, yep, Grohl's old outfit, Nirvana." - "So while Rock 'n' Roll may not
top the charts right now, this album hits the mother lode of Foo's gold. And if there's
a God in heaven - platinum." The album received a rating of 5 out of 5. The magazine also
features an outstandingly gorgeous image of Jennifer Love Hewitt on the front cover and
a load of steamy pictures of her inside the mag as well :-)
I just got hold of some prizes for the 4th NFC Competition that I've promised for a while
now. The first prize is a limited edition Foo Fighters single of the track "Everlong". This
is also the second prize, except the 2 bonus tracks on the other single are different. The
third prize is still TBA. The competition will thus be online shortly.
For a while there, everything was pretty mysterious as to what happened to The Foo
Fighters Internet Archive [FFIA] and how an official site suddenly turned up. Now
some of the loose ends seems to have cleared up. First of all, the official FF website
at foofighters.com is apparently being run by former FFIA webmaster Ed Dame and someone
called Jonathan Schuman. According to the site they are 'working to bring a lot of that
material back in', referring to the files from FFIA. Most interestingly is the brand new
design of the site, which looks a thousand times better than the old one. The "new" site
also offers a lot of new material. Finally, the site is working on implementing the Ultimate
Bulletin Board script which is the same as we use here at www.nirvanaclub.com. Good luck, guys.
I just did an interview with Kennedy Grey of the Rock Against Suicide organization,
who is working on a book about Nirvana. The book will primarily consist of fan mail
sent to an official Nirvana Fan Club that Mr. Grey got involved with. The interview
should be up very soon.
Due to a small internal error, my @nirvanaclub e-mail addresses were not working during
most of yesterday and today (November 2). The problem should be fixed now. Still, if you
tried to e-mail me yesterday or today, please re-send your e-mail to me. Sorry for the
inconvenience. Obviously, if you sent an e-mail during the past couple of days that I
replied to, you don't have to re-send it since I received it the first time.
A total of 1040 people voted, out of whom 74% planned to buy the album that was released today. This proves perfectly how many Foo fans are hidden among those who visit Nirvana websites.
During the past couple of weeks there has been a significant increase in how many
people click the sponsor banners situated around this website. This means that the
monthly income is higher, which again means that I will have more funds to make this
website even better. Thus, so far I have ordered another 50 MB of space for the website,
bringing up the monthly hosting fee by five dollars. But if the number of banner clicks
keeps staying this high, I will not have a problem paying the extra five dollars per month.
So thank you very much for supporting the site by clicking the sponsor banners. In case you
are unaware of it, the sponsor banners are situated on the top of the main page, the sound
gallery, the movie gallery, the picture gallery, the contest pages and on the banner page.
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