Today, the former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing turns 34! A big happy birthday to
Chad. Also special thanks to Chad for all his support and kindness. Don't forget to
check out exclusive soundclips of his recent band TVIV in the Sound gallery.
From Jan; "A dutch music station called TMF (The Music Factory) will possibly broadcast
the whole show Nirvana did at the Paradiso in Amsterdam next thursday night, February 1.
But you must vote for it! You can choose from Nirvana, the Smashing Pumkins and Everlast.
You can vote on the site: www.tmf.nl" Courtesy of Jan.
At the spectacular half-time show of the Superbowl game last Sunday, a riff from Nirvana's
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was used. The intro of the half-time show featured a medley of samples
from popular songs, including the Nirvana classic. The actual show featured - among other things -
Aerosmith performing "Walk this way" with Britney Spears, N'Sync and others.
Dave Grohl is working on an interesting side-project, a Heavy-metal inspired band called Probot.
The project involves people such as King Diamond, Tom Araya of Slayer and Lemmy of Motörhead. 7
instrumental tracks have already been recorded in Grohl's own basement studio. Grohl was quoted
as saying that; "there's a part of me that's always been kind of this metalhead kid". Nirvana
and Foo Fighters producer Adam Kasper will be working with Grohl on a possible forthcoming Probot
album. Story courtesy of Yahoo!, SonicNet and MTV. Also thanks to Brian Flota.
"After reading our weekly rock magazine over here in the sunny UK (Kerrang!) I noticed Nirvana had
been mentioned in an article entitled 'The 100 greatest rock disasters of all time' - At No 43 was an
incident at the MTV Video Music awards in 1992. Anyway it goes on to say that at the end of their set,
Krist Novoselic decided to throw his guitar up in the air with the intention of it crashing to the floor.
Unfortunately it hit Krist and he crashed to the floor. Nirvana then get a second mention at No 56 - on
the left hand side there is a poster of Kurt and on the right it tells the story of Kurt threatening two
UK Journalists (Victoria Clarke and Britt Collins) on two seperate answering machine messages. The article
goes on to quote parts of the two msg's which were both featured on Nick Broomfields Kurt & Courtney
Documentary." Courtesy of Chris McCarthy.
As part of MTV Europe's upcoming "Bad Boy Weekend", they will air the Nirvana "Bare Witness"
special about the Unplugged show, followed by the actual performance. "Bare Witness" will air
on February 4 at 6.30 PM and the Unplugged show will air later that day at 10 PM, both Central
European Time.
"I though you would like to hear about an interesting thing that was on the BBC 1 Evening session last
nite (22/01/01). It was a documentary concerning the realationship between music journalists and bands.
Dave Grohl was on for a moment saying; 'When I was in Nirvana, I got burned so bad by a journalist'. He
went on to say about how in an interview with a journalist he knew personally, he had commented off the
record about some of the bad things in the band at the time, and this journalist had then written these
in his article, which caused arguments with some people. It then went on to talk with some Scottish
Journalist who had championed the band from the beginning and was on first name terms, and went to see
them on the European 1992 tour. When he arrived, he said he was appalled at what he found, which was
rampant drug abuse, cancelled sound checks with the band in disarray. It was a dilemma, because he was
friends with the band and couldn't write this in his article, so eventually he settled on saying he
wished Courtney Love wasn't such 'a pain in the arse'. Kurt still wasn't too pleased with this and the
journalist (sorry I can't remember who he was) met him again and Eric Erlandson (of Hole) at Reading in
'92. Courtney had just had Frances Bean in Seatle at this time so obviously [she] wasn't there. He started
to try and explain why he wrote the article, so at least Kurt could understand why he did, although maybe
not condone it. Everytime he was bringing Kurt round, Eric just came out with a completely irrational
outburst to overturn everything this journalist had said. Things came to a head, and eventually, Eric
poured his drink over the journalists head, reducing him to a laughing stock. This ended the conversation
naturally enough. The journalist then said that he later heard that Kurt had named one of his guns after him!"
Thanks to James Good and Nick for that one.
"Nirvana are featured in the latest issue of Guitar World magazine (march 2001) in a 3 page spread.
It deals with the history of hard rock and the most important albums of the nineties, Nevermind being one
of them of course. It's a great article." Thanks to 'papercuts' for this bit.
From Pat; "I recently went to http://www.live105.com a radio station that plays alternative rock music
and I read a list of the top 105 bands of the 90s and Nirvana was 1st while Blink 182 was 2nd." Thanks
to Pat Allans for that one.
The latest poll, "Do you think Kurt Cobain should have married Courtney Love?"
ended after 3933 votes with the following result: "Yes" - 1112 votes (28%),
"No" - 2212 votes (56%), "I'm not sure" - 234 votes (6%), "I have no opinion" -
229 votes (6%), "I don't know" - 146 votes (4%). Thus, a majority of 56% believed
he shouldn't have married Courtney, while only one third of the voters thought he
should. An interesting and, indeed, quite sad result. I apologize if the poll offended
anyone. A new poll should be up soon.
"On February 3rd at 11 PM, Canal+ France are going to broadcast many performances
from several bands at Nulle Part Ailleurs, including Nirvana's 1994 performance
(of 'Rape me', 'Pennyroyal Tea' and 'Drain you')" Thanks to Rouilax for that one.
In the January 2001 issue of the magazine "Uncut", they have a Top 100 singles chart
with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on spot #2, only succeeded by a Public Enemy song. Thanks
to Caren for that info.
Angelo Lorenzo compiled a nifty little program, featuring the list of all Nirvana songs.
The program allows you to browse through the list much easier than the text file, as it
is alphabetized and allows you to easily jump from letter to letter. Special thanks to
Angelo for compiling this one. You can download it here.
A bit of a disturbing non-Nirvana related story from the music world; "After 14 years with
the band, Metallica has announced that bassist Jason Newsted has chosen to leave the metal
powerhouse. In a statement released from the band on Wednesday (Jan. 17), Newsted explains
his reason for leaving: 'Due to private and personal reasons, and the physical damage that
I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love, I must step away
from the band. This is the most difficult decision of my life, made in the best interest
of my family, myself, and the continued growth of Metallica. I extend my love, thanks,
and best wishes to my brothers Lars, James, and Kirk, and the rest of the Metallica family,
friends, and fans whom [sic] have made these years so unforgettable.' Judging by the band members'
comments, the split truly does seem amicable. Singer James Hetfield says, 'Playing with someone
who has such unbridled passion for music will forever be a huge inspiration. Onstage every night,
he was a driving force to us all, fans and band alike. His connection will never be broken.'
Newsted joined the group in 1986 a few months after the death of original bassist Cliff Burton
in a tour bus accident in Sweden. Newsted, who was formerly in the band Flotsam and Jetsam,
appeared on all albums since 1988's ...And Justice for All. Metallica is expected to start
writing and recording a new studio album for release either later this year or in early 2002.
No word on a replacement for Newsted yet." Metallica was formed almost 20 years ago by Danish
drummer Lars Ulrich and vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield. Story
courtesy of Allstar News and CDNow online.
Today, former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl turns 32! Happy birthday, Dave. As you
probably know, he is currently in the highly successful band Foo Fighters who have
been nominated for three grammy awards this year. The band just played at the huge
Rock in Rio festival - which also features Guns N' Roses, Sting, R.E.M. and many
others. Also happy birthday to my good friend Ianthe.
"I just found an article that is about Kurt. It's not much but check out the new
issue of Spin magazine, Feb 2001 on page 68." Thanks to Kelli for that one. You
can view a scan of the "article" here.
On the Nirvana tribute CD "Smells Like Bleach" recently released, there are a few
mislabels; "The song by Agent Orange is not 'Serve the Servants' but 'On a Plain'
and the song by I.C.U is not 'On a Plain' but 'Dive'." Thanks to Peter for that one.
"'Trip,' the movie that is loosely based around Kurt Cuban's death, had been
renamed 'Highway,' and will debut in theaters on June 15th, 2001. The movie
was originally called 'A Leonard Cohen Afterworld', 'Afterworld,' and the
previously mentioned 'Trip.' It is based around two teens who travel from Las
Vegas to Seattle in the days following Kurt's death, one of whom winds up at
the candlelight vigil for the fallen star."
From a recent Q Magazine; "It was a special 'Q on drugs' issue, so it had quite a few
Kurt references, as well as a small pic of him on the front, from the 1993 MTV awards.
Some of the relevant references went as such: 'Courtney Love once claimed she had been
conceived whilst her parents were high on acid. That's probably why I'm a bit weird, she
said.' On a section devoted to heroin, it noted: For them, heroin came to stand not for the
freed mind but for the nullifacation, ego-death and self-obliteration. Burroughs collaborator
Kurt Cobain may have died from a single self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, but autopsy
reports show his blood contained three times the leathal dose of herion at the time. Cobain
had dabbled in heroin before Nirvana existed but would later admit that, as the band's success
took off, he had deliberately set out to become a junkie. His desire to erase himself
clearly ran deep. Yet the records have piled up along with the OD victims. Without herion,
The Rolling Stones, Happy Mondays and Nirvana would not have made the records they made. They
might have been different but not necessarily worse, but they wouldn't of been the same. The
music of Nirvana in particular expressed the personal purgotory of a user smart enough to
understand his trap, but incapeable of escaping it.' Another little sound bite claimed; 'Depeche
Mode's Dave Gahan (whose response to the news of Kurt Cobain's suicide was one of anger at Cobain
beating him to it) used to shoot up water when he couldn't find any smack in an attempt to
replicate the feeling of mainling.'" Thanks to Ev and Q Magazine for this odd story.
As already reported a couple of times, a Nirvana tribute album was set to be released this month. The
exact release date of the album should be tomorrow, January 9. The album "Smells Like Bleach - Tribute
To Nirvana" consists of a bunch of obscure punk bands, covering Nirvana classics such as "Come as you
are", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Aneurysm" and "On a plain". The album was put out by Cleopatra Records.
You can download some MP3 clips of it here.
Thanks to Sebastiaan for the link. Update: According to Troy Clem from Tower Records, the actual release
date is January 23. Thanks to Troy for that one. It should be noted that I have also seen the January 9
release date lots of places and heard from people who have seen the record in stores. So I suppose the
release date depends on the country and/or provider.
After having used essentially the same design on the main page for a year or so, I thought
it was about time to change it. Though, as the last time I wanted to change design, I reached
the conclusion that I didn't want to start all over, but rather modify the current design
a bit. So while the 'new' design uses a lot of the same elements as the old one did I still think
it turned out rather nice. Some items were removed, and others moved around a bit, to make
the new main page a bit more compact and hopefully faster to load. I also added a couple of
new backgrounds. Determining the right font color is always pretty difficult, so there may
be some of the text that is a tad difficult to read, due to the background. Otherwise I hope
you'll like the refreshed layout. I have tried to keep it relatively simple, as a fancy layout
is often difficult to get equally aesthetically pleasing in Netscape as well as Microsoft Internet
Explorer. The content is pretty much the same as before, and the design (or the lack of it) in
the other sections of the site was not changed this time around.
As it turns out, Nirvana is mentioned in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records; "Most songs played
on MTV Europe: Grunge band Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (1991) is the most played music video
on MTV Europe. It ranked first in the top 10 singles of the 90's poll held by the music station in 1996.
(Pages 197-198)." - "Most Successful Posthumous Albums in the US: Nirvana topped the US charts with MTV
Unplugged in New York in November 1994 and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah in October 1996. The band's
lead singer, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide in April 1994. (Page 206)". Thanks to 'NegativeCreep' for this
tidbit.
"For the holidays I got a bunch of new meat puppets stuff. One thing being the re-release of the album
Monsters by the Meat Puppets on Ryko records. Among bonus tracks the release has articles inside. One of
the articles talks about NIRVANA a great deal." Thanks to Brendon for that one. You can view scans of the
article here and here.
A short list of the absolute MOST frequently asked questions was placed on the main page, with links
to their answers. The motive behind putting this up is that I still continue to get the same questions
by e-mail constantly, despite the answer being available on this site. Either that, or they get posted
to the Discussion board. So to hopefully bring an end to that, the answers are now even easier to find.
A very interesting story about Nirvana once again topping the charts; "'Revolver,' which bridged the
Beatles' moptop era with their experimental years in the studio, was judged the best album in rock 'n'
roll history by experts in a VH1 poll released Thursday. The Beatles accounted for five of the top 11
on VH1's list of the 100 greatest albums. VH1 polled more than 500 journalists, music executives and
artists. Wyclef Jean, Britney Spears, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Roberta Flack
were among the respondents." - "Nirvana's 1991 'Nevermind,' which launched the grunge rock era,
was No. 2 on the list, followed by the Beach Boys' 1966 'Pet Sounds,' which founder Brian Wilson
performed in its entirety on a concert tour last year." Thus, on this prestigious list, compiled by
many of those who know most about the music biz, Nirvana makes it to spot #2 with their legendary
"Nevermind" album. Nirvana thereby got picked in favor of artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan,
The Rolling Stones, The WHO, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and countless others.
Full story, courtesy
of Yahoo!, AP and VH-1. View the entire Top 100 here.
Thanks to Caren, Michael and a few others for links to this story.
A little story about how good the music sales are going; "So much for the Napster effect. Despite industry
types grousing over the proliferation of the song-swapping software, Napster didn't exactly dent CD sales--
Y2K was the biggest sales year ever for the music biz. According to SoundScan, the New York-based company
that's been keeping tabs on music sales figures since 1991, overall sales were up 4 percent over 1999's
previous record (785.1 million units sold from 754.8 million). According the the SoundScan bean counters, 88
albums sold more than 1 million copies in 2000, and 202 sold 500,000 or more. More than 13 million albums were
purchased online. In terms of music companies, Universal led the charge, accounting for 28 percent of the Y2K
market, followed by BMG (19.4 percent), Sony (15.4 percent), Warner (13.5 percent) and EMI (8.7 percent). It
was a banner year all around for the music industry. The concert circuit took in a record $1.7 billion in
ticket sales for 2000, up 14 percent from last year according to industry trade Pollstar. Private dancer Tina
Turner showed off those famous legs in a farewell tour that was simply the best--to the tune of $80.2 million,
putting her in first place. The boys of 'N Sync came in second with $76.4 million." So to those ignorants (= RIAA)
who have nothing better to do than suing companies like Napster and MP3 - f#@!k you! The numbers prove how incredibly
wrong you are. Story courtesy of Yahoo! and E! Online, Inc.
"This morning I was watching 'The List' on VH-1, well the topic was 'Best song of the 90's'. Nirvana landed on the
#3 spot, with Dave Matthews Band as #1." Story courtesy of Ashley France.
The nominations for the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards were announced a few days ago. The Foo
Fighters are up for one in the category "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal"
with the song "Learn to Fly". The other four nominees in this category are Bon Jovi, Creed,
Red Hot Chili Peppers and U2. The Foo's are also nominated for "Best Rock Album" with their
latest effort, "There is nothing left to lose". Apparently, there is one thing left :) Finally,
the band is also up for "Best Short Form Music Video", with their hilarious music video for
"Learn to Fly". The show will be aired February 21, 2000 at 8 PM/ET on CBS (in the US). You
can find the full list of nominees at the official Grammy site.
Once again, Courtney is suing someone; "COURTNEY LOVE has launched a lawsuit against the ex-wife
of her current lover, alleging the woman tried to run her over, forcing her to withdraw from a film role.
The Hole frontman has launched a $300,000 action against Lesley Barber, former wife of Love's
boyfriend Jim Barber. According to a report in this morning's (January 4) Metro newspaper in London,
Love claims to have injured her foot when Lesley Barber ran over her while attempting to mow her down."
Story courtesy of NME. Full story.
"Today (Janary 2) during VH-1's Pop-Up marathon, at 4:30 (EST) a '100 Best Artists of Hard
Rock' episode came on, and the last video was Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'". Thanks
to Sil for that one.
"NIRVANA ended up as #19 with 'Smells like teen spirit' out of the 2000 most popular songs
in Belgium for Radio Donna (a radiostation in Belgium). First place was captured by QUEEN
with 'BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY'. Second was Bryan Adams with 'Summer of 69'". Story courtesy of John.
The band Papa Roach just did a cover of Nirvana's "Lithium" on an MTV special called "2001".
An interesting move, considering how Papa Roach is disliked by most Nirvana fans. In other
Papa Roach vs. Nirvana info, in the video for their popular track "Last Resort", a Nirvana
poster is clearly visible. Thanks to Dave for this one. In other MTV news; "Last night on MTV2
(a music channel in the uk) they had the 'Top 75 most requested songs ever'. Nirvana had three
entries with 'Come as you are' being quite low in the chart, 'Heart-Shaped Box' as #12, and 'Smells
Like Teen Spirit' on the number one spot" as usual :) Thanks to Jason for this story. Also
check out a discussion about the Papa Roach cover here.
You can download a soundclip of their cover of "Lithium" here.
Someone noted that "In Bloom" and "Lithium" were also in the above mentioned Top 75.
Justin added this one to the board; "Apparently VH-1 are having another 100 Greatest Albums shows
on Jan 15th.Iin the commercial [for the show], someone is babbling about how Nevermind matches up
to Heidi the musical. When 'an albino' is said, he goes 'whoa, check out the goat-it's albino!' and
they play clips of SLTS, CAYA, and On a Plain." There is a good chance that 'Nevermind' will end up
among the Top 5 in the chart, perhaps as #1.
Two interesting Nirvana recordings recently surfaced. The first one is the complete September 1989
session for the Blew EP which yielded a rare studio version of the unreleased "Token Eastern Song";
"The songs from this session are Been A Son, Stain, Even In His Youth, Polly, and Token Eastern Song.
All of the songs from this session are surfaced on bootlegs or official releases except for the Token
Eastern Song which has been rumored to just be an unfinished demo. Fortunately, the recording acquired
proves that this is not the case. The Token Eastern Song was indeed a complete, finished, recording ...
as is the case with every other song from the session." The other one is a show recorded at the Swarthmore
College Olde Club in April of 1990; "This is a soundboard recording and we do know that it is the complete
show. The show contains a pretty average setlist for that era, with no real rarities." I do NOT have these
two recordings yet, but they should be available through the 'Live Nirvana Collector's Union' [LNCU] shortly.
More info at livenirvana.com. Story courtesy of Frank Morris.
Archive of past months news and website updates:
1999:
[ Oct | Nov | Dec ]
2000:
[
Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov | Dec ]
2001:
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Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov | Dec ]
2002:
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Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov | Dec ]
2003:
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Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov | Dec ]
2004:
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Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov | Dec ]
2005:
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Jan | Feb |
Mar | Apr |
May | Jun |
Jul | Aug |
Sep | Oct |
Nov ]