Moody blues question tablature4/27/2024 Nirvana evolved from the punk rock scene in the North-West of the United States. Krist Anthony Novoselic, bass player with the band, also lived in Aberdeen but was born in California and had moved up the coast with his family when he was fourteen. Aberdeen, WA, is also located at the mouth of two rivers, the Wishkah and the Chehalis, so its name could have been quite different…A piscean connection in any case…On February 20th 1967, Kurt Donald Cobain entered the world here, a Pacific-coast logging town which sounds even wetter than its Scottish namesake, up to seven feet a year they say. Although there are salmon running further up the Dee, those from Scotland are more likely to associate the North-East with sea fish like haddock and lemon sole. The name means ‘between the Don and the Dee’ because the original ‘Granite City’ or ‘Silver City by the golden sands’ is built between those rivers. So, let’s go back to Aberdeen, WA, as I said, called after Aberdeen in North-East Scotland, thanks to a salmon cannery apparently. Of course, both tongue-in-cheek and nowhere close to describing the band as they actually were, but you get the idea! The difference between the two can perhaps be summed up by two Nirvana t-shirts: One for ‘Bleach’, when they were with Sub Pop, which read ‘Crack-smokin’ satan-worshipin’ fudge-packin’ motherfucks’ and the second for ‘Nevermind’, made by Geffen reading ‘Flower-sniffin’ kitty pettin’ baby kissin’ corporate rock whores’. Why choose ‘Bleach’ over ‘Nevermind’? Well, the whole music world knows about the latter and ‘that song’ don’t they, which has been the subject of much scribing and attention, and wasn’t fame and fortune the death of Kurt Cobain? To my mind, the first album captures the true spirit of the band. The world of digital streaming, disconnection of sound from physical product and printed graphic art, seems so far away from the origins of most recordings to me, and this one is definitely no exception, especially given the very ‘low-fi’ lifestyle led by Kurt Cobain and his contemporaries – Plaid shirts, acrylic paintings, carpet of discarded beer cans, makeshift pet turtle vivarium or hand-made stick figures anyone? So, my first exposure to the music therein was decidedly ‘old school’ – put the needle on the record! Since then, like many of my generation are want, I purchased the release in digital ‘hard copy’ CD format, evading the pops and crackles, and facilitating a car-driving grunge-classic soundtrack which can be turned up to high volume. This copy of the album was released through the Waterfront label ‘down under’. The LP version of ‘Bleach’ that I have in my collection is a blue vinyl Australian release that appeared when I was rifling through the racks of a ‘bargain basement’ sale in a record shop in Aberdeen, the city in North-East Scotland, as it turns out, co-incidentally, the place that the town in Washington State, USA, was named after, and which was the birthplace of Kurt Cobain, singer, songwriter, guitarist and driving force behind Nirvana.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |