Thank you for your wonderful letter. It's great to know we have fans like you _____. When we are in your home town of _____, we will be anxious to have a rap session with a groovy person like you.
Be on the watch for our new LP, to be out in September, on Sub-Pop records.
See you soon,
Luv,
Chad
Kurdt, &
Chris
Geez! Being in a band is great! We've been on tour for nearly two years, scaling the very SOUL of this great land of ours. Sitting in a van on the average of 7 hours a day, eating the finest truck stop cuisine, jerking off in the shower of a Super 8 motel. Whoa Nelly! The life! Since we are big international rock starz, it was no problem getting high. Primatene Mist, Night Train, Nytol were all drugs of choice! Our favourite buzz thrill is called "doin' Edge." There is nothing like the cool euphoria of the compressed gas in an Edge shaving cream can to really get your gizzard. You simply turn a 12 oz can of lime green Edge (with aloe vera) upside down, put lips towards the little rubber stopper, depress it with a butter knife CAREFUL! Now suck, suck, suck. Ooooh baby what a feeling!
Chad isn't in the band anymore. We'll miss him. We will have a single out real soon.
We recorded with Butch Vig in Madison. What a swell guy.
We don't know what may lie ahead, maybe we'll sign with Disney. Maybe we'll get a drum machine, maybe we'll get Phil Collins on drums.
As for now the politbureau of Chris & Kurdt bid you farewell.
This new kid on the block can't dance as good as your MTV favourites, but he beats the drums like he's beating the shit out of their heads! His name is Dave Grohl. Dave is formerly of the Washington DC band Scream. He passed thru the gruelling Nirvana initiation ritual with flying colors and is now an important cornerstone in the Nirvana institution.
NEW SINGLE!!!!
A-side Sliver / Poppy w/ personal phone conversation with John & Chris
NIRVANA's new record, Nevermind, out on DGC, is due to be released September 24th. This 12 song LP was recorded by Butch Vig at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys California.
NIRVANA will be doing a short tour of Europe in late August and will play the Reading Festival in the UK. Later in September they will be doing a tour of the US, lasting through October. After this they will be going back to Europe.
European Dates:
Date:
Venue:
AUG 20
IRELAND CORK SIR HENRY'S
AUG 21
IRELAND DUBLIN TOP HAT
AUG 23
ENGLAND READING FESTIVAL
AUG 24
GERMANY COLOGNE TANZBRUNNEN
AUG 25
BELGIUM PUKKELPOP FESTIVAL
AUG 27
GERMANY BREMEN ALADIN
AUG 28
GERMANY HALLE SCHORRE
AUG 29
GERMANY STUTTGART LONGHORN
AUG 30
GERMANY NURENBERG SERENADENHOF
SEP 01
HOLLAND ROTTERDAM DE DOELEN
US Dates:
The following dates are confirmed tour dates for Nirvana:
Thanks for writing! Here at NIRVANA central, the switchboards are buzzing, the conveyor belts are moving fast, and the crews are working double shifts towards the September 24th release date. The band, being the benevolent friends of the proletariat that they are, just raised the coolies pay 10¢ to an even $1.50 an hour. The same price as the ALL AMERICAN MEAL at McDonald's™.
NIRVANA, in special conjunction with McDonald's™, are proud to announce the NEVERMIND HAPPY MEAL™. The only way to receive NEVERMIND is when you buy the HAPPY MEAL™. It will not be available in stores, just like another project NIRVANA has been working on, NIRVANA PLAY CHARIOTS OF FIRE AND OTHER HITS. It will only be available through a special TV offer. And, as an added bonus, a book called NIRVANA'S CRAFT SECRETS will be offered. It will show you all of our special touches for those seashell macrame plant hangers and spray painted macaroni paperweights and much much more.
We are also doing a tour of shopping malls and county fairgrounds to promote our new record and book of craft secrets. Also in the planning is a video cassette demonstrating how to have a tranquil day at the beach collecting driftwood and sea shells, and how to make the memory last by constructing a wall hanging with what you have found. We will have tranquil New Age music, along with step by step instructions so you can relax while you work. Rainbow and Unicorn stickers will also be included. Look for it in '92.
Welcome to the Nirvana form letter. Thanks for writing (except for evil Jessica Hopper in Minneapolis who says the new album makes her "sad, and what happened to songs like 'Love Buzz' and 'School'"… nah, just kidding Jessica; your letter was great, even if you do like Mudhoney better). Excuse the pap of this computer jive, but it's all we can muster for now, what with the touring action and record release mayhem and all that (not to mention the limo rides, charity appearances, and parties on soupy sales yacht). Nirvana's on the road until Halloween, home for a brief while, then off to Europe — the tour dates are on the back of the order form.
We haven't set up a fan club just yet, but we probably will soon and you'll be the first to know when we do. We just gotta field the mail and get an idea what this fan club stuff will entail so we can do it up right!
By now you may have heard about the Nevermind record release party, thrown at Rebar in Seattle on Friday the 13th of September, during which a cool $2000 worth of draught beer was consumed by just 200 people in 2 hours. It also goes down in the history books as the only record release party where the band was thrown out (Chris started a food fight that got a little out of hand). The evening wound down about 10 hours later in a giant heap on their DGC rep's living room floor, Kurdt and Dave in two of her finest smocks, and all busy defacing a beloved Nelson gold record. Oh yeah — KIDS, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. NIRVANA ARE TRAINED PROFESSIONALS, NOT ROLE MODELS.
To all of you who need lyrics, sorry, but aside from the ones printed in Nevermind, Kurdt isn't exactly sure himself of most of them, because the vocal tracks are recorded while he is in a religious state of fervor, i.e. the guy is speaking in tongues. His advice is to mumble through them as best you can, and when in doubt, try either "gun" or "I don't care". Our favourite lyrics screw-up so far is Robin Peringer's interpretation of "Teen Spirit"'s line, "a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido," which he turned into, "I'm Nirvana, I'm Nirvana, you're a skater, have a beer."
Some of you, too, have asked about the spelling of Kurdt's name, why it is spelled differently at different times in different places. Kurt's name has an interesting genesis, beginning with the 1906 immigration of Curt's Scottish great-grandparents, Kadthy and Curdt Sr. MacKobain, to Aberdeen, WA where the MacCobains were put to work at Lukin's House of Pork as musical entertainers in the copious lounge. To make a long (and incredibly interesting) story short, this musical legacy was passed down to young Curdt, who clipped the "Mac" from his surname so as to create the necessary alternative "rock" effect that the modern Rock Dude must cultivate. This bastardisation of his heritage was and is a difficult, albeit necessary, decision for Kurt, so all are advised to avoid the subject. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
On a lighter note, who's the baby on the cover of Nevermind, you ask? Well, that little tyke is none other than Sub Pop head honcho Jonathan Poneman! As he scurries for that elusive dollar, one sees how early his motives in life were cemented.
Incidentally, if anyone was wondering what happened to Chad Channing, Nirvana's drummer on Bleach, he and his mother, Stockard (of "Grease" fame) have opened Rizzo's Bar and Grill, a wonderful rib house. He's also playing drums in Fire Ants, a wild trio featuring Brian Wood on vocals and guitar; he's the brother of the late Andy Wood, who sang for Mother Love Bone. Andy's other brother Kevin plays bass, as he did for Malfunkshun, Andy's band before MLB.
For all of you who asked (and you who didn't), here's a Nirvana discography, as complete as we could do with our lame memories, and not in any particular order. We'll do a big ol' formal one down the line in a FAN CLUB NEWSLETTER or something.
"Love Buzz" / "Big Cheese" 7" (Sub Pop)
Bleach LP (Sub Pop) 1st 1000 on white vinyl, next 2000 with poster
"Blew" EP (Tupelo - import) with Love Buzz and unreleased Been A Son & Stain
"Sliver" / "Dive" 7" (Sub Pop in US, Tupelo in UK) ltd. ed. blue vinyl in US, green in UK
"Molly's Lips" split 7" w/ the Fluid (Sub Pop) ltd. pressing, small % of those on coloured vinyl
"Spank Thru" on Sub Pop 200 compilation
"Here She Comes Now" (Velvet Underground cover) on Heaven & Hell LP and split 7" w/ the Melvins, both on Communion. 7" is on ltd. ed. coloured vinyl
"Beeswax" on Kill Rock Stars compilation (Pulp) ltd. ed. 1000
"Do You Love Me?" on Hard To Believe: A Kiss Covers Compilation (C/Z)
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" EP (DGC) with unreleased "Aneurysm" & "Even In His Youth"
Nevermind (DGC)
"You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'" split 7" with Dinah Shore Jr. (Ben Dover)
(upcoming) "Islands In The Stream" Kurdt duets with Mecca Normal's Jean Smith on soundtrack to Dying Young 2: Electric Boogaloo (MCA)
Well, that's it for now. Thanks again for writing. ALL LETTERS ARE READ BY THE BAND. It might take forever, but all letters are read. So keep in touch, and tell your friends to get a hold of us if they're interested in keeping tabs with the band. Have an awesome Halloween; we'll be playing with Mudhoney at the Paramount in Seattle… watch out!
