LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY November 9, 1991 - Studio 4, BBC Maida Vale Studios, London, UK

Set

• [O] Been A Son
• [O] Polly
• [O] Aneurysm
• [O] Something In The Way

Studio Banter

Transmission

• 1991-11-18, BBC Radio 1, Mark Goodier's Evening Session

Best available sources

Source ID	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1	10.0		0:11:46	Official CD (Nirvana BBC Sessions, Promo CD)	(New Wave) Polly Been A Son Something In The Way Aneurysm	Aneurysm appears under the title “Aneurism.” While all songs fade-in on this promo CD, copies with the fade-ins reversed are widely available in trading circles.

Notes

I remember we recorded the session around the time Nevermind went platinum in America, recalls producer Miti Adhikari. The band's manager John Silva turned up and told Kurt, ‘You've got six white, left-handed Strats in your hotel room’: That was kind of cool. (1)

The band arrived at MV4 at midday and set up their own gear, but by the time they were ready to record it was nearly three o'clock. We'd been given eight hours but we actually didn't finish up until about one in the morning, says Adhikari. (1)

We worked hard doing lots of overdubs and Kurt did several takes for each vocal, Adhikari explains. We spent the most time on Aneurysm which they'd chosen from an import single. We worked very hard on the vocals to get the right effect. I suggested they fade in and fade out to sound like a backwards vocal and that seemed to work. (1)

Polly became (New Wave) Polly because the band wanted to speed it up to straight punk rock, That's the point of these sessions, it's a waste of time just replicating songs and they really understood that. There was no way, for example, that they'd have done Teen Spirit; they wanted to give new treatments to obscure stuff. (1)

The only track from the session not to make official release is Something In The Way. It was really dark and slow, and Kurt explained that it was about the bridge in Washington he used to go and sit under, Adhikari remembers. (1)

All in all it was a very good session, says Adhikari. I was proud that the songs made it onto Incesticide although I didn't gain financially in any way. I know they really liked it because they later insisted that I do the live recording at Reading. The Foo Fighters have used me ever since, too. (1)

References

1. Pattenden, Mike, 2004. Interview with Miti Adhikari, Uncut Legends #2. ↑

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