LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY October 26, 1989 - Studio 5, BBC Maida Vale Studios View in Google Maps

  • NIRVANA
    • Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar)
    • Krist Novoselic (bass)
    • Chad Channing (drums)
  • Dale Griffin (producer)
  • Ted de Bono (engineer)
  • [O] Love Buzz
  • [O] About A Girl
  • [O] Polly
  • [O] Spank Thru
  • 1989-11-22, BBC Radio 1, The John Peel Show
Source ID Quality Complete Runtime Lowest Gen Tracks Featured Notes
SBD #1 10.0 0:11:54 Official CD (Nirvana BBC Sessions, Promo CD)
  • Love Buzz
  • About A Girl
  • Polly
  • Spank Thru
  • Spank Thru appears under the title “Spanx Thru”

The band were fortunate enough to land a slot on the acclaimed John Peel Show. The first NIRVANA session was very relaxed, remembers session producer Dale Griffin. Kurt played and sang live. He looked young and fresh-faced. (1)

The band was well rehearsed—all too often not the case with many bands, especially on the John Peel sessions—and we were soon into mixing the songs, Griffin recalls. (1) Tracks were mixed onto ¼-inch tape at 15 IPS (for broadcast and also onto DAT for back-up). The session would have been recorded on a 2-inch analog tape, running at 30 IPS with no Dolby. (1) These 2-inch tapes were used over and over again for successive sessions, so none of the multi-track (or unmixed) BBC recordings of NIRVANA remain, sadly, says Griffin. (1)

Spank Thru was titled Spanx thru on the official records. (1)

  1. Griffin, Dale, 2003. Personal communication with Alex Roberts.

© Alex Roberts. Last modified: August 28 2022