NIRVANA
A look into the history of the band that changed the face of rock music...

Nirvana started out some time in 1987, Seattle, DC. There were many name changes for the band including "The Stiff Woodies" but they eventually settled on "Nirvana". There were line up changes but one thing remained, the two creators, Kurt and Krist Novoselic, the bass player. Kurt Donald Cobain was the Guitarist/Vocalist/Songwriter, with Krist on bass and Chad Channing on drums. Chad Channing was the drummer on the Bleach album. Some of the other notable people that were in the band, or its earliest incarnations, were Buzz Osbourne and Dale Crover of the Melvins and Danny Peters of Mudhoney, among others. The first album under the Nirvana name, Bleach was recorded for a mere $600! The album contained a cover of Love Buzz, a Shocking Blue song. The album was released in june of 1989 through Sub Pop records, after the album was recorded Nirvana went on tour and an addition was made to the band in the form of guitarist Jason Everman. Jason was added because Kurt was not sure if he could handle the position of singer AND guitarist. Jason also contributed to most of the money for recording the LP, although the members of Nirvana had every intention of paying back this money, they never got round to it.

After touring and looking for a new record company to sign with, Nirvana was brought out of it's two year contract with Sub Pop by DGC, David Geffen's label. Nirvana recorded the Nevermind album in may 1991, at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin. This time with drummer Dave Grohl. The Nevermind album was released on September 13th 1991, it went platinum in three weeks! This is mainly due to the song Smells Like Teen Spirit, the song was labled as the anthem for Generation X (unfortunately). Kurt himself and indeed the rest of the band hated the song, it was only recorded to get radio airplay.
After a worldwide tour in support of Nevermind, Nirvana came back to the USA and a collection of rare B-sides and other rareities was made, the album was named Incesticide and had songs from the following sources: the John Peel Session (tracks 5, 6 & 7), the BBC Mark Goodier Session (tracks 4, 8 & 15), the rest are either outtake sessions, demo recordings, or just plain rare! The album sold well even though there was no big deal made about it and the fact that there was no tour to support it. In march of 1993 Nirvana once again returned to the studios to record their long awaited studio album, In Utero.
At first DGC was not pleased with the album, their first comments were "Nice demos, when can we expect to hear the finnished album?" They seemed to think it had no commercial value what so ever! Most of the songs remain the same but some were either remixed or re-recorded. A lot of the songs were recorded live in one take. It was also plagued by audio problems.

In Utero was eventually released on september 14th 1993 in the United Kingdom. There was an unseen delay which meant it was released in the USA on 21st september 1993. The United Kingdom version also contained a secret track, Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip. It was labeled as a "Deflated American Dollar Purchase Incentive Track," and is now available on bootlegs and import CDs.

On January 8, 1994 Nirvana played their final American show in Seattle, Washington. They then toured Europe, playing their last show on March 1 in Munich, Germany. Supposedly, Kurt said that they would be back in a minute, and Nirvana left the stage, never to return. No full bootleg copies of this show have surfaced, though one supposedly exists.

After returning to the United States, Kurt Cobain dissapeared after jumping the wall at the Exodus rehabilitation clinic, where he was undergoing rehab for a heroin addiction. Several days later, on April 8, his body was found by an electrician at his house in Seattle, Washington. Kurt had been dead for several days, the victim of a self inflicted gunshot wound. He left a suicide note near his body, attempting to explan why he had killed himself. Fans didn't accept his death, and many haven't still.

The autopsy report states that the official date of death was April 5th, three days before his body was discovered, there was a missing credit card that had been canceled by Courtny Love so she could track his movements, this missing card was used after Kurt's death on the 5th of April, and the actions of Courtney in cancelling the card actually made it harder to track because the details of a cancelled card as in, where it's attempted use was is no longer saved. Who was using the card? Why did Courtney Really cancel it? To this day the card has never been found.

Adam Abbasi.