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CityandColour

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Gilda

Gilda

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Twitter original organizes a seance with dead celebrities including Kurt Cobain

 

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To mark the celebration of Halloween on 31 October, the Twitter social network has organized a curious event. How could it be otherwise, it is a seance Twéance they called the result of the pun 'Twitter' and 'Séance' ( 'seance').

Thus, it has invited all members to put questions to the famous dead of their choice. Questions can be about anything, it leaves the site chosen by the users themselves. These must be reflected in Twéance, the space that Twitter has created especially for this.

Only the most salient issues will be selected for the seance, which will be borne by the medium Jayne Wallace.

 

 

So far the most repeated names are those of Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain, although others have also been proposed as Lincoln, Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe or John Lennon.

The session can be followed live from Twitter morning of October 30, then the selected questions will be unveiled. What is not known is if, indeed, will be answered.

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Gilda

Gilda

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Still sounds like teen spirit

 

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On Jan 23, 1988, producer Jack Endino had a routine engagement: Record a demo for some kids from the isolated logging port of Aberdeen, some 135km south-west of Seattle.

 

The small wooden building at 4230 Leary Way NW, in the residential Seattle district of Ballard, didn't look like the epicentre of a revolution. But it was here at Reciprocal Recording that the first releases by record label Sub Pop laid the cornerstones of a new sound and style that would go on to alter rock music in the last decade of the 20th Century.

 

One of the kids, 20-year-old Kurt Cobain, had called to book the session, saying he was friends with The Melvins' Dale Crover (revered as a hard-hitting drummer a la Led Zeppelin's John Bonham). The group didn't even have a name.

 

As they got to work, Endino noted three things: First, how tall the bassist Chris Novoselic was (he didn't start calling himself Krist until 1993).

 

Second, how serious singer-guitarist Cobain was. He was also very shy, displaying none of the proto-rock star elan.

 

Jack Endino's third observation occurred roughly 71 seconds into recording Cobain's vocal on a song called If You Must.

 

"'Whoa!' I thought. 'This guy's got a great scream!' Which is a valuable thing in rock '*' roll," said Endino.

 

Here was the world's first glimpse of Nirvana.

 

ATTAINING NIRVANA

 

Of course, the band was still a ways away from becoming the driving force of the new Seattle rock scene. But the rest of 1988 saw Cobain and Co laying the foundation of their future success.

 

They met Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop - thanks to Endino, who gave him a tape of the demo - and signed to the label; they played their first Seattle gig, which turned out to be a disaster ("Anyone who says: 'I saw that show and I knew there were great things to come' is lying through their teeth'," said Mudhoney's Mark Arm); and released their first single for Sub Pop (Love Buzz/Big Cheese).

 

Nirvana spent their days practising in a room above Novoselic's mother's hair salon. Then it was time to record their album. So on Dec 24, 1988, the band returned yet again to Endino's studio.

 

"Kurt would usually write lyrics at the last minute," said Novoselic.

 

"I'd go and buy beer and then bring that back, then we'd have the basic tracks done and the vocals and then we'd start mixing."

 

Recording and mixing took place over six days and cost US$606.17 ($850). That they could make an album so relatively cheaply was a source of pride. Nirvana were broke, but thanks to Jason Everman, a guitarist and old schoolmate of then-drummer Chad Channing, they managed to pay for the sessions.

 

By way of thanking him, they credited him on the back cover with playing guitar even though he hadn't. He even appeared on the cover photo.

 

BLEACH WORKS

 

Much of the material on the recorded album reflected the bludgeoning influence of The Melvins, but this was leavened by punk-influenced noise that suggested Cobain may have been more impressed with the Sub Pop template than he may have cared to admit.

 

Yet the album's standout track sounded unlike any other band. Plaintive and simple, About A Girl showed Cobain was destined to transcend genres.

 

"Kurt would sit in the bathtub and listen to Meet The Beatles," said Novoselic. "He said he'd figured out The Beatles - what he thought that early Beatles formula was."

 

Cobain even apologised to Endino for it. "Kurt was like: 'Okay, just so everyone knows, I might do more of this sort of stuff in the future too'," said Endino. "It was funny how he presented it to me: I'm going to do a pop tune now, just bear with me ... "

 

Now all they needed was the album title. Then, while driving around San Francisco during a tour in Feb 1989, Cobain and Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt became fixated on an Aids prevention poster campaign urging drug users to "Bleach your works". They had the title: Bleach.

 

ABOUT A BAND

 

Twenty years on, Bleach has become the most successful album Sub Pop has ever released, with more than 1.7 million copies sold; possibly augmented by its successor Nevermind's phenomenal impact.

 

To celebrate, Sub Pop has re-released Bleach, remastered from the original tapes, along with a previously-unreleased recording of their entire concert at the Pine Street Theatre in 1990.

 

Meanwhile, Universal Music has also released Nirvana Live At Reading, a recording of the legendary 1992 concert fans regard as Nirvana's greatest moment.

 

Yet untainted by either Nevermind's commercial calculation or In Utero's scabrous response to fame, Bleach has remained the one Nirvana album suspended in a state of innocence. Endino estimated that the 330 records he's made since Bleach combined don't get as much attention.

 

"I'm really glad it sounds as good as it does considering we only spent 600 bucks on it," he said. "If it sounded terrible I'd be really upset, but it sounds okay! Iggy Pop told me it was his favourite Nirvana record. I'm okay with that."

 

Novoselic, now a political activist, writer and occasional musician, assessed the album he and his friends made 20 years ago.

 

"It's the quintessential grunge record," he said, "but it has a pop sensibility, which revealed where the band was headed. That's song craft. And that's a tribute to Kurt Cobain, his vision and his skill as an artist. The record's a tribute to him." COURTESY WARNER MUSIC. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRISTOPHER TOH

 

The 20th anniversary edition of Bleach and Nirvana Live At Reading are out in stores now.

 

 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainmentfeatures/view/1016107/1/.html

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