Results tagged “nirvana”

CHANNELING NIRVANA, ONLY BETTER: Yeah, we said it, but as Kurt Cobain once noted about the Vaselines, "They are my most favorite songwriters in the whole world." So much so, that he named his daughter Frances Bean after lead singer Frances McKee. We agree and think it's totally awesome that they're in town playing on a Tuesday for only $20. A hugely famous band that doesn't come to town very often, fairly affordable, plenty of tickets left, and on a Tuesday. We are practically pinching ourselves, and can't wait to hear old favorites such as "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" and "You Think You're a Man," among others. The last time Seattle got a chance to see them was at Sub Pop Records' 20th Anniversary, and we are loving that this time around it will be in the city, with hopefully a smaller crowd.

That was the subject line of an email in ye olde inbox this morning (sans the sarcastic quotation marks, of course). What followed was a long letter from Adam Duritz that rambled for a bit before ultimately announcing that the Counting Crows were leaving Geffen, their label for 18(!) years--since back in the day when they were labelmates with Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and the Posies, amongst others. And then he gives a weird shout-out to Madonna, complete with a free mp3 of their cover of "Borderline." Not the weirdest press release we've ever received, but pretty inexplicable all the same. Full text after the jump.

Organizers announced the course for the Seattle Rock and Roll marathon today, which will replace last year's bungled Seafair Marathon. The hilly June 27 race is a for-profit event run by a California company. It starts in Tukwila, near a casino and sexpresso stands, and will show off the industrial area around Boeing, and Rainier Beach, before heading up the Alaskan Way Viaduct and must-see Highway 99. And since there's a rock music theme, expect to hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit" approximately 26.2 times.

A generation ago, Seattle's most famous person was a fictional clown who lived in the city dump.

Usually being the biggest of anything is a worthy distinction in its own right, but Bop Street Records’ appeal exceeds the sheer volume of its massive collection of music.

It was seventeen years ago today, Nevermind made its record store debut, and rock music would never be the same. Nirvana's second full-length album (and the first on Geffen rather than indie Sub Pop), Nevermind solidified the band's trademark loud-quiet song structure and marked a shift in their sound to something bigger than just grunge. While it took months for Nevermind's first track "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to become a surprise hit on the MTV, today's the anniversary of that seminal album being released unto the world. Take the time to give it another listen.

You don't get a lot of Jacques Derrida in dance performance these days, let alone his disquisition on how we're prevented from fully enjoying orgasm delivered by a guy on an exercise machine, but that's why the Superamas are worth that intercontinental airfare. Also, they strip.

"Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis. So that's kinda cool." We've known for a while (thanks to Kirsten Anderson) that the naked baby on the cover of Nevermind is all grown up and basically normal. But last night, NPR's All Things Considered aired an interview with the now-17-year-old Spencer Elden, sharing his story with comfortable liberals nationwide. Spencer still seems like a normal high school kid, and, as seen above, is perfectly willing to deploy the best conversational icebreaker we can imagine. (Seattlest Clint's alternate suggestion: "The penis that gave international rise to the Seattle Sound.") He's officially eclipsed Dolores Erickson (the woman slathered in whipped cream on Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream and Other Delights) as the northwest's most famous album cover model, even if he is from California.

The Boston Phoenix came up with a "Best Of" list, organized state by state, of the greatest bands ever. They chose three categories for each state of our diverse Union: Best Band of All Time, Best Solo of All Time, and Best New Band. Are you ready for Boston's take on Washington's musical legacy?

Musicians who remain active in the recording industry for over 20 years usually become internationally famous and aim to save the world, or quietly cultivate a devout fan base by emancipating humanity one pair of ears at a time. Mark Pickerel—drummer, vocalist, and Ellensburg native—has followed the latter career path.

http://seattlest.com/2008/02/28/foo_fighters_da.php">announced his presidential bid.

Hillary Clinton's conviction that our next president must be a "fighter" now has literal representation: Fighter of Foo Dave Grohl has announced his candidacy as an Independent.

We think of Kurt Cobain’s short, violently-ended life like Clarence Worley does The King’s: "In Jailhouse Rock he was everything rockabilly's about. I mean, he is rockabilly. Mean, surly, nasty, rude. In that movie he couldn't give a fuck about nothing except rockin' and rollin', living fast, dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse."

Conventional wisdom says these days ain't happy ones for pulp-and-print publications. Circulation's down. Ad revenues are down. Everyone wants to read online. So nearly every newspaper, magazine and television news program has a host of blogs these days, to compete with the millions of self-described experts, autodidacts, conspiracy theorists and Chuck Norris-aficionados who propagate the blogosphere with their own brand of citizen journalism (read: poor spelling and poorer grammar).

Yes, it's actually been 14 years since Unplugged in New York aired the first time, on the TV channel that once stood for Music. Fourteen years since you perched on the edge of the couch, possibly stoned, wearing intentionally crappy clothes, your bleary eyes glued to the set. Since Kurt Cobain had just a few months left of his short, tortured life.

Last month, in response to a push to "reconsider" old Mudhoney songs, we said that the band never made it big because they sounded more "rough and fuzzy" than the Big Four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains). We said that singer Mark Arm's style--as well as the band's--was "not bad, just different." After witnessing Mudhoney's transcendent assault on El Corazon Friday night, we'd like to propose a reconsideration of the band itself.

So Krist Novoselic blogs for the Weekly now. Oooh. Courtney Love doesn’t need any stinking alt-paper to share her anarchic thoughts. She’s got authenticity. She’s got voice. She’s got MySpace.

We hear the insults. Bloggers are no-names. We are malcontents. We live in our parents' basements, practicing onanism like Tiger Woods practices putting. Well we have news for you, blogger-haters. Laugh no more, because a man who has the earned respect of many for his political activism and musical genius is joining our growing club. Krist Novoselic has started a blog. This hero of the 1990s, a man who had the courage to throw his...

All of Seattlest will be struggling to remember that Sunday is the day we turn our clocks back one hour. We hope you remember too.

In central Illinois in the 1990s Seattlest was a wee little college freshman exploring the twin wonders of new music and new drugs. Nirvana, for example, was making some music we got really into, so much so that we learned of Aberdeen, WA, even though we'd never been to the West Coast, much less the Pacific Northwest, or Washington, or Seattle. At nearly the same time we encountered our first vanity steroid users. Some guys in the dorm--non-athlete guys--worked out a lot and then sat around in front of mirrors with their shirts off. "Steroids" they whispered to one another, "I'm starting a cycle." It went around the building like a bootleg tape. "So-and-so's hooking me up." And by second semester there were a lot of little, big men lurching around, popping zits and raging from time to time.

Wait--choke back that vomit. We're making shit up. Speculating doom, if you will. Only half of that title is true.

The Onion AV Club says Mudhoney's 1991 album Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge is worth a re-listen. Say they:

[EGBDF] came out two months before Nirvana's Nevermind—and in a sense, it's the Bizarro Nevermind ... Every Good Boy in hindsight sounds like the grunge that should've been: ratty, humble, punky, weird, and catchy without resorting to grunting machismo.

In December 1992, Kurt Cobain and rock journalist Michael Azerrad began a series of interviews that would eventually become the beating heart of Azerrad's band biography, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. For that project, Azerrad recorded over 25 hours of the rock star's musings and reflections, but until pairing with director AJ Schnack to make Kurt Cobain About a Son, had never released the tapes' contents to the public. This film, then, playing at the Varsity for just one week, is a gift to Nirvana fans, the Kurt-curious and grunge scholars everywhere.

In a few seasons, Seattle indie stalwart Sub Pop will shed its adolescent husk and turn 20. Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the dudes who put Soundgarden and Nirvana in bins before major label reps stormed Seattle, will, according to this bio, celebrate "as conspicuously as they can manage."

Unbeknownst to us, producers of CBS's glossy detective series, Cold Case have been using all sorts of pop music from Toby Keith to The Postal Service to elevate the cool factor of each episode. Their website even has a page listing the "Music of Cold Case" -- some episodes of which showcase a single recording artist (such as the 2/18/07 "Blood on the Tracks" episode featuring music from Bob Dylan).