The music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" premiered on MTV's alternative music show 120 Minutes on Sunday, September 29, 1991. When Kurt Cobain saw himself on TV for the first time, he called his mother. Cobain admitted to trying to rip off the group, and at a big 1992 concert in Reading, he also acknowledged the song's passing resemblance to Boston's "More Than A Feeling." 8. It wouldn't be until 1990-one year after Nirvana's debut album Bleach-that Cobain's affection for the band would heavily influence his songwriting, and through that lens, "Spirit" pretty much sounds like a Pixies parody. The Pixies are universally credited with inventing the loud-quiet dynamic in 1987 with their debut EP Come on Pilgrim. The song's riff was a "rip off" of The Pixies. As the rest of the legend goes, Cobain loved the phrasing and wrote the song without knowing of the Teen Spirit deodorant's existence until after it was recorded. The party continued, and eventually Hanna spray painted "Kurt smells like teen spirit" on Cobain's wall, a reference to the deodorant Vail-Cobain's girlfriend at the time-used to smell pleasant without any white residue. And alcohol.Īfter a night of drinking, Kurt Cobain and then-roommate Dave Grohl were joined by Bikini Kill songwriter/vocalist Kathleen Hanna and drummer Tobi Vail at their humble pre-fame abode. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was inspired by Kurt Cobain's girlfriend's deodorant. Everman's life after near-stardom was profiled in The New York Times Magazine in 2013, where it was reported that he joined the Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion and then the Special Forces, serving tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Columbia University. He would be canned from that gig after one tour, before Soundgarden made it big. Unfortunately for Everman, his withdrawn attitude clashed with Cobain's similar disposition while on tour, resulting in a lot of long, silent driving and a severe lack of band chemistryĮverman failed upward, becoming the bass player for Soundgarden. He was a leading candidate to foot the bill-which came to $606.17-because he was the only person in the band to have an actual paying job. Guitarist Jason Everman didn't play on Bleach, Nirvana's first album, but was added to the band to add a second guitar to the mix soon after. Nirvana's first album cost $606.17 to make. "Love Buzz" however did neither of those things, for either Shocking Blue or Nirvana. A 1986 Bananarama cover also topped the charts. Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970 and sold 7.5 million copies. You know Shocking Blue not by "Love Buzz" but by their classic song "Venus," which reached #1 on the U.S. Nirvana's first official release was a cover of "Love Buzz" by the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters played on the "Sliver" single.īack in Washington, Crover performed with Cobain and Novoselic on a seven date tour with Sonic Youth in August 1990, before Dave Grohl's band Scream broke up and Melvins frontman Buzz Osbourne introduced Grohl to Cobain and Novoselic, ending the vicious cycle of rotating drummers. Then a mutual friend introduced Cobain and Novoselic to Chad Channing, who hung around for two years before the group's co-founders decided he wasn't cutting it anymore. Burckhard briefly returned before announcing he was too hungover to practice one day. Next came Dave Foster, who got arrested for assaulting the son of the mayor of Cosmopolis, Washington. Then there was Melvins drummer Dale Crover, who pounded the skins for Cobain and Novoselic on their first demo tape before moving to San Francisco. In the beginning, there was trivia answer Aaron Burckhard, who pissed off Cobain by getting Kurt's car impounded after being arrested for fighting with a police officer. There were at least five different drummers in the band before Dave Grohl.Ĭobain and Novoselic were always members of Nirvana-formerly known as Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss, and Ted Ed Fred-but finding a permanent drummer proved to be even harder than coming up with a decent band name. Marander didn't even realize that she was the "girl" until she read the official biography of the band, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, four years later. The girl in question was Cobain's girlfriend, Tracy Marander, who asked why he wrote about everything-including Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show-but her. The title for "About a Girl" came about very quickly.Ĭhad Channing, one of Nirvana's drummers before Dave Grohl, claimed that one day he asked Cobain what the song was about. The dancing janitor in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" music video was an inside joke for those who knew of Cobain's old job. Even though he was by all accounts a slob, Kurt Cobain worked as a janitor at Weatherwax High School, not long after dropping out of that very school.
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