Simon Price reviews Mudhoney and Nirvana live at the Astoria, 9th December 1989. Photos by Stephen Sweet.
Excellent early review here of (third on the bill) Nirvana, Tad and Mudhoney. I particularly liked the Mr. Men shtick. And I think Price calls Nirvana (still waiting on the real tunes to turn up) with remarkable clarity, “The singer guitarist is pretty graceful in a long haired kinda way…but the frog legged bassist will have to go”
By the time Mudhoney take to the stage there are “…bodies apparently flying out of thin air. At one point they’re actually colliding mid-dive. It’s hard to believe that such a volatile, earth-eating, shit-kicking noise could emanate from these four bambi-like figures”
Caitlin Moran interviews Hole, 19th February 1994
March 27, 2009
Courtney Love on the cover of Melody Maker, 19th February 1994. Photo by Tom Sheehan.
“One thing this last terrible year has proved: if you lie about us, I will hit you, Kurt will shoot you and we will sue”.
But not if he shoots himself first eh Courtney?
And while we’re talking about love why not read an excellent blog post on the subject. It begins like this;
“All you need is love. That’s what John Lennon reckoned, but he was wrong. Sometimes you need a bulletproof vest too. And sometimes you need a cynical, jaded eye. Often, in fact. Having said that, although love is most certainly not all you need, it is the prime mover of the human spirit and life without it is stale, flat, tiring and – on the whole – depressingly pointless.”
Kurt Cobain on the cover of NME, 8th April 1995
September 29, 2008
Kurt Cobain on the cover of Melody Maker, 16th April 1994
August 5, 2008
Kurt Cobain obituary cover of Melody Maker, 16th April 1994. Photo by Stephen Sweet (taken in New York 1993)
Believe it or not, 3 days ago this cover was in pristine condition. I’d kept it for 14 years without a mark on it. Then last night I came back to find the cat had decided to use it to mop up whatever unquantifiable secretion came out of his body. So now it looks like this, all fucked up, battered and stained. A bit like Kurt really.
On the subject of bodily secretions, if you like animation then take the phone off the hook for 9 minutes and watch this fantastic piece of work. Don’t skip bits or it’ll spoil the finale. Well worth it.
David Stubbs contemplates Kurt Cobains suicide, 16th April 1994. Main photo Steve Gullick.
ET conspiciously absent from all the obituary/features that ran in the wake of Cobain’s death. You get the feeling these pieces were written more out of a sense of duty and ‘having to cover it’ than anything else. But I’ve just re-read this piece and Stubbs does an admirable job given the task.
Tangentially related (I always think of Nirvana as the band that kick started ‘indie’s’ demise even though they were on Geffen when they broke) is this excellent feature from The Independent entitled “Does the world really need another indie band?”. Came across this today when trying to find out who The Wombats are for work. Depressingly I’ve subsequently realised that I have heard their instantly forgettable “Let’s dance to Joy Division” dirge. Indie landfill indeed.
Someday day a real rain will come…at Glastonbury…at T in the Park…at Reading…