NIRVANA early demo tapes posted online LISTEN

Tacoma musician and archivist John Purkey, "theObserver" on YouTube, has posted original Nirvana cassette demos that were given to him by Kurt Cobain during the early years of Nirvana, featuring Chad Channing and Dale Crover on drums.  

The cassettes include Bleach demos recorded during Nirvana’s first session at Seattle’s Reciprocal Studios in 1988 with Jack Endino, and Smart Studios demos recorded by Butch Vig just before Dave Grohl joined the band.

Most (if not all) of this material has been heard in various official and bootleg forms, but remain interesting listening considering the context.  I think some these recordings are better preserved than more well known versions.

Check out John's page, he's got a ton of cool artifacts from the Pacific Northwest music scene.

“This is the first tape Kurt gave to me. Sound quality is not perfect but it’s not too bad. It is listenable. Paper cuts sounds a little warbaly at first and that is exactly how it was when Kurt gave it to me. I got used to it. It slowly becomes clear sounding.”

0:38 – “Paper Cuts”, 05:03 – “Downer”, 06:53 – “Beeswax”, 09:52 – “Aero Zeppelin” 14:36 – “Floyd the Barber” 17:03 – “If You Must”, 21:12 – "Spank Thru", 24:57 – “Mexican Seafood”, 27:06 – “Pen Cap Chew”, 30:06 – “Montage of Heck”.

“This is the second of four demos that Kurt game me back between 1988 and 1990.”

00:47 – “Blandest”, 04:37 – “Mr. Mustache”, 08:23 – “Sifting”, 13:51 – “Blew”, 16:52 – “Spank Thru”, 20:08 – “Love Buzz”, 23:55 – “Big Cheese”.

"This was the tape he gave me after they recorded songs for what would become Bleach.”

00:00 – Intro, 01:39 – “Scoff”, 06:02 – “Swap Meet”, 09:17 – “Blew”, 12:23 – “Love Buzz”,16:11 – “About a Girl”, 19:27 – “Negative Creep”, 22:02 – “School”, 24:50 – “Big Long Now”.

“Recorded with Chad produced by Butch Vig. I think it is known as the smart studio demo. Kurt started high speed dubbing at the beginning of pay to play. [You] can hear a slight glitch when he pressed the high speed button.”

00:00 – Intro, 00:44 – “Immodium”, 04:04 – “Pay to Play”, 07:39 – “Sappy”, 11:17 – “Polly”, 14:19 – “In Bloom”, 19:00 – “Lithium”, 23:31 – “Dive”.


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