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Nirvana

That is great news!!

Photos of Kurt Cobain’s death scene will not be made public

SEATTLE—The Washington State Court of Appeals has ruled that photographs from the scene of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death will not be released publicly.

KING5-TV reports the court ruled Tuesday that the photographs are exempt from Washington state’s Public Records Act and releasing the photos would “violate the Cobain family’s due process rights under the 14th Amendment.”

Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, and his daughter who was a toddler at the time of his death, Frances Bean Cobain, filed testimonies to keep the photos from being made public.

The ruling comes after Seattle journalist Richard Lee appealed the case’s dismissal. Lee has pursued the release of 55 photos in an attempt to prove Cobain did not die from suicide in 1994, but rather was killed.

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Nirvana

I want to see it now!! ASAP!!!!

Kurt Cobain Documentary Will Get a Theatrical Release

Brett Morgen’s documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck will receive theatrical runs in Los Angeles, New York and Seattle prior to the film’s May 4 debut on HBO.

The theatrical runs, which qualify the film for the Academy Awards, begin April 24. Montage of Heck will be shown in 72 countries, beginning April 10, prior to its airing on the pay cable network.

“Within 90 days, the whole world will have access to the film,” Morgen told Billboard at South by Southwest. A DVD release of the intimate portrait of the Nirvana singer-songrwriter-guitarist is penciled in for November.

Montage of Heck premiered at the Sundance Film festival and then played Berlin prior to screening at South By this week. Morgen found Wednesday’s SXSW premiere unique. “It’s the only place in the world where the whole audience is from music,” he said, noting knowing laughs came from places in the film that only musicians would see the humor in.

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Nirvana

I really hope there is a lot of music in there!!

Hoard The Hoarders: The Promise Of Kurt Cobain’s Vault

Note to all aspiring legendary rock gods: save everything. That means everything. That demo tape where you accidentally just recorded yourself trying to plug an amp in for twenty minutes. That selfie you took on the loo. That doodle you’re currently scrawling in the margins of Huysmans’ ‘À Rebours’. If things go to plan your kids will be buying a new kitchen with that stuff one day.

These days saving all that stuff just means buying a spare external hard-drive, but back in the almost unimaginable pre-internet era rock icons had to preserve their legacy the old fashioned way: in boxes and boxes and of old belongings.

So while it’s unlikely that your iCloud will end up printed in bound leather, let’s give thanks for Kurt Cobain’s hoarder instinct. It’s long been rumoured that there is in fact a genuine Cobain ‘vault’ out there, which journalist Charles R. Cross described as “nearly 100 boxes of belongings” gathering dust in a secure storage facility. Presumably at least some of them are heart-shaped.

It was back in the news this week, when director Brett Morgen announced his new HBO documentary ‘Montage of Heck’. Morgen, who directed ‘The Kid Stays In The Picture’ and the recent Rolling Stones documentary ‘Crossfire Hurricane’, said: “Like most people, when I started, I figured there would be limited amounts of fresh material to unearth. However, once I stepped into Kurt’s archive, I discovered over 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, a vast array of art projects (oil paintings, sculptures), countless hours of never-before-seen home movies, and over 4000 pages of writings that together help paint an intimate portrait of an artist who rarely revealed himself to the media.”

He’s not the first person to be allowed access to the hallowed archives. Back when he was researching the biography ‘Heavier Than Heaven’, Cross told Rolling Stone: “When I went and saw that stuff, I called up Courtney and I said ‘Jesus fucking Christ, I cannot believe this art and how amazing all this stuff is.'”

So amazing, in fact, Cross went on to publish a whole other book called ‘Cobain Unseen’ in 2008 which collected together some of the best art, photos and journal entries that he came across in his rummaging.

What he obviously couldn’t put in his book was any of those hours of unreleased music, which is one of the reasons Nirvana fans are so excited about Morgen’s documentary – and why they’re currently fervently whipping up a rumour mill around whether the documentary will have an accompanying tie-in soundtrack release.

Cannily the filmmakers have already released the titular ‘Montage of Heck’ mixtape online for free, which featured everything from Iron Butterfly’s ‘In A Gadda Da Vida’ to ‘ABC by The Jackson Five and from ‘I Want Your Sex’ by George Michael to ‘Run to the Hills’ by Iron Maiden. However, previously unreleased recordings of tracks like ‘Sappy’ or ‘Dressed For Success’. While some obscure material has been released before, on bootlegs and on 2004 rarities compilation ‘With The Lights Out’, the promise of Kurt solo material is an exciting one for anyone who cares about the man, his mind and his songwriting process. Fans are also speculating that releases could include non-Nirvana music from Kurt’s earlier band Fecal Matter, such as ‘Illiteracy Will Prevail’, or his first ever multi-tracked recording, made in 1982 at his aunt’s house and known as ‘Organised Confusion’. Who knows, it could even give an insight into where Nirvana might have gone next.

We have Kurt’s fastidious collecting and collating of his own work to thank for this insight – so next time someone tells you to clear out your room, tell them you’re just working on your archive.

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Nirvana

That is too bad for Chad. Poor guy.

Former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing will not be inducted into Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

Original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing will not be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, despite his recent claims that he would be.

The drummer contributed to Nirvana’s debut album ‘Bleach’ and also laid down parts for the song ‘Polly’ on the band’s second album ‘Nevermind’ before his departure from the band in 1990 when he was replaced by Dave Grohl. Last week, he said he would be inducted officially alongside the surviving members of Nirvana.

However, in an interview given to Radio.com, Channing revealed that he had heard from officials at the Hall of Fame, via a text message sent to Nirvana’s manager, Michael Meisel, that he would not be a part of the induction next month (April). “Can you tell whoever looks after Chad Channing that he isn’t being inducted,” reads the message Channing was sent. “It is just Dave, Krist and Kurt.”

Speaking to Radio before he received the news that he was officially not invited to the induction ceremony, Channing said he had the band’s permission to attend. “I got a call from Michael Meisel, he said that he had a ticket for me. I also talked to Krist about it a few weeks ago and he definitely thought I should be there, and was gonna help make sure that I was.”

Nirvana, Kiss, Peter Gabriel, Hall And Oates, Cat Stevens and Linda Ronstadt will be inducted at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on April 10, while The E Street Band will be given the Award For Musical Excellence. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record, meaning Nirvana, who released debut album ‘Bleach’ in 1989, have been nominated at the first possible opportunity.

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Nirvana

Yes, I would like this now please!!!

Inside Nirvana’s Rarities-Packed ‘In Utero’ Reissue

No more guessing about what will appear on the 20th anniversary reissue of Nirvana’s In Utero — Rolling Stone can now reveal what the mammoth, 70-song, three-disc deluxe edition of the band’s final masterpiece will contain: Two versions of In Utero (the original LP remastered, plus the album newly remixed) as well as more than 40 tracks of unreleased demos, rehearsals, live performances, B-sides, and a recently unearthed, never-before-heard Nirvana instrumental. The reissue will arrive September 24th.

The first disc will feature a remastered version of the original, Steve Albini-produced In Utero, complete with the two tracks (“Heart Shaped Box,” “All Apologies”) that Scott Litt mixed for In Utero’s final version. The oft-bootlegged abrasive Albini versions of those two songs will finally legally appear on the IU reissue, as will the IU-era B-sides and non-album tracks: “Marigold,” “Moist Vagina,” “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip,” The Beavis and Butt-head Experience’s “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” and the No Alternative hidden track “Sappy.” Additionally, the stocked first disc will boast Litt’s remixed single version of “Pennyroyal Tea.” All the tracks were remastered at Abbey Road Studios for this release.

The second disc is where things get interesting. That CD will kick off with a new “2013 album mix” of the full album — it’s unclear if this is Albini’s more visceral version of In Utero or something completely different. But the real jewel on this disc is “Forgotten Tune,” a recently unearthed instrumental recorded by Nirvana during an In Utero-era rehearsal. There’s also “Jam,” which as the title suggests was recorded during the same October 25th, 1992 jam session at Seattle’s Word of Mouth Productions that resulted in embryonic versions of “Tourette’s,” “Pennyroyal Tea,” and “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.” The Word of Mouth demos of those three tracks will also feature on the IU reissue.

In fact, eight of In Utero’s 12 songs are featured in demo form on the second disc, as is Dave Grohl’s 1990 recording of “Marigold,” which marks his first ever solo recording. Finally, as previously reported, the In Utero reissue’s third disc features a remastered recording of Nirvana’s December 13th, 1993 concert at Seattle’s Pier 48, which was broadcast on MTV as Live & Loud. The DVD of the performance, sold both as part of the deluxe reissue and a standalone disc, features the entire concert, plus a dozen more performances culled from the Live & Loud rehearsals, the band’s In Utero European tour (including a loose cover of the Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl” from Munich), and a director’s cut of the “Heart-Shaped Box” music video.

Like the Nevermind 20th anniversary reissue, In Utero will be available in various formats, including the massive 3CD/1DVD Super Deluxe set, a 3LP Anniversary Edition vinyl reissue that features In Utero the album spread over two 45 RPM discs. The reissue will also include Cobain’s handwritten lyrics, a four-page letter Albini wrote the band prior to recording detailing his plans for In Utero, plus liner notes written by comedian and occasional In Utero tour opening act Bobcat Goldthwait. The reissue will also be available digitally.

Check out the entire In Utero 20th anniversary track list below:

CD ONE – Original album remastered plus all B-sides & bonus tracks recorded at Pachyderm
1. “Serve The Servants” (Albini mix/original release) – 3:39
2. “Scentless Apprentice” (Albini mix/original release) – 3:47
3. “Heart-Shaped Box” (Litt mix/original release) – 4:41
4. “Rape Me” (Albini mix/original release) – 2:51
5. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” (Albini mix/original release) – 4:09
6. “Dumb” (Albini mix/original release) – 2:32
7. “Very Ape” (Albini mix/original release) – 1:55
8. “Milk It” (Albini mix/original release) – 3:54
9. “Pennyroyal Tea” (Albini mix/original release) – 3:37
10. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (Albini mix/original release) – 4:51
11. “tourette’s” (Albini mix/original release) – 1:35
12. “All Apologies” (Litt mix/original release) – 3:55
13. “Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through The Strip” (ex-U.S. bonus track) – 7:35
14. “Marigold” (B-side; “Heart Shaped Box) – 2:34
15. “Moist Vagina” (B-side; “All Apologies”) – 3:33
16. “Sappy” – 3:28
17. “I Hate Myself And Want To Die” – 2:59
18. “Pennyroyal Tea” (Litt mix) – 3:36
19. “Heart-Shaped Box” (Albini mix/unreleased) – 4:42
20. “All Apologies” (Albini mix/unreleased) – 3:58

CD TWO – 2013 album mix plus pre-album demos
1. “Serve The Servants” (2013 mix) – 3:36
2. “Scentless Apprentice” (2013 mix) – 3:49
3. “Heart-Shaped Box” (2013 mix) – 4:41
4. “Rape Me” (2013 mix) – 2:49
5. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” (2013 mix) – 4:12
6. “Dumb” (2013 mix) – 2:32
7. “Very Ape” (2013 mix) – 1:57
8. “Milk It” (2013 mix) – 3:56
9. “Pennyroyal Tea” (2013 mix) – 3:32
10. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (2013 mix) – 4:51
11. “tourette’s” (2013 mix) – 1:35
12. “All Apologies (2013 mix) – 3:55
13. “Scentless Apprentice” (Rio demo) – 3:54
14. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” (Laundry Room demo) – 4:33
15. “Dumb” (Word Of Mouth demo) – 2:39
16. “Very Ape” (Rio demo) — 2:21
17. “Pennyroyal Tea” (Word Of Mouth demo) – 3:31
18. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (Word Of Mouth demo) – 2:40
19. “tourette’s” (Word Of Mouth demo) – 2:14
20. “Marigold” (Upland Studios demo) – 3:25
21. “All Apologies” (Music Source demo) – 4:25
22. “Forgotten Tune” (Rehearsal) – 2:04
23. “Jam” (Word Of Mouth demo) – 5:44

CD THREE – Live & Loud: Live at Pier 48, Seattle, WA – 12/13/93
1. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”
2. “Drain You”
3. “Breed”
4. “Serve The Servants”
5. “Rape Me”
6. “Sliver”
7. “Pennyroyal Tea”
8. “Scentless Apprentice”
9. “All Apologies”
10. “Heart-Shaped Box”
11. “Blew”
12. “The Man Who Sold The World”
13. “School”
14. “Come As You Are”
15. “Lithium”
16. “About a Girl”
17. “Endless, Nameless”

DVD – Live & Loud: Live at Pier 48, Seattle, WA – 12/13/93
1. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”
2. “Drain You”
3. “Breed”
4. “Serve The Servants”
5. “Rape Me”
6. “Sliver”
7. “Pennyroyal Tea”
8. “Scentless Apprentice”
9. “All Apologies”
10. “Heart-Shaped Box”
11. “Blew”
12. “The Man Who Sold The World”
13. “School”
14. “Come As You Are”
15. “Lithium”
16. “About a Girl”
17. “Endless, Nameless”
EXTRAS:
18. “Very Ape” (Live & Loud Rehearsal)
19. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (Live & Loud Rehearsal)
20. “Rape Me” (Live & Loud Rehearsal)
21. “Pennyroyal Tea” (Live & Loud Rehearsal)
22. “Heart-Shaped Box” (Original Music Video + Director’s Cut)
23. “Rape Me” (Live on “Nulle Part Ailleurs” – Paris, France)
24. “Pennyroyal Tea” (Live on “Nulle Part Ailleurs” – Paris, France)
25. “Drain You” (Live on “Nulle Part Ailleurs” – Paris, France)
26. “Serve The Servants” (Live on “Tunnel” – Rome, Italy)
27. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (Live in Munich, Germany)
28. “My Best Friend’s Girl” (Live in Munich, Germany)
29. “Drain You” (Live in Munich, Germany)

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Nirvana

Now pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!

Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ Set for Extensive Re-Issue

The swan song from quite possibly the most influential band of the last 25 years will be receiving the re-issue treatment this fall on a multi-format release. In commemoration of its 20th anniversary, Universal Music Enterprises will re-release “In Utero” with a slew of sonic goodies for fans on September 24.

Along with buying newly re-mastered CD and digital versions of the polarizing 1993 release that included hits like “Heart-Shaped Box” and “All Apologies,” fans can also purchase a 3 CD and DVD combo that contains more than 70 previously unreleased demos, live recordings, rarities, and B-sides. The bonus DVD from the deluxe package, which can also be purchased separately, will include the previously-unreleased footage of the band’s 1993 “Live and Loud” show from Seattle’s Pier 48. It will also contain never-before-seen bonus footage from the band’s illustrious, but tragically short career.

Since Kurt Cobain’s untimely death in 1994 at the age of 27, Nirvana’s surviving members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have made a handful of appearances over the past 20 years. Most recently, the band acquired guitarist Pat Smear, who played with both Nirvana and Grohl’s rock powerhouse, Foo Fighters, and shared the stage with musical colossus, Paul McCartney. The reunited grunge legends backed up McCartney on a song they co-wrote called, “Cut Me Some Slack”, which was made for the soundtrack of Grohl’s recent documentary, “Sound City”. The song was performed at a number of high-profile gigs, including “Saturday Night Live,” the “12-12-12” benefit concert, and for an encore at a McCartney recent concert at Safeco Field in Seattle.

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Nirvana

Yup Yup Yup!!!

Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ to be re-released for 20th anniversary

Nirvana’s 1993 album ‘In Utero’ will be re-released to mark its 20th anniversary on September 23.

A remastered version of the band’s third and final studio album will feature 70 tracks including previously unreleased recordings and demos, B-sides and compilation tracks and live material featuring the band’s final touring line-up of Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl and Pat Smear. It will also include the Live And Loud show from Seattle’s Pier 48 on December 13, 1993. A separate DVD release of that show will also be released on September 23.

The follow-up to 1991’s seminal ‘Nevermind’, ‘In Utero’ was produced by Steve Albini over two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.

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Nirvana

I am soooo glad they did make it!!

How Nirvana Made ‘Nevermind’

Nirvana’s second album shot up from the Northwest underground – the nascent grunge scene in Seattle – to blow hair metal off the map, kick Michael Jackson off the top of the Billboard album chart and turn the band into overnight stars. Though Nevermind’s success would take a toll on Nirvana’s tortured leader, Kurt Cobain, no album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation – a nation of teens suddenly turned punk. Cobain’s slashing riffs, corrosive singing and deviously oblique writing, rammed home by the Pixies-via-Zeppelin might of bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, put the warrior purity back in rock & roll.

But as the sessions were about to get under way, neither the band nor producer Butch Vig knew just what they had on their hands. “The week before I flew to L.A. [to produce Nevermind], Kurt sent a cassette, which was done on a boombox,” said Vig. “It was really terrible sounding. You could barely make out anything. But I could hear the start to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ and I knew it was amazing.”

Vig, along with mixer Andy Wallace, made sure that Nevermind’s brilliant songs didn’t get lost in the same cheap production as on the band’s first album, Bleach. Vig spent a little more than a month recording and mixing the album with Cobain, Novoselic and Grohl at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California.

“They were living in this apartment complex, and it was chaos,” Vig remembers. There’d be graffiti on the walls, and the couches were upside down. They’d stay up every night and go down to Venice Beach until six in the morning. I’d go into the studio at noon and they’d wander in around four.”

Rowdy lifestyles aside, Vig says the recording went smoothly, except when it came time for the restrained “Something in the Way.”

“No matter how subtly they’d try to play,” Vig says, it was too aggressive. “Kurt walked into the control room and said it just had to sound like this – he was barely whispering, and playing the guitar so quietly you could barely hear it. It was mesmerizing. I pulled a couple of mikes in, and we built the whole song around it.”

Mixing the record, the band and producer hit another snag. “Kurt kept trying to bury his voice,” says Vig. “I kept arguing, ‘You can’t do that. Your vocal performance is as intense as the drums and the bass and the guitar.'”

Vig eventually won the argument, but his mixes didn’t make it onto the album. The band decided to hire an outside engineer. Andy Wallace, who’d worked with Slayer, gave Nevermind its incredible sonic sheen – something Cobain never admitted to being comfortable with. Talking about “Teen Spirit,” he told Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad, “It’s such a perfect mixture of cleanliness and nice, candy-ass production. . . It may be extreme to some people who aren’t used to it, but I think it’s kind of lame, myself.”

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Nirvana

Without Kurt, it isn’t possible in any way!!

Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl: ‘There won’t be a Nirvana reunion tour’

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has denied plans for a Nirvana reunion tour.

The move comes after Grohl recently collaborated with ex-Nirvana bandmates Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear as well as Sir Paul McCartney on the new song ‘Cut Me Some Slack’, which was written for his forthcoming documentary Sound City. But a spokesperson for Grohl has told the New York Post that the reports are “nonsense” and stressed that there will be no Nirvana tour.

They performed the track last Wednesday (December 12) at the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief and McCartney teamed up again with the surviving Nirvana members on Saturday Night Live over the weekend. Earlier, they also have revealed the studio recording of ‘Cut Me Some Slack’, which you can hear by scrolling down the page and is available to download via iTunes now.

Meanwhile full details of the Sound City soundtrack were revealed last week. Titled ‘Sound City – Real to Reel’, it will also feature collaborations between Grohl and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac – on ‘You Can’t Fix This’ – and between Grohl, Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Joshua Homme and Nine Inch Nails man Trent Reznor, who team up on a song called ‘Mantra’.

The soundtrack also features appearances from Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age associate Alain Johannes.

The film marks Grohl’s directorial debut and tells the story of the legendary California recording studio where classics such as Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ and Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ were recorded. It will be shown at US film festival Sundance which runs from January 17-27, 2013.

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Nirvana

I so hope we get to hear them!!

Unheard Cobain demos his best: Pal

Hole star Eric Erlandson has revealed his late pal Kurt Cobain had an album’s worth of demos recorded before his death in 1994 – and he fears no one will ever hear the tracks.

The guitarist says the tragic Nirvana frontman was working on the best album of his career at the time of his suicide.

He tells cable music network Fuse, “He was headed in a direction that was really cool. It would have been his White Album (classic Beatles release).

“That’s really what he was going towards, a solo album but working with different people. I was really excited about some of the stuff he was working on. I got to see him play it in front of me. That’s why I was really sad (when he died).

“I was like, ‘Oh man, not only are you cutting off a life, but a message to the world, a musical path is just left with… (Gavin Rossdale’s band) Bush and all this other stuff. He was cut short. Who knows where this music would have gone?”

And he can only hope that someone will have the sense to release the solo tracks.

He adds, “I’m not in control of things. I just wish something would come together. I think the fans would be a lot happier. If nobody ever hears those songs, except for like three people, then… that’s the way it goes.”

Earlier this month, Erlandson released his memoirs, Letters To Kurt, which detailed his friendship with Cobain and the Nirvana frontman’s death.