Their singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain was murdered in 1994.

In keeping with my current listening tastes and my effort to take myself back 8 years minimum I have discovered an amazing band I feel I need to tell you about.

They were called Nirvana.

They were a punk rock band from Aberdeen in Washington and were sort of wrapped up in the K/Kill Rock Stars thing. If you like Unwound then you’ll have no problems with Nirvana who are, if anything, slightly more polished at times than their big brothers from Olympia.

Their debut album Bleach is quite sludgy in sound and lyrically a little immature but still contains some great moments. It came out on the Sub Pop label and shouldn’t be too difficult to track down on EBay but ultimately it’s a little less satisfying than their contemporaries of the time like The Melvins and Karp.

Their next album Nevermind is a real cracker. I urge you to track this one down and give it a spin. Essentially a concept album about singer Kurt Cobains break up with Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill, this is a fantastic bittersweet pop record albeit with thundering drums (courtesy of David Grohl who’s work you’re probably aware of from his time in Dischord band Scream) and lascerating guitar.

The genius part of this record is the decision to polish the production in a lot of respects. Like The Pixies Doolittle it really adds to the quality of the songs. There’s not a duff track on it, it’s a real pop winner. I’m not sure which label put this out but it shouldn’t be too tricky to get hold of.

After this came a split 7″ with heavyweights The Jesus Lizard. Obviously, nothing was going to quite live up to the might of Puss from the seminal Liar LP but Nirvana did their best with a raucous “Oh The Guilt”. This is fairly rare though, maybe someone should put together a Nirvana box set style compilation?

Their 3rd album was recorded, like most underground US music, by Steve Albini and was called In Utero. This saw Nirvana go in new directions on some of the tracks but not succeed quite as well on others. Milk It and Scentless Apprentice are warzone barrages of noise with Grohls drums taking prominence alongside Cobains screamed vocals. Songs like Dumb and Rape Me are a little too rooted in their older material and don’t sit well on the record. But still, this is close to being a masterpiece. Heart Shaped Box especially melds the pop and noise worlds that Nirvana straddled. It seems to be a tribute in sorts to Cobains partner who I believe was Courtney Love, singer in the LA “riot grrl” band Hole who you might have heard of as Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth recorded their first album. Heart Shaped Box is quite beyond compare and special mention must go to the saucy bassline provided by Krist Novoselic (now a politician). Despite its inconsistencies, In Utero demands to be played loud and is for the most part very dark and compelling listening.

Then they just disappeared sometime in 1994. Whereas fellow bands from their locale like Mudhoney or The Melvins have gone on to something of a resurgence, Nirvana is a name not often mentioned anymore in hardcore or punk rock circles. So yeah, great stuff, well worth a listen.

Here are a couple of new things from the fine, upstanding, idiosyncratic Sheffield Phonographic Corporation.

Like Him + Her + Her + Me is a 7″ single by Champion Kickboxer on glorious heavy white vinyl, which lopes along with one of those Clinic-style circular basslines. It’s pretty weird, disjointed and hollow-sounding slow garage rock, all clomping drumbeats and not-quite-there vocals. Odd, but good.

Speaking of which, A Box of Odd is a compilation CD which is straight out of the Pebbles/Nuggets/Beyond the Calico Wall box – thirteen tracks of dumb, stupid, surf-y garage punk which is generally recorded sloppily enough and performed hastily enough to make it a gem of a selection for any keen freakbeat fan. It features The Motherfuckers, Beachbuggy, Chuck, The Special Agents, Texas Pete and G.G.Action, hopefully all of which have now split up and formed other bands playing the same kind of music.

Recently I have found my listening tastes have moved back to pretty much what I liked in about 1996. Jesus Lizard, Blues Explosion and Frank Black are getting regular spins. I was at a party last night and we were enjoying Girls Against Boys and “Washing Machine” by Sonik Yoot. Perhaps I am subconciously longing for a return to a period of my life when I didn’t have a shit job and I was getting laid regularly?

Anyway.

In this 1996 revival I feel a sudden need to bring to all of your attentions a severely overlooked and utterly amazing album.

“The Architect” by Elevate.

And they were British. There’s not a duff track on it. It does sound a bit like GVSB. Or The Fall. Who GVSB sound like anyway. But if it was GVSB it would be their best album. Cheers!

Thanks for the nice comments about the Sonic Youth piece. I think everyone should email them and suggest they reply or I get to properly interview them.

Last weeks Brixton gig perfectly illustrated my problems. The songs rocked, the improv noise was bollocks. Not because I don’t like improvised noise, just that it wasn’t any good.

Talking of improvised noise on Tuesday this week I’m playing with Damo Suzuki from Can. This weekend I spent 4 hours in a very smelly room in Leeds jamming my brain into the ground with the other people playing this show. By the end of it we were cooking, this should be a really good one. Thats kind of a plug so sorry.

In the last week we continued our policy of “weird gigs or seaside towns” with Lords and played 2 very strange gigs. On Thursday we played Club NME at the Stealth club in Nottingham which is kind of like the set of Tron. It was most un-Lordy but yet the gig was a great laugh even if we did have to wait till 11.30 to play. On a school night too. I made a first class ass out of myself by standing on the monitor and it falling over and me ending up on my face. Oops.

Then last night we played a pub on a river outside of Leeds. It was weird. It rained in Biblical proportions and we were outside under a tarpauling kind of affair so rain was lashing the electrics. Very harsh. But fun. I suggest everyone in bands follows the Lordy policy.

This morning I got the latest release by free-pysch-improv-noise hustlers Davenport, entitled ‘Owl Movement’. To the day, it was recorded but one month earlier – on 11th August 2004. And I had to import it from the USofA.

That’s a one month turnaround time. It’s taken my band 13 whole months between mixing a record and sending it off to the printers, and the damn thing’s not even going to get distributed for at least another month yet. Bastards, I say, Bastards!

Diskant’s favourite musical wankfest Instal is happening a bit earlier and over 2 days this year (16th & 17th October). There might be a noisy day and a trancey day. One day there’s Keiji Haino and Derek Bailey, the other’s Charlemagne Palestine, Current 93 and Six Organs of Admittance. Admittedly I don’t know a huge amount about (most / all) the acts but that’s never stopped it being great before.

And this Saturday (11^th) at Stereo, el Hombre Trajeado are playing with The Dragon Rapide from Leeds. I saw them in Newcastle a while back and they were dead good I would being going to see them if I was in Glasgow.

I went to see Sonic Youth last night and they were great! Despite having borrowed my first Sonic Youth album in about 1990 (EVOL from Elgin Library, if you’re interested), I never got the chance to see them live until the disaster that was ATP2000. So I was very very very excited to get a chance to see them play a proper set.

Due to the Barrowlands usual early doors nonsense, I arrived to find Decaer Pinga finishing off their set. It was certainly intriguing and fun to see about 6 people onstage at the Barras making layered drones with tape recorders, clicky things, dansettes and things with lots of knobs to fiddle with. There was an element of the audience who were not impressed but either the majority were enjoying it or that was a very loud sarcastic applause. I’m not sure if I liked it but I sure enjoyed it.

As soon as they left, two tiny Japanese girls ran about on stage setting up some drums and then reappeared 10 minutes later dressed in identical red outfits with mini skirts and tinsel and proceeded to yelp and squeal and batter the hell out of their drums and guitar, respectively. They were Afri Rampo and the whole audience was bewitched with adoration immediately. I’ve never seen a band having so much fun, running around, standing on the drums and beaming with sheer happiness. If they were playing on a trampoline under a shower of glitter and sweets they still couldn’t have looked happier.

And then it were time for Sonic Youth. Due to the No Pit Access rule, I was unable to take any photos ‘cos of my smallness, so I wandered over to my usual spot, a slightly raised bit beside the stage door. Means I also got to see SY up close and Kim is smaller then I expected and Thurston really does look like a stretched, aged toddler.

But, aye, Sonic Youth were awesome. Almost entirely stuff from the most recent couple of albums with lots from Sonic Nurse which suits me as that’s what I’ve been listening to a lot. And it all sounded great – lots of pop tunes and big swathes of noise mentalism. Thurston was running around like mad, rubbing his guitar up against speakers and bouncers and his own head, and even licking the strings. Mmm. Kim was looking amazing in a glittery black dress, ditching the guitars for a few songs to just sing and shimmy. And Lee looks like someone’s dad wandered on stage but his songs were two of my favourites of the night.

See this thread at Plan B for some ace photos taken by my mate Mark who is much taller than me.

Thanks Sonic Youth for not being terrible again! We’ll call this slightly in your favour. Next good set and I’ll stop moaning about ATP2000. Deal?

Travails of Friendster, #317a

(Oh, it’s, like, soooo June 2003*. But you’ll find half of diskant’s staff on there for some reason.)

Anyway, one day my inbox tells me I’ve received a personal message from someone I don’t know. And so I go and look at it, and it’s from some girl from Luton, who appears to be somewhat illiterate. It says:

“u ite?”

Now, I know I’m fairly out of touch with youth culture these days, and I don’t really ‘get’ text speak, but what the hell does this mean? And if it means “are you alright?”, why would someone I don’t know, have never met, nor would ever want to meet, ask me that?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Or you can just use the ‘comment’ function.

[*comment copyright Tom Coogan 2004)

Dear Mr Revels

I never thought I’d see the day when I would be writing a letter about my disappointment with Revels but it seems that day has arrived.

Yesterday I purchased a packet of Revels drawn in by the excitement surrounding your ‘new sweet’ revelations. The whole idea had given me days of thought before I even bought a packet. What would the new sweet be? And, more importantly, what sweet was being ditched to make room? My money was on the peanut. A certainty, I thought, what with the growing problem of nut allergies. The new sweet gave me more difficulty. I was hoping for coconut but knew it was unlikely since it probably has nut allergy problems itself and of course the public’s dislike of coconut in sweets, the fools. Almost as annoying as the general public’s abhorrence of liquorice (liquorice-free Liquorice Allsorts, I ask you!). Maybe a mint cream, I pondered.

So you can imagine my excitement upon receipt of an actual packet, tantalising me with question marks and promises of NEW SWEET! A rummage around and it seemed my peanut guess had been correct, there being no telltale peanut shaped sweets. I soon munched my way through the rest of the packet, each sweet providing a checklist of all the old favourites present and correct.

And then the packet was finished. AND WHERE WAS MY ‘NEW SWEET’? There was none, unless you have invented the magical invisible sweet.

Your packet clearly states the inclusion of a new sweet and this was not the case with my packet. I have no answer to my questions, no knowledge of this new sweet. When will I ever sleep again?

Yours in disappointment

Marceline Smith

PS. If you’re ever stuck for an advertising slogan feel free to use mine from a few years back: “Like a crap box of chocolates”.

PPS. The addition of raisins to the ingredients list kind of gives it away, doesn’t it?