In 1989 I smoked a joint behind the Ellensburg Public Library with Kurt Cobain and a couple other scragglers. Cobain had just played with his band Nirvana in the conference room as the "headliner" after local bands King Krab and Tree House. There were about 20 people in the audience. The Nirvana show itself was fairly unremarkable other than being heavy, loud and kind of scary. Not much was visible onstage except hair (Cobain's was down to his knees) and guitars. At that time there were 2 guitarists and a bassist in front of the drum set. The drums were punctual, but this was before Dave Grohl, so the sheer attack and aggression was not quite there yet. The sound of Cobain's voice was that rare pureness behind most cliches: a primal scream. How it could be inserted into catchy Beatles-like pop structures remained unrevealed to me that evening. The only song I remember them playing was Negative Creep, and I certainly had never heard of Mudhoney so I understood neither the tone nor the reference. I didn't like the show much and went right home to get my head right by listening to Prefab Sprout on headphones. I do remember Cobain seemed quiet and pleasant. A couple years later Teen Spirit started playing on 107.7 The End between "retro" songs like Sex Dwarf by Soft Cell and Living on Video by Trans-X. That week I heard Cobain and Novaselic interviewed on The End saying that Teen Spirit was indeed a great song, even though it was just a re-do of most Pixies' songs. This grounded the song for me because I'd heard that the Pixies were pretty much a re-do of Husker Du with female back-up. Looking back on this Butch Vig produced LP I don't think it was a redo of anything, not even John Lennon. This rare pureness is... well... whatever, nevermind. -GHA