I would have thought there would be no surprises in a "Roots of Nirvana" comp. The tastes of Msr. Cobain and Novoselic are fairly well-documented at this point. So it is that you se a lot of the names and songs you'd expect to see on this sort of comp.
There are the local influences: Melvisn, Beat Happening, Green River covering the Dead Boys. My all-time fav Stooges song in an extended live version pairs nicely with Flipper's "Sex Bomb" at the tail end of the CD. There are a few bands from Kurt's legendary mixtape that he was arrested with: Big Black, Scratch Acid, Young Marble Giants, and Shonen Knife. There are a pair of tracks present that Nirvana would later cover in their Unplugged set. Meat Puppets' "Plateau" and the Vaselines' "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" both appear in their original forms.
Two songs shared here weren't on my radar until I heard them here. Clown Alley's "On The Way Up" was on their single LP for the legendary SF thrash label Alechemy Records. Alchemy would also serve as the initial home for Melvins' "Gluey Porch Treatments", Neurosis' "Pain Of Mind", and Poison Idea's "War All The Time". "On The Way Up" makes me want to drop some coin on the 2009 expanded reissue on Southern Lord. Big Dipper's "You're Not Fancy" appeared initially on a 1987 Homestead Records comp alongside songs from Naked Raygun, Big Black, Death of Samantha, and Dinosaur (Jr); it'd also show up appended to the cassette version of their 1987 "Boo-Boo" 12". All of this would fly below my radar until discovered here. Merge reissued their pre-major label output in 2009 as part of a 3-disc CD set. And this intro is a proper appetizer. To my aging ears, I can hear a band traipsing the same sort of aural ground that would lead Nirvana to become the biggest band in the world a few years later.
2 comments:
Interesting that you could hear the Roots Of Nirvana in "You're Not Patsy". It's one of the songs that guitarist Bill Goffrier brought to Big Dipper from his previous band, The Embarrassment ("Faith Healer" was another). I used to think the Embos should have been the Biggest Band In The World (bigger than REM, at least). Good thing I didn't sink all my money into starting a record label to pursue my Vision Thing!
Thanks for another great Mojo Presents.
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