CNN iReport

My "Nevermind" story started on August 20th, 1991 at the

International Pop Underground Festival (IPU) hosted by Calvin Johnson

of Beat Happening and K Records fame (the badge from the event is

pictured). I was there both as a musician/music lover and as the

Assistant Music Director for KFJC radio in Los Altos Hills, California.

Even though the event was being held in Olympia, Washington, KFJC's

Music Director, Les Scurry, and I drove up to Seattle to visit Sub Pop

records - the label that Nirvana called home prior to jumping to DGC.

This had been a particularly tough year for Sub Pop (so much so that

they printed up the now infamous t-shirts that had their logo on one

side and "What Part of We Don't Have Any More Money Don't You

Understand" emblazoned on the other). The label's very existence seemed

to be riding on the limited distribution deal they penned with DGC for

Nevermind's release. Jonathan Poneman, founder of Sub Pop, had left a

couple of pre-release cassette copies of Nevermind for us at the

office. I had been a huge fan of Nirvana since "Bleach" and since

seeing them perform in front of 10 or so people at the local San Jose,

California punk club, Marsugi's. We left Seattle and headed back to the

festival to hang out with a veritable who's who of

indie/alternative/underground music. This was a harmonic convergence of

sub-genres: Grunge, Indie Rock, Sludge Rock, Straight Edge, and even

Surf styles were represented plentifully. This was the jumping off

point of bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile, and the

rest of the Riot Grrrl movement. Modest Mouse was there. Billy Childish

and Thee Headcoats (psycho-billy) shared the stage with Fugazi

(straight edge). I even got to tip back a couple of beers with Billy

Childish himself. Shadowy Men From a Shadowy Planet (surf) opened up

for local favorites The Melvins (sludge) on a sunny Saturday afternoon

in a park with The Melvins' parents and children running around in

Melvins t-shirts. The sheer volume of music was staggering. Only

Woodstock could compare to the breadth and depth of music that week.

There was an accompanying album to the festival called Kill Rock Stars

(of which I have number 178 out of the initial 250, since then they

have pressed up over 25,000), for which Nirvana had recorded a song

entitled Beeswax. Nirvana had fully intended to play at the IPU, but

were touring oversees. In fact, when Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth

mentioned it to Kurt Cobain, Kurt replied, "I'd rather be playing

there."

We drove home listening to the cassette copy of Nevermind and I

turned to Les and said something along the lines of, "Wow, this is

going to be huge." When I got back on the air the next day, I knew I

had to play some choice tracks off of Nevermind. I played Smells Like

Teen Spirit (something told me this would be the first single), Lithium

(I tended to play a lot of songs with drug reference titles), Breed, On

A Plain, and Territorial Pissings. Needless to say the studio phone was

ringing off the hook because Nevermind wouldn't be released till a

month later. I never thought at that time that less than 3 years later,

while I was driving to visit my good friend Les, now at Interscope

Records, Kurt Cobain would've killed himself. It was a sad day for

music and for my generation.