nirvana
nirvana Content tagged as nirvana.
John Vanderslice: Emerald City (Longtime Listener)
You have to admire someone who kicks off their solo career with a hoax in which it was suggested that Microsoft (whose logo he had mimicked on his first single Bill Gates Must Die) was getting litigious. Vanderslice was obviously a smart fellow with a sense of humour. (Although that's what is says at Wikipedia, and that could be one of his...
EDDIE VEDDER OF PEARL JAM INTERVIEWED IN SEATTLE (2002): Reading their Riot Act
For a Kiwi transplanted to Pearl Jam's rehearsal room in Seattle's warehouse district, it's easy to feel at home on this warm morning. The toilet designated for women has a handmade sign which reads, "Wahine". In the rehearsal room a dozen international journalists have been assembled and the mood is one of nervousness, in part...
absoluteelsewhere/1668/eddie-vedder-of-pearl-jam-interviewed-in-seattle-2002-reading-their-riot-act/
NIRVANA'S NEVERMIND 20 YEARS ON: Classic is as classic does
The past is not just another country, it is one with very different radio. Let's go back to a time when people wore strange clothes and listened to very different music. A place where Bryan Adams was writing himself into the Guinness Book of Records with the longest-running single -- 16 weeks -- on the UK charts with (Everything I Do) I Do...
absoluteelsewhere/1669/nirvanas-nevermind-20-years-on-classic-is-as-classic-does/
Various by Various: a wrap-up of collections and compilations
With the season of giving approaching it is also the time when compilations by the dozen start to arrive and take up valuable shelf space in CD stores. As a "service to our readers" here's a look at some. And nope, I cannot lie and say I listened to every track on every album -- sometimes you can just look at a track listing and say...
music/2000/various-by-various-a-wrap-up-of-collections-and-compilations/
NIRVANA, IN THE MONEY (1992): Number one, with a bullet
The front cover of the business section of the New York Times isn’t the kind of place you expect to read about rock musicians...especially not a somewhat scruffy bunch of torn-denim, straggle-hair alternative rockers like Nirvana. But a couple of weeks ago there they were. Money talks – and it was positively screaming when...
absoluteelsewhere/2332/nirvana-in-the-money-1992-number-one-with-a-bullet/
Pearl Jam: Back Spacer (Universal)
Just as some would have you believe there were "Beatles fans" Vs "Stones fans" back in the day (usually by old people styling themselves Stones fans to appear cooler than they actually were at school), so too there was that weird schism set up between Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Nirvana were, of course, "authentic"...
Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures (Sony)
This will be brief for a couple of reasons: this genuine supergroup of Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) has already been given wide-exposure, and that in this instance Elsewhere has been running a bit late. (Got waylaid by a Guy Clark album or somesuch) So the short...
music/2754/them-crooked-vultures-them-crooked-vultures-sony/
Grant Hart: Hot Wax (Fuse/Southbound)
Because of the sporadic and sometimes wayward nature of his career after the break-up of Husker Du in '87, it was always going to be hard to predict what this album under their former drummer/singer Hart's own name would come off like. It isn't easy in the sense that it doesn't gives its gifts up readily, and its slightly scattergun nature...
Krist Novoselic: Fast track to nowhere
Some people just aren't that smart. At least that's what I thought about Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic when he tossed his bass high in the air at an MTV awards show and failed to catch it on its way back down. It hit him on the nose (see clip below) and he was felled in a pool of blood. Rock'n'roll, huh? I met some people who were...
Northside: Shall We Take a Trip (1990)
The difference between the American psychedelic experience of the Sixties and that of the British can be captured in two phrases: in the States Timothy Leary was telling people to "tune in, turn on and drop out" which clearly demanded some committment. In Britain however George Harrison -- on It's All Too Much -- was offering the more...
Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders: Red Light Fever (Sony)
Here's my thinking: in his dreams Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters is playing with the perfect band; it is Cheap Trick playing Queen songs . . . and the stadium is rocking. Especially when they throw in some glam-rock by Sweet. I like what he said about the making of this, his second solo outing away from the Foo Fighters: "About...
music/3267/taylor-hawkins-and-the-coattail-riders-red-light-fever-sony/
MEAT PUPPETS 1982-88: Acid rock baked by desert grunge
In the more strange corners of the Eighties on the SST label there were -- between the dreadful Zappa-clown Zoogz Rift and solo projects by various Violent Femmes – thrilling bands like firehose, Black Flag and Husker Du. And the very wonderful Meat Puppets, a trio out of Phoenix, whose brains seemed completely fried by drugs, comics...
absoluteelsewhere/3410/meat-puppets-1982-88-acid-rock-baked-by-desert-grunge/
Queens of the Stone Age: Rated R, Deluxe Edition (Universal)
This, the second album by QOTSA and their first on a major label, was their breakthrough exactly a deacde ago and had critics digging in their superlatives bag. Oddly enough though, it wasn't because it was ground-breaking and innovative but rather it was (mostly) simply no nonsense, no flaffing about hard rock which was grounded in the...
music/3452/queens-of-the-stone-age-rated-r-deluxe-edition-universal/
MEAT PUPPETS INTERVIEWED (1989): Disney avant-metal rock
It's an old truism and therefore probably quite false, but it goes like this; ask musicians their influences and you can pick their sound. It certainly doesn't hold up when you speak to Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets from Arizona. After he’s ticked off The Beatles, Joe Walsh, Yes (!), and Black Sabbath, he then confuses...
absoluteelsewhere/3478/meat-puppets-interviewed-1989-disney-avant-metal-rock/
The Black Dahlias: Ladies and Gentlemen (Cruel)
With a pure blast of angry guitars, a disciplined rhythm section, throat shredding vocals and a terrific sense of pop smarts driving their metal-edged rock'n'roll this New Zealand industrial strength five-piece grab attention immediately on this six-track EP, which feels far too short. Taking large dollops of classic metal but delivering with...
Soundgarden: Telephantism (Universal)
Once they hit their stride around the time of Badmotorfinger in '91, Soundgarden out of Seattle had shaken out the ragged semi-punk and yelping metal for a much more dense and intense attack. Material like Jesus Christ Pose (here in a searing, seven minute live version of deconstructed noise) was a quantum leap from the noise they were...
Elliott Smith: An Introduction to Elliott Smith (Kill Rock Stars/Southbound)
It seems curious that the intelligent, melodic and very dead Elliott Smith hasn't engendered a cult following: his albums were consistently good and the circumstances of his death (if it was suicide it was a strange one in which questions needed to be asked) should have guaranteed him t-shirt status at least. Smith had half a dozen songs in...
music/3631/elliott-smith-an-introduction-to-elliott-smith-kill-rock-stars-southbound/
STEVEN VAN ZANDT INTERVIEWED (2003): The punks and the godfather
Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano's loyal soldier and owner of the famous Bada Bing strip club, is in the lobby bar of a Sydney hotel and, as you might expect, a lot of people are looking at him. Menacing and permanently pouting, Silvio wears silk shirts, loud ties, great suits and gold chains. And that hat of motionless black hair which gives even...
absoluteelsewhere/364/steven-van-zandt-interviewed-2003-the-punks-and-the-godfather/
The Vaselines: Sex with an X (SubPop)
The little-known Vaselines out of Scotland got their sudden time in the spotlight when Nirvana covered a couple of their songs, notably Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam on their MTV Unplugged session. By that time ('93) the Vaselines - formed around Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee -- had already broken up but they'd reformed to open...
DAVE GROHL INTERVIEWED (1995): Post-grunge fun
Through the swing doors, down the stairs, then hard right. Follow the corridor, then left, right and left again, then . . . umm. You’re in a scene from This Is Spinal Tap. Where, in this maze of corridors under the BBC Studios in Maida Vale, London, is Studio Four where the Foo Fighters are recording? But another labyrinthine...
absoluteelsewhere/4118/dave-grohl-interviewed-1995-post-grunge-fun/
Foo Fighters: Wasting Light (Sony)
There were those who said grunge died when it was adopted by fashion designers, but that presumes those who were into the music actually cared what happened on the catwalks of New York, Milan and Paris. Certainly the death of Kurt Cobain in '94 dealt the noisy, often angst-filled music a serious blow but none of the bands swept along in the...
THE BARGAIN BUY: Led Zeppelin: Mothership (Atlantic)
When this double disc of Led Zeppelin arrived in '07 there were the inevitable arguments from fans about what had been unfairly excluded . . . and certainly their Anglofolk inclinations and some of their essential blues (notably Gallows Pole) might have been there. But . . . This was always going to err toward the band's classic rock...
bargainbuy/4135/the-bargain-buy-led-zeppelin-mothership-atlantic/
THE BARGAIN BUY: Foo Fighters; Foo Fighters
With the enormusly popular Foo Fighters about to descend on New Zealand again -- riding the back of their most successful if familiar-sounding album in years, Wasting Light -- it seems timely to go back to where their story began in the mid Nineties . . . with this debut which was a Dave Grohl solo project in effect. In my review of...
Nirvana: Nevermind, Deluxe Edition (Universal)
Recently, for an impending publication, I was relistening to hundreds of albums, many of them considered classics. Some had aged very badly, others sounded more interesting (and influential) after the passages of years . . . and rare ones sounded as thrilling now as they did at the time. Shorn of the detritus of hype, grunge fashion,...
Sonic Youth: Hits are for Squares (Geffen)
Smart move under a great title. Not a "greatest hits" (has there been even one?) or even a "best of", but a selection of their favourite SY tracks chosen by the likes of longtime fans Radiohead, Eddie Vedder, film maker Gus Van Sandt, actress Catherine Keener, Beck and others. That piques interest on a number of levels --...
PATTI SMITH INTERVIEWED (1998): On the road again
The first phone call to Patti Smith at home in New York catches her weary and breathless. She's apologetic but disarmingly courteous. It's been quite a few years since I've been called "sir" and never, that I recall, by someone from rock'n'roll culture. But it is also an inconvenient time to talk she says. She's been...
absoluteelsewhere/462/patti-smith-interviewed-1998-on-the-road-again/
Kurt Cobain: Gun, head and Smithereens.
As with most people of a " certain age" I can member where I was when I heard John F Kennedy had been shot ( I was in bed), and when I was told another Kennedy had gone the way of the gun (in bed again, there's a pattern emerging). Of course I also remember John Lennon's murder (came in with the kids from soccer and it was on...
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