Nirvana - "Blew" 1989 Kaup, Linz, Austria

I believe this is the first Nirvana song I ever heard, or at least took any notice of, through the wall of my flat in San Francisco. My roommate Eleanor was a member of the now defunct Sub Pop Singles Club and she started listening to Nirvana like, right away, when they actually first released a record. I think she paid $27 a month to Sub Pop and they sent her a bunch of singles (meaning, 7" records) from then-unknown bands on a monthly basis. So she had first dibs on buying "Bleach" or something, and I started noticing an interesting bass line filtering through our typically un-insulated San Francisco walls.

I politely knocked on her door before barging in and asking "Who's this guy singing? He sounds like he's yelling into a shoebox or something." She kindly lent me all Nirvana vinyl in her possession and I started roping my friends in with it. "Hey listen to this guy singing," I'd say. "He has a really good voice." My friends listened with puzzled expressions on their faces. A year later, I became known as "the girl who turned her friends on to Nirvana."

But I want to set the record straight now. My roommate was cooler (and younger) than me. I never would have forked out money to a tiny label from Seattle in the hopes they would send me any good music. Yes of course now, in retrospect, I would LOVE to own some rare singles from Nirvana, Mudhoney and L7. Hand them over. But it's too late and I just want the world to know. It wasn't me, world. It was Eleanor. I was just listening in.

video source: wade7677