Nirvana - In Utero (Steve Albini Mix) (1993)

In 2003, the UK division of Universal Records released a limited edition, vinyl only reissue of Nirvana's 1993 album 'In Utero', to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the release of the album. These vinyl copies were pressed in Germany, and when they hit the stores people who were familiar with the original release were surprised to hear a distinct difference in the overall sound of the album, most noticeable on 'Heart Shaped Box' and 'All Apologies', the two big singles from the album. It has been widely known for some time that Steve Albini was the first choice as producer for the album, but when he submitted his mix to the record company, they had serious issues with it, complaining that the vocals were too low in the mix, there was too much 'effect' on the drums, and some of the guitar parts were either too loud or were overly distorted. While most of the observations are quite accurate, those same qualities were (and still are) what Albini is known and loved for, and Kurt Cobain himself had specifically requested that Albini record 'In Utero', based on his production on 'Surfer Rosa' by the Pixies, which was one of Cobain's all-time favorite records, and the complaints regarding the sound were in fact what Cobain wanted so much in the first place. While the band was initially quite insistent on the album being released as recorded by Albini, they eventually came to agree with the criticism and decided to remix some of the songs, and possibly add some guitar overdubs where needed. When Albini was informed about all of this, he was not happy, as he is well known for his strong-willed nature and highly opinionated approach to recording an album, and the mechanics of the recording/entertainment industry in general. At first he refused to allow his mix of the album to be changed in any way, as before the recording sessions had started he had made an agreement with the band to ensure that his final mix would not be altered or remixed, although unfortunately for him, this agreement was not in writing. He later agreed to let the two proposed singles from the album, 'Heart Shaped Box' and 'All Apologies', be remixed by someone else, but made it clear that he didn't think anybody could improve on his versions. Geffen hired Scott Litt to remix both tracks and to add a few overdubs to 'Heart Shaped Box', after which the whole album was sent to a mastering studio which, Albini claims, screwed up the sound even more by narrowing the stereo separation, boosting the mids, and generally softening the sharp-edged overall sound. The album, containing the Scott Litt remixes, was officially released on September 21, 1993 and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Ten years later, it seems that Universal UK made a significant mistake when pulling the 1/2" master tapes for their 2003 vinyl reissue, and they accidentally used Albini's original, unmastered mix instead of the final masters, and this album is ripped directly from one of these 2003 vinyl copies, making it a huge improvement on some poor quality bootlegs that are circulating online at the moment, some of which appear to have been recorded at the wrong speed, and we can now hear what Cobain originally wanted the album to sound like.  

Track listing

01 Serve The Servants
02 Scentless Apprentice
03 Heart-Shaped Box
04 Rape Me
05 Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle
06 Dumb
07 Very Ape
08 Milk It
09 Pennyroyal Tea
10 Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
11 tourette's
12 All Apologies

Nirvana - Curmudgeon (1994)

I was putting together a Nirvana rarities album the other month, based on a track listing that i'd found on a site that I've since lost, which was made up of a mixture of rare and unreleased songs, and even included a couple that I just couldn't find anywhere, call 'The Sea' and 'Journey'. (The site was in Spanish, but these are English titles that I just couldn't track down). When I'd finished and given it a listen I felt there were a few too many acoustic and slow songs on there, so that when a blaster like 'Curmudgeon' came on it blew your socks off. I therefore decided to scrap that album and make one that was just all the loud stuff that I loved. 'Curmudgeon' was the starting point, as that is a brilliant song, and so I wanted other tracks that were up to that standard to go with it. I tracked down most of them on bootleg compilations, and a few from the 3CD 'With The Lights Out' release, and ended up with an album of little heard songs that doesn't let up for a second. From their earliest radio sessions from 1987, to the demo of 'Dive' that helped to define the burgeoning grunge movement, and through demos, singles and b-sides, the one thing that these songs have in common is that they're all f**king LOUD.     

Track listing

01 Anorexorcist (radio performance 1987)
02 White Lace And Strange (radio performance 1987) 
03 Dive (demo 1988)
04 Mrs. Butterworth (rehearsal recording 1987)
05 If You Must (out-take 1988)
06 Even In His Youth (demo 1989)
07 Token Eastern Song (demo 1989)
08 Curmudgeon (b-side of 'Lithium' 1992)
09 Oh, The Guilt (split single with The Jesus Lizard 1992)
10 D-7 (John Peel session 1990)
11 Return Of The Rat (out-take 1992, later given to Greg Sage/Wipers tribute album)
12 You Know You're Right (home demo 1994)

Late! - Pocketwatch (1991)

In the summer of 1991 Dave Grohl went into WGNS Studios and recorded four songs, playing all the instruments himself, and these recordings were  combined with six songs from a previous Upland Studios session recorded in late 1990 to make the 'Pocketwatch' album. Grohl gave a tape of the songs to Simple Machines co-founder Jenny Toomey, who immediately wanted it for the label's Tool Cassette Series. Upon accepting Simple Machines' request for a demo tape, Grohl decided to hide his identity under the pseudonym Late!, 'because I’m an idiot and I thought it would be funny to say to everybody, "Sorry, we’re Late!"'. The Tool Cassette Series was originally a way of keeping music 'in print' on an as-needed basis without having to finance vinyl or CD pressings, since Simple Machines dubbed the cassettes as the orders came in. The Late! cassette was offered for sale in 1991, but when Nirvana released 'Nevermind' later that year, its unexpected success meant that 'Pocketwatch' eventually became noticed. It gained more attention when the Foo Fighters' early material was released in 1995, with some of the songs appearing on subsequent releases, creating even higher demand for the cassette, which was being mentioned frequently in interviews. As the label became flooded with orders, and with deteriorating master cassettes, Simple Machines got in touch with Grohl about releasing the Late! album as a CD to keep up with demand, but Grohl preferred to keep it as a cassette only release, which the label honoured. When the two master cassettes for 'Pocketwatch' came to the end of their useful lives, and with some of the other artists masters in the same condition, Simple Machines decided to discontinue the Tool Cassette Series from their mailorder, putting the over half-decade experiment to an end. As cassettes became a less popular format, and with no official CD release in sight, 'Pocketwatch' fell victim to countless bootleg CD releases, ranging from the entire album, to single songs appearing on a variety of bootleg compilations. Some of these songs have been re-recorded and officially released, such as 'Marigold' on the b-side of Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box', and 'Winnebago' as the flip to Foo Fighters' 'Exhausted' single, but here is the original album, as recorded by Grohl himself.  

Track listing

01 Pokey The Little Puppy
02 Petrol CB
03 Friend Of A Friend
04 Throwing Needles
05 Just Another Story About Skeeter Thompson
06 Color Pictures Of A Marigold
07 Hell's Garden
08 Winnebago
09 Bruce
10 Milk

Suggested by 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald

Nirvana - Omnibus (1969)

Nirvana was created as the performing arm of the London-based songwriting partnership of Irish musician Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Greek composer Alex Spyropoulos. On their recordings Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos supplied all the vocals, with instrumental work being primarily undertaken by top session musicians, although Campbell-Lyons did provide a little guitar and Spyropoulos contributed some keyboards. The songs were a mixture of rock, pop, folk, jazz, Latin rhythms and classical music, primarily augmented by baroque chamber-style arrangements, and creating a sound that was quite unique to them. Their first album, 'The Story Of Simon Simopath', was a concept album produced by Chris Blackwell, and was released at the height of the psychedelic era in 1967. It was one of the first narrative concept albums ever released, and actually predates The Pretty Things' 'S.F. Sorrow' and The Who's 'Tommy'. When the duo relaised that they would be unable to perform their songs live, they decided to create a live performance group, The Nirvana Ensemble, and they recruited four musicians to enable them to undertake concerts and TV appearances. Although these four musicians were included in the photograph on the cover of their first album, in order to assist in projecting an image of a group rather than a duo, within a few months Nirvana had reverted to its original two-person lineup. The band appeared on French television with Salvador Dalí, who splashed black paint on them during a performance of their second single 'Rainbow Chaser', and  Campbell-Lyons kept the jacket, but regrets that Dalí did not sign any of their paint-splashed clothes. 
In 1968, the duo recorded their second album, 'All Of Us', which featured a similar broad range of musical styles as their debut release. Their third album, 'Black Flower', was rejected by Blackwell, and was eventually released in the UK in 1970 under the title 'To Markos III' (supposedly named for a "rich uncle" of Spyropoulos who helped finance the album). In 1971 the duo amicably separated, with Campbell-Lyons the primary contributor to the next two Nirvana albums, 1971's 'Local Anaesthetic', anf the following year's 'Songs Of Love And Praise'. 'Local Anaesthetic' is a superb progressive rock album, consisting of just two long pieces, and quite unlike their early psyche-pop songs, so do check it out. During their career they did release a number of songs on the b-sides of their singles which didn't appear on the then current album, as well as issuing a one-off single in 1969. There are also a few out-takes around of previously unreleased songs, as well as works in progress of tracks which would later appear in a refined form on their records (notably 'Omnibus' and 'C-Side In Ocho Rios'). I've also included an interesting take of 'All Of Us', which features vocals by the actresses from the film which it soundtracked, 'The Touchables', and we close with a version of that one-off single 'Oscar (Oh! What A Performance'), recorded with prog-rock deities Spooky Tooth.

Track listing

01 I Believe In Magic (b-side of 'Tiny Goddess' 1967)
02 Feelin' Shattered (b-side of 'Pentecost Hotel' 1967)
03 Flashbulb (b-side of 'Rainbow Chaser' 1968)
04 I Never Had A Love Like This Before (Instrumental) (previously unreleased)
05 Requiem To John Coltrane (b-side of 'Wings Of Love' 1969)
06 Life Ain't Easy (previously unreleased)
07 Omnibus (original version of 'All Of Us')
08 C Side In Ocho Rios (b-side of 'Girl In The Park' 1968)
09 Goodbye Baby Bunting (previously unreleased)
10 Oscar (Oh! What A Performance) (single 1969)   
11 Darling Darlene (b-side of 'Oscar (Oh! What A Performance)')
12 City Of The South (previously unreleased)
13 The Touchables (All Of Us) (featuring vocals by the actresses from 'The Touchables' film)
14 Oscar (Oh! What A Performance) (long version with Spooky Tooth) 

Nirvana - I Hate Myself And I Want To Die (1993)

'I Hate Myself and I Want to Die' was the original album title of what was to become 'In Utero', but was changed to avoid potential lawsuits. The band even took the title track off the album, with it eventually turning up on The Beavis and Butthead Experience soundtrack. The title was merely a bad joke, and unfortunately Kurt Cobain's dark sense of humor only fueled the myth of the suicidal rock star. By adding in a few outtakes and original mixes, we can attempt to get back to the original vision of Nirvana's response to the commercial success of 'Nevermind'. Sessions were held at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, over the course of two weeks in February, 1993. They held a few practice sessions in Brazil during their South American tour the month before, so the songs were ready to go. Produced by Steve Albini, they intended the album to be more raw and natural than Nevermind, much to the dismay of David Geffen, who was already counting the money. After hearing the album, Geffen said it was unreleasable, and ordered them to start over.  They compromised by having a few songs remixed by Scott Litt, who gave 'Heart Shaped Box' and 'All Apologies' a more radio-friendly veneer, as well as the single version of 'Pennyroyal Tea' later that year. So one of the obvious tasks is to reinstate the original Steve Albini mixes back onto the album, which is simple enough, since they are now included on the 'In Utero 20th Anniversary Edition'. Kurt even came up with a plan to release the original rough mixes on LP, cassette, and 8-track under the title 'I Hate Myself and Want to Die', then a month later release a remixed, radio friendly version called 'Verse Chorus Verse'. Thankfully, this never happened. I open with the title track, using the Pachyderm version found on 'In Utero 20th Anniversary Edition', followed by "Sappy," a song they worked on over the years, finally getting it right in Minnesota, but it failed yet again to make the final cut of an album. The remaining track sequence follows 'In Utero', and I've always thought that 'Serve the Servants' was not the best opening song anyway, so now it comes third. I also add in the Albini mixes of the two songs that were remixed. Then I sneak in Dave Grohl's 'Marigold' near the end, providing a nice prelude to 'All Apologies', and it's about time Dave got one of his songs on a Nirvana album, this being his second attempt at the track. This gives us 51-minutes of music, including every song recorded at the Pachyderm sessions.  51 minutes is on the long side for an LP, but this would have been mainly a CD release anyway, as well as 8-track. I wanted to keep the angel for the cover and found this online which seemed to be exactly what I needed.

Track listing

01 I Hate Myself and I Want to Die 

02 Sappy

03 Serve the Servants

04 Scentless Apprentice

05 Heart Shaped Box

06 Rape Me

07 Frances Farmer

08 Dumb

09 Very Ape

10 Milk It

11 Pennyroyal Tea

12 Radio Friendly Unit Shifter

13 Tourette's

14 Marigold 

15 All Apologies

From The Album Fixer December 2014 - all notes and opinions are his (apart from the cover comment).

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Nirvana - Ashamed To Be Human (1988)

In January 1988 a young Kurt Cobain took his band Ted Ed Fred into Reciprocal Studios to record some demos. The band were a trio at the time with Kris Novoselik already on board covering bass duties and The Melvins' Dale Crover helping out on drums. Jack Endino was the producer for these sessions, and I'm sure he saw something in the raw energy of Cobain's screamed vocals over the bass-heavy selection of riffs, as he sent copies of the demo to various record companies in the hope of getting them a deal. It's well known from Cobain's notebooks that he used to plan out the band's career in minute detail, proposing album titles, track listings, and even drawing basic cover art. Around the time of the demo, his idea of the debut album's title evolved from 'Humans Are Dumb' via 'All Humans Are Stupid' to eventually end up as 'Ashamed To Be Human'.

Track listing

01 Floyd The Barber

02 Mexican Seafood

03 Paper Cuts

04 Spank Thru

05 Downer

06 Pen Cap Chew

07 Aero Zeppelin

08 Hairspray Queen

09 Beeswax

10 If You Must

11 Mr. Moustache

12 Blandest

When 'Bleach' eventually surfaced in 1989 only three of these songs made the cut, although versions of the others have appeared on numerous bootlegs over the years. These versions are all from the master tape of the 1988 demo produced by Jack Endino, and could be what the debut album might have sounded like if someone had picked up that demo that Endino hawked around and decided to issue it as it was.