This series of blog posts is about the instrumentation behind All four of Nirvanas albums the three studio albums in Bleach, Never mind and In Utero and the compilation album Incestiscide and depending on the reception of the series Unplugged will get a nod.
So starting off with Bleach (1988-1990) the Lineup of this era of Nirvana featured Guitarist Jason Everman and Backup singer Drummer Chad Channing ( and ocassionally Dale Crover of The Melvins) Bassist Krist Novosleic and Frontmand lead guitarist and Singer Kurt Cobain. Oddly Jason Everman doesn’t actually appear once on Bleach he paid for the production of the album thus getting him a writers credit. The trio of Kurt Krist and Dale Crover would hit the studio in late 1988 to start work on Bleach with producer Jack Endino the songs Downer, Papercuts and Floyd The Barber would be completed and though a attempt to rerecord with Chad came about the three ultimately decided to leave Dales original tracks as is. Every other song has Chad Channing in full force playing away. The odd sound of Bleach comes from the cheap recording style. The band was taped on a eight track and played every song live overdubbing in the post stages (which Kurt hated with a passion). The setup for Bleach’s studio recording is as follows: Track one Chads Kick Drum Track two his snare and hi hat recorded on a overhead mic track three his floor tom track four a mic for his tom 1 drum. Track five was Krists bass and mic up of his bass. Track Six was Kurts vocal then track seven was Kurts guitar and track eight was free for either one vocal or guitar overdub.
So as you can see Bleach had a troubling process to begin with but that didn’t deture the artistry of the group. The opening track “Blew” A more sludge Sludge metal take with the growly low distorted bass and aggressive guitar dives creates a song that invokes a sense of violence almost. Plus Chad Channing delivers a impressive triplet groove that slides around the kit and makes it really poppy. Eventually when Dave Grohl took over his power filled this song out live. The second song on the album is “Floyd the Barber” based on Floyd Lawton from the extremely popular Andy Grififth Show giving a darker take on the character. The song details Kurt walking into a barbershop expecting a haircut only to be subsequently tortured and murdered. “Floyd The Barber” instrumentally is dark and gritty Dale Crover of The Melvins recorded this song and gives a strong almost tribal beat paired with the harsh distortion and harmonic breaks mostly added and fixed in post by producer Jack Endino. Krists bass takes a lower seat holding a more funk inspired groove that Jack Endino would spruce up on the back end. “About a girl” Kurts beattle song was slower cleaner song about Kurts current long time girlfriend Tracy Mirander the song uses a true less is more approach. The lyrics are memorable digestable and feature a couple of recording quirks Kurt used a vocal overdub that usaully would have been a double track of his main guitar. “ School” is a noise rock song through and through the guitar over dub is strong on this one and pops out over the main track at times.
“Love Buzz” is the best noisy song on this album it has a explosion on sound at points with Kurt and Krists tuned up a half step the guitar scratches and yells at you with the nice instrumental pause to let the frantic low baritone vocals of Kurt Cobain just creep at you before a long scream of pure pleasure. A BUZZING sound is heard on the main guitar track as Kurt uses his boss ds-1 one a distortion sound box that creates a fuzzy banshee effect when turned up to the proper settings. Overall I’m buzzing with love over this track its quintessential Nirvana. You ever like hurt your hand on a piece of printer paper that weirdly shallow yet deep cut that stings even longer. Well if not you can listen to “Paper Cuts” this track is heavy dark gloomy and scratchy it fits a certain aura that is just the right amount of painful noisy rock mixed with a slight cleanliness of production plus Dale Crover leads a hard and powerful drum track for the ages. Kurt did overdub with a feedback noise with his guitar close to his amp. Its on to the B side of the album.
“Negative Creep” is sliding friendly full of powerful bass line Krist layed down fits the groove and pocket of Chad Channing plus a vocal overdub was instituted to help flesh out the singing. “Scoff” is just that a scoff in your face as it isn’t my favorite song yes it is a deep cut but its not my favorite. I do enjoy the snare floor tom eigth note grove but beyond that it loses flavor. “Swap Meet” is loud and noisy and required a few reruns to get it right but I love it and the few live versions were pretty good. The next song on the list is “Mr. Moustache” which is very very difficult to play as a guitarist. The song is captivatingly confusing and the drum part is winding the the count on the ride seemingly switches with the snare at points. “Sifting” is slow and sludgey and possibly the most sludge metal song on the album. The drop tuned guitars and high tom centered groove on the drums add a large amount of punch and the bass line is amazingly good it is five minutes though so it runs kind of long eith some repitition. “Big Cheese” is a pop metal song at its heart the faster jumpy fill based drums and long ride cymbal bell taps add a lot to the song. The final song from the original 1989 Bleach release is downer and last is definetely not least. By far the shortes song is a pretty good representation of future Nirvana ( so is “About a girl”) which leads it to be a good listen and this song was only recorded in three takes with Dale Crover drumming.
Overall Bleach is good my top listens are.
Floyd The Barbar
About A Girl
Downer
Negative creep.
