Nirvana's Palace - The Biography

Nirvana is widely credited with bringing the sound and spirit of late-Seventies punk rock to a mainstream pop audience. In 1992 the Seattle-based trio took the angry, nihilistic message of the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the U.K." to #1 with its own sarcastic blueprint for frustration, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The band’s reign was tragically cut short two years later, on April 8,1994, when leader Kurt Cobain took his life following at least one earlier suicide attempt and severe bouts with drug addiction, a chronic stomach ailment, and depression. He was 27.

Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, a small logging town 100 miles southwest of Seattle. When Cobain was eight, his secretary mother and auto mechanic father divorced, leaving him constantly moving from one set of relatives to another. As a child beloved the Beatles, but by nine he discovered the heavier music of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss. Cobain met the 6-foot-7-inch Novoselic, son of a local hairdresser, through mutual friend Buzz Osborne of the Aberdeen band Melvins. Osborne introduced them to the hardcore punk of Black Flag and Flipper.

In 1987 Cobain and Novoselic, both of whom had long felt alienated from their working-class peers, formed Nirvana and started playing parties at the liberal Evergreen State College in nearby Olympia. The following year, Seattle independent label Sub Pop signed the band and released its first single, "Love Buzz" b/w "Big Cheese." Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, recorded for $606.17, came out in 1989 to kudos from the underground rock community; it sold an initial 35,000 copies, which is considerable for an indie-label release. The next year Nirvana put out another Sub Pop single, "Sliver" b/w "Dive," and recorded six new songs (including "Smells Like Teen Spirit") with producer Butch Vig. Although opposed to major labels in principle, the band claims it shopped the songs to bigger companies in hopes of getting the message of punk to a larger audience.

A major-label bidding war ensued, with DGC ultimately offering the group a $287,000 advance (rumors had it at $750,000). With Nevermind, Nirvana succeeded in getting punk to the populace on a grand scale: After an initial shipment of 50,000 copies, the record kept selling, eventually bumping new albums by Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, U2, and Hammer from the top of the chart. Nevermind ultimately sold ten million copies worldwide, and produced another hit, "Come As You Are" (#32, 1992).

By early 1992 the group’s success was biting back. As "Smells Like Teen Spirit" continued climbing up the charts, Cobain began bemoaning the group’s meteoric rise, worrying that fans were missing the point of Nirvana’s antiestablishment message. Simultaneously his new relationship with Courtney Love, singer of the underground band Hole, had become a hot topic in the gossip columns. The couple married on February 24. When Love became pregnant with Cobain’s child and was quoted in a Vanity Fair article as admitting she had used heroin during the pregnancy, news of the couple’s alleged drug addiction hit the media fan. Scrutiny of the Cobain/Love affair reached a level of intensity met in the pop world only by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, or the ill-fated punk couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. On August 18, 1992, the Cobains delivered a healthy, seven-pound baby, Frances Bean. After a battle with children’s services in Los Angeles, which challenged the Cobains’ parental fitness based on Love’s comments in Vanity Fair, the couple was granted custody of the child. Amid the chaos, Nirvana released Incesticide, a collection of early singles and outtakes. Beginning in spring of 1993, a series of events occurred that foreshadowed the demise of Cobain and Nirvana. On May 2, the singer overdosed on heroin at his Seattle home. The following month, he was charged with domestic assault after Love summoned the police during an argument over Cobain’s gun collection. On July 23, Cobain overdosed again, this time in the bathroom of a New York hotel room before a Nirvana show at the Roseland Ballroom.

On September 21, Nirvana released In Utero, which debuted at #1 and ultimately produced the modern-rock radio hits "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies." On January 8,1994, Nirvana performed what would be their last American concert at the Seattle Center Arena. On February 2, the band departed for a European tour, but after a series of shows in France, Portugal, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany, decided to take a break, during which Cobain remained in Rome.

At 6:30 a.m. on March 4, Love found Cobain unconscious in the couple’s room at Rome’s Excelsior Hotel, the result of an overdose of the tranquilizer Rohypnol. At first it was deemed an accident, but later reports confirmed the existence of a suicide note. Cobain remained in a coma for 20 hours. When the Cobains returned to Seattle, things took a turn for the worse. On March 18, police arrived at the Cobain home again after the singer locked himself in a room with a .38-caliber revolver, threatening to kill himself. On March 30, Cobain checked into the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, but fled on April 1, after telling staff members he was going outside for a smoke. On April 8, he was found dead in a room above the garage of the couple’s Seattle home, the result of a self-inflicted 20-gauge shotgun wound to his head. For weeks afterward, fans, the news media, MTV, and radio mourned his death with specials about Nirvana and the generations they inspired. In November 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York (#1, 1994), an album of the acoustic show taped in 1993, was released.

Following Cobain’s death, Novoselic spent most of his time as an advocate for various political and social causes. Grohl started a band, the Foo Fighters, which included guitarist Pat Smear, who played on Nirvana’s last tour. For the band’s self-titled album, released in 1995, Grohl sang lead, played guitar, and wrote all the songs.

Kurt Donald Cobain (a.k.a. Kurdt Kobain, b. Feb. 20, 1967, Hoquiam, Wash.; d. April 5, 1994, Seattle, Wash.), voc., gtr.;
Krist Anthony Novoselic (aka. Chris Novoselic, b. May 10, 1965, Compton, Calif.), bass;
Jason Everman, guitar; Chad Channing (b. Jan. 31, 1967, Santa Rosa, Calif.), drums.

1989 -- Bleach (Sub Pop) (- Everman); Blew EP (Tupelo)
1990 -- ( - Channing; + Dave Grohl [b. Jan. 14, 1969, Warren, Ohio], drums)
1991 -- Nevermind (DGC)
1992 -- Incesticide
1993 -- In Utero
1994 -- MTV Unplugged in New York

The long-planned Nirvana box set will include a previously unheard demo of the last song the trio ever recorded, according to the group's Dave Grohl.

In an interview with BBC's Radio1, Grohl did not specify the name of the song, but Nirvana experts online quickly speculated the tune he was referring to is known as "You've Got No Right," but that the song could eventually be released under a different title.

Grohl said the song was recorded during February, 1994, and was the only song completed during the session, which has only been heard by "maybe a handful of five or 10 people."

The Nirvana drummer, who now fronts Foo Fighters and didn't join the band until after their 1989 album "Bleach," also told the BBC most of the group's output between 1990 and 1994 has already been released, but "the real jewels of that box set will be the really weird stuff that was recorded before I was in the band."

Rolling Stone online meanwhile has reported that the group's bassist, Krist Novoselic, has for the past year-and-a-half been collaborating on the box set with Seattle music writer Gillian Gaar, who compiled an extensive history of the band's output for the music collectors' magazine Goldmine.

Sources at Nirvana's record label said there is no official news about a title, release date or track listing for the box set currently available.

It's been five years since the day the music died (again) and Kurt Cobain left us for his Leonard Cohen afterworld.

With a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head, Cobain effectively killed an entire genre and provided a generation with their first -- and last -- unifying experience.

I was first passed a bootleg copy of Nevermind back in 1991. In the three years it took to go from headbanging in my mom's car to mourning in a university residence TV lounge, Nirvana's punk ferocity and literate angst sparked a cultural watershed.

'ALTERNATIVE' TAG

Combined with the early Lollapaloozas, the "alternative" tag applied to our generation actually felt like a badge of honour, like we were the first to accept all of the underground -- from rap, funk and punk to industrial, goth and grunge -- instead of just one segment.

Like the mods, hippies and punks that preceded us, we created a viable youth culture -- sporting ripped jeans, Kool-Aid coloured hair, tribal tattoos and pierced tongues as our uniform.

It might seem quaint now, what with 20/20 hindsight providing us a clear view of the inevitable corporate sell-out, but for a brief moment we were beautiful, floating on a sea of hands while the masses moshed below.

NIRVANA-LED REVOLUTION

Promoting angsty realism over bubblegum fantasy, working-class values over Benjamins and art over commerce, the Nirvana-led revolution was as important as any that preceded it.

That Cobain died as the culture was being co-opted (remember Ralph Lauren brand flannel?) somehow seems fitting. That his death also brought that revolution to a pathetic conclusion -- and balkanized our generation into a million subcultures -- just seems sad.

As I watched Nirvana Unplugged the other day, I was struck yet again by the sheer intensity of sadness and rage Cobain emitted during the coda of Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Though Cobain's anguished howl helped me understand his bitter choice, five years later all I could selfishly think was: "Here we are now, entertain us."

Let's get one thing out of the way right now: Max Wallace is no wacko conspiracy theorist.

That's the label he and writing partner Ian Halperin have been fighting off for the past couple of years, since they started work on the just-released book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? -- a controversial challenge to the accepted belief Nirvana's lead singer killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head four years ago.

Wallace, 35, who was station manager at Carleton University's CKCU-FM when he began researching the book with Halperin three years ago, is in town today to launch the book with a reading and signing at Chapters in the Byward Market at 5 p.m.

"It's understandable," he says of the storm of protest the book has stirred up, most notably among Cobain widow Courtney Love's camp.

"But it's frustrating at times when these people don't even bother listening. We're not making any accusations ourselves, we're just critically reporting on these theories."

Who Killed Kurt Cobain? compiles and examines much of the evidence that's been put forward in the wake of Cobain's apparent suicide -- much of it by an L.A. private eye in Love's employ -- that he was murdered.

Although the writers diligently tried to "shoot down" a lot of the murder theories, Wallace says, they did uncover enough evidence to support a re-opening of the investigation into the death.

"Even after that, we're not 100% convinced that it was murder, and that's what the book says," explains Wallace.

He's "under no illusions," he adds, that the book will move Seattle police to re-investigate.

"They just have no interest whatsoever," he says. "They've bungled the investigation and they rushed to judgment."

For a mere $3 million you could own Seattle's mecca to grunge and the ultimate rock and roll burn out - with a view of the Cascade mountains and Lake Washington, to boot.

Courtney Love has put the house up for sale where her husband, Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, killed himself in 1994.

Reuters reported that Love, who has divided her time between Los Angeles and New York since Cobain's death, is asking for a cool $3 million for the Seattle mansion, located in an exclusive Seattle neighborhood. It was listed in the Sunday Seattle Times.

Since the grunge icons death, the home and neighboring park have become a destination for fans looking to get a glimpse of where Cobain's tumultuous life came to a sudden end.

The mansion, built in 1902, has five bedrooms, four baths, fireplaces in the living and dining rooms, a family room and chef's kitchen with industrial-grade appliances, as well as guest or nanny quarters.

Associated Press Writer SEATTLE (AP) -- When grunge rocker Kurt Cobain's life of artistic brilliance and personal turmoil ended with a shotgun blast to the head, it seemed like the classic trigger for an explosion of copycat suicides.
But while there was a big jump in suicide crisis calls in Cobain's hometown, there was just one clear imitation suicide, according to a study published in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.
More research is needed to determine whether that was also the case nationally because the local sample was too small to yield meaningful results, cautioned David P. Phillips, a leading scientist on the issue.
David A. Jobes, a Catholic University psychology professor in Washington, D.C., and the study's chief author, was at a conference of suicide prevention specialists when Cobain's body was discovered at the Nirvana singer's home on April 8, 1994.
"We just looked at each other and said, 'This is going to be a disaster.' We were convinced," Jobes said in a telephone interview Friday.
The study cites the response by the Crisis Clinic in Seattle, the way news media covered the suicide and community efforts to prevent a ripple effect as likely factors in preventing suicides.
"We were shocked. We were truly shocked by what didn't happen," Jobes said.
Celebrity suicides spark national suicide rate increases averaging 1 percent for about a month and as much as 10 percent for superstars like actress Marilyn Monroe in 1962, said Phillips, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego.
"I would imagine, in the case of Cobain, the effect might be the same size (as Monroe) or maybe a bit larger," Phillips said.
In four weeks following Cobain's death, 20 suicides were recorded in Seattle and the rest of King County, including the grunge megastar and an obvious copycat, a 28-year-old man who had just attended a candlelight vigil a few days after Cobain's body was found.
"I would say it's inconclusive, and it will remain inconclusive until the same study can be done on a national or at least a larger scale," Phillips said.
Jobes said he lacked the resources for a nationwide study but suggested that if any place would have experienced a sizable ripple effect it would have been Seattle, where grunge music originated and Nirvana had its strongest following.
The study cited several possible explanations for the lack of copycats:
-- News coverage. Reports included Cobain's troubled past, his broken home and severe alcohol and drug abuse. "The general message was, 'Great artist, great music, stupid act. Don't do it. Here's where to call for help."'
-- Crisis Clinic involvement. Officials held a news conference stressing "classic warning signs associated with suicide," to make sure its telephone number was widely disseminated.
-- Community action. City officials and several radio stations organized and sponsored a vigil in which thousands of fans gathered at a park. One speaker, by invitation, was the Crisis Clinic director.
-- Lack of romanticism. Cobain was so badly wounded that dental records were needed to confirm the identity of the body. Rejecting the image of Cobain as a gifted but misunderstood genius, his mother and widow Courtney Love publicly denounced him for taking his life. Love went so far as to curse him at the vigil.

PHOTO :
KURT COBAIN IN ROCKER NIRVANA?...Celebrity suicides spark national suicide rate increases averaging 1 percent for about a month and as much as 10 percent for superstars like actress Marilyn Monroe in 1962, said Phillips, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego.

LOS ANGELES (CP) -- Two and a half years after leader Kurt Cobain's suicide, Nirvana's new album has hit the top of the U.S. album charts, displacing Celine Dion.
From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah consists of 17 songs recorded at various shows between 1989 and 1994.
Cobain killed himself in April 1994 and Nirvana's Unplugged in New York soared to No. 1 when released the following November.
At No. 2 this week is Aenima, from the Los Angeles rock band Tool. Dion's Falling Into You slipped to third after two weeks at No. 1.
Two new entries in the Top 10 are Kenny G's Moment at No. 4 and Luther Vandross's Your Secret Love, No. 9.

Executive producer, Jam! Showbiz The band's new live album, "From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah," opened at the top of the Billboard album charts in its first week of release.

The 17-cut compilation sold just under 159,000 copies out of the gate, narrowing edging the new album by hard-rockers Tool, "Aenima", at 148,000.

Those numbers, however, are surprisingly low. By comparison, Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" album from 1994 also opened at number one, but did it with sales of more than 310,000 copies.

Other notable moves: Celine Dion's "Falling Into You" slipped from No. 1 to No. 3. Easy-listening saxman Kenny G blasted straight in at No. 4 with his new album, "The Moment," while Luther Vandross entered at No. 9 with "Your Secret Love."

At the other end of the spectrum, three superstar releases experienced precipitous declines. The $80 million band, R.E.M., saw its "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" tumble all the way down to No. 17 in its fourth week. Sheryl Crow's self-titled second album dropped to No. 13 after just two weeks in release, while Pearl Jam's highly touted "No Code" plunged all to way from No. 20 to No. 10 in its sixth week. At 790,000 copies, the album still hasn't equalled the number of copies its previous release, 1994's "Vitalogy", sold in its first week alone: 877,000.

"Nirvana started as a live band," Krist Novoselic writes in his liner notes to the band's long-awaited From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, and he's absolutely right in reminding us of what seems to be, at first glance, perfectly self-evident.

For Canadian fans, in particular, that statement isn't merely a matter of perception -- that Nirvana is forever destined to be remembered for the lurid circumstances of Kurt Cobain's suicide, or the craziness cultivated by Courtney Love, or even the adrenaline rush that still follows every time Smells Like Teen Spirit comes on the radio -- it's a simple fact.

Between debuting on Feb. 20, 1987 at a Tacoma, Wash., club called (presciently enough) Legends, and sputtering to a halt on March 1, 1994 at the (just-as-presciently named) Terminal Einz in Munich, Nirvana performed fewer than a dozen shows in Canada, and all of those took place in only four cities: Vancouver (six times), Montreal (twice), Toronto (twice), and Edmonton (once).

Which is a large part of what makes the 16 relentless songs on From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah sound so vital. (The album hits stores in Canada on Wednesday, Oct. 2, five years to the week that Nevermind first entered the Billboard charts.) Spanning the four-year period between December 1989 and January 1994, the material here, culled from literally hundreds of hours of tapes, ends up being drawn from just nine concerts. (None of them were in Canada, we might add).

Two shows -- Nov. 25, 1991 in Amsterdam and Dec. 28 in Del Mar, CA. -- account for almost half of the album.

Given the fact that there are upwards of 120 Nirvana bootlegs floating around the vast underground market, that might seem a little myopic, to say the least.

And while it's tempting to play trainspotter and argue for, say, the Gloria-influenced version of Spank Thru from that club in Hoboken, N.J., in '89, or the especially creepy run-through of Heart-Shaped Box they did in Milwaukee in '93, well, that's all rendered academic by the crushing intensity of virtually every performance here.

Or, as Novoselic writes at the end of his notes, "Let all the analysis fall away like yellow, aged newsprint."

From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah -- the title is taken from the river that runs through Aberdeen, Wash., Cobain's and Novoselic's hometown -- portrays the kind of band that most of us think of when we think of Nirvana: loud, brutal, occasionally out of control, and most definitely NOT unplugged.

It is, ultimately, not so much a fitting epitaph as a matter of finally setting the record straight: above all else, Nirvana was a live band.

Here's a track-by-track synopsis of all 17 cuts on From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah:

1. INTRO: Fifty-two seconds, the last 23 of which consist of Cobain screaming like a tortured madman.

2. SCHOOL: Recorded Nov. 25, 1991, Paradiso club, Amsterdam. The most intense live version of this tune to surface on any recording, legitimate or bootleg. Features an uncharacteristic solo by Cobain in the middle. Like the man says, "No recess!" (Studio version on Bleach)

3. DRAIN YOU: Recorded Dec. 28, 1991, Del Mar Fairgrounds, CA. "With eyes so dilated/I've become your pupil ..." Even Elvis Costello would be happy to have written that pun. Another rare instance of the band stretching out and playing around with a familiar song's dynamics. (Studio version on Nevermind)

4. ANEURYSM: Recorded Dec. 28, 1991, Del Mar Fairgrounds, CA. The first single from the album to go to radio, and much tougher than the version on the B-side of Smells Like Teen Spirit. (Live "BBC Session" version on Incesticide and the Hormoaning EP).

5. SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT: Recorded Dec. 28, 1991, Del Mar Fairgrounds, CA. Captured just two months after it was released on Nevermind -- and well before Cobain tired of playing it -- this takes its place as the definitive version of the definitive Nirvana song. (Studio version on Nevermind)

6. BEEN A SON: Recorded Nov. 25, 1991, Paradiso club, Amsterdam. "She should have stayed away from friends/She should have had more time to spend ... She should have been a son." Barely two minutes long, and all the better for it. (Live "BBC Session" version on Incesticide)

7. LITHIUM: Recorded Nov. 25, 1991, Paradiso club, Amsterdam. "I'm so happy because today I've found my friends ..." If you ever wanted to hear the perfect example of Cobain playing off his way with a pop hook against his tortured outlook on life, just listen to way his voice breaks when he sings the line "I love you/I'm not gonna crack." (Studio version on Nevermind)

8. SLIVER: Recorded Nov. 10, 1993, Civic Center, Springfield, MA. "Grandma take me home, grandma take me home ..." If there was ever any question about whether this song was autobiographical, this performance will clear it up once and for all. (Studio version on Incesticide)

9. SPANK THRU: Recorded Nov. 19, 1991, Il Castello Vi De Porta, Rome. The very first Nirvana song, according to Novoselic, and a blueprint of sorts for every song Cobain ever wrote about sexuality. (Studio version on the various artists compilation Sub Pop 2000).

10. SCENTLESS APPRENTICE: Recorded Dec. 13, 1993 for MTV's Live And Loud, Pier 48, Seattle. Nirvana at its least melodic and most aggressive. "You can't fire me because I quit ..." (Studio version on In Utero)

11. HEART-SHAPED BOX: Recorded Dec. 30, 1993, Great Western Forum, Los Angeles. The verses of this song about obsession are just about the only respite from the aural onslaught that dominates the rest of Wishkah. Also the only single ever to include the word "hymen" in its lyrics. (Studio version on In Utero)

12. MILK IT: Recorded Jan. 5, 1994, Seattle Center Arena. Recorded less than two months before the band ceased to exist as a performing unit, this is the newest track here. Unlike some of their sad, desperate final shows -- the Rome show, which took place just six weeks after this one, is a prime example -- this one shows they still had it 'til almost the very end. (Studio version on In Utero)

13. NEGATIVE CREEP: Recorded Oct. 31, 1991, Paramount Theatre, Seattle. There's no question that playing in their adopted hometown brought an edge to the band's performances that they couldn't find anywhere else, and this is no exception. "Daddy's little girl ain't a girl no more ..." (Studio version on Bleach)

14. POLLY: Recorded Dec. 5, 1989, Astoria Theatre, London. Along with the next cut, Breed, this is the earliest track here. Lacking the subtlety of the "New Wave" version that popped up on Incesticide, it's also much rawer than the more familiar version from Nevermind. (Studio version on Nevermind; live "BBC Session" on Incesticide)

15. BREED: Recorded Dec. 5, 1989, Astoria Theatre, London. Ditto. (Studio version on Nevermind)

16. TOURETTE'S: Recorded Aug. 30, 1992, The Reading Festival, Reading, England. "This is a new song that we don't really feel like actually going through the trouble of putting out ourselves, so it's for all you bootleggers ..." If you can figure out what the hell Cobain is saying, you're a better person than I. (Click here for one attempt at transcribing the lyrics.) (Studio version on In Utero)

17. BLEW: Recorded Nov. 25, 1991, Pardiso club, Amsterdam. We end, fittingly, where the album began, at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. "If you wouldn't mind, I would like to breathe ..." Damn. (Studio version on Bleach)

NEW YORK (AP) -- More than two years after the death of lead singer Kurt Cobain, Nirvana is releasing a new 16-song live album.
From the Banks of the Muddy Wishkah, assembled from recordings of old concerts, is to be released Oct. 2.
It will be Nirvana's second release since Cobain's death. The first was MTV Unplugged in New York, which featured mellow, acoustic versions of the band's usually ear-shattering grunge hits.

A live Nirvana album, From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, is due in record stores on Oct. 9.
Among the 16 tracks is a Jan. 4, 1994, recording of Milk It from a concert in Seattle just four months before Cobain committed suicide in the greenhouse of his home.
Bassist Kurt Novoselic, who contributed liner notes, promises all the songs, recorded between 1989 and 1994 will be "Nirvana raw."
Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, now frontman for the Foo Fighters, listened to more than 100 hours of tapes to select the songs.
"It's an aggressive record," Novoselic said in a press release. "Hopefully, people who didn't get to see us live will get a flavor of what the band was about."
A two-CD set, one disc from the acoustic MTV Unplugged show and another of live peformances, was originally planned for fall 1994, but reviewing the tapes proved too painful for Novoselic and Grohl in light of singer-songwriter Cobain's then-recent suicide so the Unplugged album was released on its own.
Two of the songs on Wishkah, Polly and Breed, were recorded in London in December 1989, predating Nirvana's 1991 breakthrough Nevermind.
Most of the tracks, however, come from the band's world tour in the winter of 1991: Drain You, Aneurysm, (Smells Like) Teen Spirit, Been A Son, Lithium, School, Negative Creep, Blew and Spank Thru.
Nirvana's appearance at the Reading Festival in England in the summer of 1992 produced tourette's, while the remaining songs came from the winter 1993-'94 In Utero tour - Sliver, Scentless Apprentice, Heart Shaped Box.
The album is named for the river that instersects Aberdeen, Wash., the hometown of both Cobain and Novoselic.

As we told you last month, Nirvana will release a live album in Canada, Oct. 9, the day after it comes out in the U.S. The contents of that album have now been confirmed.

From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah -- named after the river that runs through Aberdeen, Wash., the town in which Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic first met -- will be an all-electric affair, spanning the years 1989 to 1994. The final, and most recent track, dates from January, 1994, two months before the band's last concert, and three months before Cobain committed suicide.

Here's the complete track listing:

LONDON, 1989

1. Polly
2. Breed

VARIOUS LOCATIONS, WINTER 1991

3. Drain You
4. Aneurysm
5. (Smells Like) Teen Spirit
6. Been A Son
7. Lithium
8. School
9. School
10. Negative Creep
11. Blew
12. Spank Thru

READING FESTIVAL, 1992

13. Tourette's

VARIOUS LOCATIONS, WINTER 1993-94

14. Sliver
15. Scentless Apprentice

JAN. 4, 1994

16. Milk It