Nirvana

From Aberdeen to Nirvana 

The blue-collar logging town of Aberdeen, Washington, in the mid-1980s was, in Kurt Cobain’s words, “saddest town I’ve ever seen,” but it did have one brilliantly interesting aspect: the sludgy punk band The Melvins. The teenage Cobain obsessively attended Melvins rehearsals at the home of  drummer Dale Crover’s parents. When Cobain decided to cut his own home-produced music project, Fecal Matter (often called the Illiteracy Will Prevail tape), Crover provided bass and drums. Recorded on a four-track in Cobain’s aunt’s house, the Fecal Matter demo captured Cobain’s earliest songwriting instincts, loud, abrasive, melodic. He gave a copy to Krist Novoselic, who took many months to listen to it. When he finally did, Novoselic suggested forming a band. That was the real beginning.

The early band had two constants (Cobain and Novoselic), multiple names (covering Creedence as the Sellouts, then their own material as Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, Bliss, Ted Ed Fred) and a rotating cast of drummers. Through all of this, the young band played relentlessly. Nirvana’s gig schedule in 1987–88 featured basements, fraternal halls, house parties, art-student events, and, famously, college dorm rooms. Many of their early shows had tiny crowds. They were loosely advertised: some were unannounced, some were improvised on the spot.

The Melvins’ Crover stepped in again to drum on a 10-song session in January 1988 at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle with producer Jack Endino. By this time the band was driving back and forth between Aberdeen and nearby Olympia, Washington, where Cobain implied that he felt artistically understood. Olympia’s musicians were experimenting with post-punk minimalism, noise collages, anti-rock gestures, and an unpretentious DIY ethic. Meanwhile, Cobain was strikingly meticulous about arrangements, layering guitars and shaping vocal lines long before Nirvana had any audience.

Sub Pop’s brass, Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, heard the Endino demo material and were impressed by the focus and songwriting. Their model at the time was to document promising new bands with limited-run singles before committing to full albums. The label offered Nirvana a spot in what would become the Sub Pop Singles Club, a tiny, mail-order blip that gave the band its first real foothold outside local gigs and demo tapes. In November 1988, with Chad Channing now on drums, “Love Buzz / Big Cheese” appeared as Sub Pop SP23, the first Singles Club release, in a run of 1,000 hand-numbered copies plus a small additional batch of promos.

The band that would make Bleach, Nevermind, and In Utero still lay ahead. Dave Grohl wouldn’t step in on the drum kit for another two and a half years. But the core shape of Nirvana, Cobain’s melodic instinct, Novoselic’s grounding presence, and the band’s obsessive gigging and recording, was already there.

By Sean Ransom – Dec. 2, 2025