Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [104]
JONATHAN PONEMAN Bruce and I flew to Europe, the idea being that we were hoping to provide some kind of support as they were entering the last week of their tour, which was going to climax with a big Sub Pop Lamefest, with Nirvana, TAD, and Mudhoney, at the Astoria in London.
MEGAN JASPER Bruce and Jonathan went to Europe to see TAD and Nirvana, and as soon as we knew they were gone, we took every bit of furniture in the Sub Pop office and pushed it aside and made a big dance floor. We’d blast music and do dance-offs and gymnastics. We did cartwheels, flips, somersaults, all of us acting like three-year-olds.
JONATHAN PONEMAN We arrived in Rome and went to the show. TAD and Nirvana were obviously worn out. Kurt had broken and repaired his guitar so many times that it was the second or third song into his set that his guitar just completely came apart. He smashed his guitar once and for all and climbed up on the mains, and he looked like he was ready to jump off, which would’ve been disastrous both for the people he would’ve landed on and for him.
BRUCE PAVITT The guy had a nervous breakdown right in front of everybody, and it was really scary. Everybody was freaking out, but they managed to talk him down.
I remember going to the guitar shop with Kurt and Jon and coming up with $150 or whatever for another guitar. And it was $150 that we barely had. And instead of him driving up to England, we all took a train together. People would oftentimes give us a hard time about being so broke, but what they also have to realize is that a lot of our money was spent on bailing bands out like that.
ANTON BROOKES Sub Pop had flown into Italy to see them play, and they must have come business-class or something. I just remember that there was a big hoo-ha about it because the bands thought they were suffering on the road to make Sub Pop money and that Sub Pop was squandering it. That was probably the first sign of any discontent within the label.
BRUCE PAVITT Did we need to go to Rome? No. Did we need to go to England? Yes, I do think so, because there’s a lot of media and press there. The U.K. Lamefest really broke the scene internationally—our bands got on the cover of the NME—just like the first Lamefest broke the scene in Seattle.
EVERETT TRUE I’ve spoken to quite a few people who were at Lamefest, and everyone’s got a different opinion. Some people thought, That’s the worst concert I’ve ever seen Nirvana play, and other people thought, That was the greatest show I ever saw them play. I’m not sure musically Nirvana were up to anything at all that night, but they realized that, so they just trashed the stage, absolutely left it completely wiped clean of anything: amplifiers, guitars, drums.
ANTON BROOKES Nirvana stole the show, basically. Kurt threw himself around the stage like a man possessed. Afterwards his knees would be all cut and bruised. I always remember thinking, We’re going to have to get him some knee pads. Looking back on it, it was obviously one of the key points in Nirvana’s history. That was the gauntlet that they laid down to everybody: Take us seriously; we can play.
KURT DANIELSON By the time Mudhoney played, I was really totaled. Billy, the drummer for the Cosmic Psychos, and I decided to try to rip Lukin’s pants off, but Lukin had these really tight black jeans on and his belt was fastened in some really arcane manner. So we’re onstage, like a couple of deer in some headlights, and we decide to throw him into the crowd instead. Then we went in after him. At the same time, Tad came out and threw Dan way out into the crowd. Mark was hiding under the drum riser. Or was that Steve? It was Tad, Bill, Dan, Lukin, me out there.
I remember that crowd was so dense. You didn’t sink down to the floor for a long time. We were lucky none of us got killed or ended up with a broken neck. It was thrilling; it was all about kicks. Those were the days.
MEGAN