Nevermind (the years that have passed)

By Alex Gillies

Firstly, this story isn’t special or probably any different to several million other people my age. It’s not a macro-story but a micro-story. I’ve read a lot of commentary over the last few days about the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind. Most of it a waste of time. Some of it strikingly poignant (Collapse Board Article). I started this post with some random memories, but with the intent of finishing with something more fleshed out and even with a punchline. In the end though, I decided to stick to random memories. Feel free to compare them to your random memories of the same topic.

It was the 24th September 1991 that Geffen Records released Nirvana’s album Nevermind. That’s 20 years ago this week. You already know the story of Nirvana so I’m not going to repeat it. As for me. I was 15 and I’d just moved from living with one parent in the rural Darling Downs to living with another parent in coastal Mackay – both far far away from the bright lights of the big city. It was rough seas in my teenage world with trouble at school and at home. I had spent about seven or eight years previously listening to my dad’s old school blues and white jazz and me listening to whatever 80s pop was in the charts. I read Smash Hits magazine and the outer reaches of alternative to me was Aerosmith.

I’m not lying when I say that I still remember sitting on the floor in the loungeroom on a Saturday morning in November watching Rage when I first saw the film clip for ‘Teen Spirit’. Something really clicked with that song. It so sounds like cheesy nostalgia to say that now but it was all I talked to people at school about the next week. A friend who was already switch on dubbed me two tapes, the two in the photo below:

I played those tapes incessantly. I played and paused ‘Teen Spirit’ until I had the lyrics written out and blue-tacked to my wall. I sat there and tried to figure out what ‘Chaka’ meant written on the front of Dave Grohl’s kick-drum (it was many years later I found out it was a LA graffiti writer). That week, I also discovered the Ramones, Sonic Youth, Henry Rollins, the Pixies (The UK Surf Mix of ‘Wave Of Mutilation’ is my fav Pixies song to this day), Concrete Blonde, Leonard Cohen and more. Soon I would hear Black Flag, Bad Brains and more amazing bands. I have a recollection from around that time of throwing the John Farhnam CD my mum bought me, onto the train tracks outside my back fence just before one of the cane trains came rolling past.

I put this tape in the tape player last night and listened to it. It sounded so terrible. No treble left at all but it still played!

A few months later home life went south and on my 16th birthday so did I, with a train ticket for a birthday present. I didn’t have any money to buy a proper copy so I just listened to my tape in my walkman, turned it over and listened to Bleach, turned it over and so forth and so forth… until I need to go and get more batteries. Unfortunately, I returned to Brisbane four weeks after Nirvana played Festival Hall. I didn’t get to go (of course) but I did track down a tour poster (see above).

Soon I started working my first jobs and as soon as I had saved enough money, I started buying proper copies of what ever I could afford. I would catch the train for an hour into the city, go to Kent Records (my teenage self was too intimidated by the staff at Rocking Horse to go there). I didn’t have a record player but I didn’t care because I’d started … collecting records. I think I spent at least two or three years listening to my dubbed tape and just reading and looking at my records. I also bought any and every magazine that had anything to do with Nirvana in it.

(continues overleaf)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 9:07 pm. It is filed under Alex Gillies and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

12 Responses to “Nevermind (the years that have passed)”

  1. Lloyd B says:
    September 22, 2011 at 10:50 pm

    Bravo!

  2. Darragh says:
    September 22, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    Great stuff!

  3. Emerald Niall says:
    September 23, 2011 at 6:57 am

    Good article. I could really relate to you crying through the last few chapters of Everett True’s Nirvana book. Great vinyl!

  4. Lucy Cage says:
    September 23, 2011 at 7:19 am

    *applauds*
    Good on you. It’s always worth being reminded of how very deep the love for a band can run, what it can lead to, how crucial it can be.

  5. Stocky says:
    September 23, 2011 at 9:00 am

    I still have half of those singles and magazines. In the early 90s, my eldest sister had a lebanese boyfriend (his name was Hasaan, but we called him “Hash”). When I first met him, he asked me what music I liked. I said, “I’ve been mainly listening to Nirvana.” He copied me on tape Dinosaur Jr’s “Bug” (and later “Where You Been”), some Sebadoh, Swervedriver’s “Raise” and Beasts of Bourbon’s “The Low Road”. It was Barnsie and Farnsie no more!

  6. Matt O'Neill says:
    September 23, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Easily my favourite piece of this whole deluge. Such a wonderful piece of writing.

  7. Niall says:
    September 23, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Ah, the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack! I remember that one well – I had it on one and a bit sides of a C60 and got introduced to a lot of great music by it, like The Family Stone’s “Stand” (even if it was a cover). PIty the film was so rubbish.

    My older brother had Nevermind on a C90 with New Fast Automatic Daffodils on the other side (random, I know) so I managed to get a 3rd generation copy of it. I think the erosion of sound quality was good at taking away some of the over-polished production. I can’t remember what was on the other side of my tape now, testament to a great album I guess.

  8. Darragh says:
    September 23, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Some girl at a high school dance circa 1995 made out with me for wearing a Unplugged in New York shirt. I then rented the shirt to my friends for subsequent dances at $5 a pop on the basis that it was ‘lucky’. :D

  9. gregcharles says:
    September 23, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    Nice article. I remember having a dubbed cassette copy of Nevermind, and it did change my life – it sounded so otherworldly for an eleven year old previously into Guns n Roses and Poison. the fact that it was badly dubbed gave it a much rawer sound, almost tearing off the Andy Wallace sheen. I will never forget hearing ‘In Bloom’ or ‘Lithium’. some of those guitar sounds and vocal melodies are permanently etched into my brain, it was a magical experience.Though sometimes I forget how much of an effect it had. Thanks for reminding me what it was like, Alex.

  10. Erika says:
    September 24, 2011 at 1:35 am

    A lot of people have been writing about discovering Nirvana as teens. Some have questioned whether this band would mean much to someone older. I am almost exactly one year younger than Kurt Cobain would be.

    Yeah, I did a double take in 1991 when I first heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the radio. My head went, “what??? this sounds like punk rock! what is it doing on the radio? weird.” Oh, and there was that stuff about Seattle and flannel shirts. That was confusing, you know, why Seattle would claim dibs on flannel… (PONEMAN did that? he’s not even from Seattle! I have a recording of him in 1985 pronouncing “Oregon” all east coast, “Ore-gone”)

    When Cobain passed away, I saw the headlines, but that’s about it. I didn’t read papers or watch T.V. I recognized Nirvana as a popular band that kids listen to.

    In 2001, when I was 33 years old some online music retailer had a big sale on CDs. I owned maybe 2 CDs at that point, so I ordered a bunch of 90s music I felt like I’d missed out on. Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers, stuff like that. And Nirvana _In Utero_. BAM.

    I didn’t really care for any of those CDs, but I *loved* _In Utero_, fascinated not just by the sound, but by the lyrics (he gets away with THAT???) “Rape Me” was the first song that blew my mind. I would say that I went on a very extended Nirvana bender after that, being fascinated by bootleg recordings and the sounds of semi-controlled chaos in the live shows. What’s the point in seeing a live show if you get exactly what you can get on a record? Fascinated by his guitar technique, again, controlled chaos and feedback over solid riffing bass and drums (see also: Jimi Hendrix, Wipers).

    Nirvana actually means a lot to me. Kurt Cobain is definitely in my top 3 most influential musicians. Nirvana is to me a “crossover” band, which are the coolest. They crossed punk not just with heavy rock, but with pop, and not just any pop, but you know, like Beat Happening crossed with Melvins. CRAZY. Crazy good.

  11. Cam says:
    October 27, 2011 at 11:39 am

    i really enjoyed reading this article. very emotive.

  12. Interview with Alex Gillies of No Anchor | Darragh Murray says:
    March 29, 2012 at 9:39 am

    [...] addition to being No Anchor’s drummer, Alex is also an occasional Collapse Board contributor (check out his great essay documenting his relationship with the music of Nirvana) as well as visual artist, known for his woodcuts, some of which have appeared on No Anchor’s [...]

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