Prior to securing their place as one of the most influential acts in music history under the name Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, Dale Crover, and Krist Novoselic were members of an up-and-coming band called Ted Ed Fred.
Once they recorded their first demo tape on January 23, 1988, the trio headed to their local Aberdeen, Washington RadioShack (R.I.P.) to test out their sound and film material for a music video. Several clips of that day have been released over the years, but now the full video has landed, courtesy of video archivist Mike Ziegler.
The glorious 17-minute clip shows a rambunctious Kurt Cobain joining the performance with a triumphant leap at 1:06. The band’s drummer, Dale Crover — who later left Ted Ed Fred to join the Melvins — expertly plays his instruments live, while Cobain and Novoselic were synced with demo recordings collected the day before.
In addition to the performance vid, Ziegler has also released several unedited interviews with Nirvana’s members that were conducted for the 1993 concert film Live and Loud. In Kurt’s revealing 90-minute sit-down, he discusses his early years, responds to some harsh gossip, and cites his musical influences. The clip even starts with a tender moment between his wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances Bean Cobain.
Cobain also reflects on the juxtaposition of his roles as songwriter and Nirvana frontman. “At an early age, for a long time, I really did want to be someone in the background — a rhythm guitar player or a drummer,” Cobain states. “I didn’t want all the limelight because even if you’re not a songwriter, the lead singer always gets everything…I still to this day would much prefer that, really.”
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Text Abraham Martinez