Word Of Mouth Studios - Seattle, WA

2/2005 UPDATE: This "Rape Me" demo is on the box set, mixed by me at a later date. Phil Ek has reminded me that he assisted at the original session (he was an unpaid intern at the time) although I most definitely turned the knobs.


LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY: 25-26 October, 1992
Word Of Mouth Studios, Seattle, WA, US

Band members: Kurt Cobain (guitar, vocals), Krist Novoselic (bass), & David Grohl (drums)

Producer: Jack Endino
Assistant Engineer: Phil Ek

Set:
[X] Dumb (instrumental)
[X] Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle (instrumental)
[X] Pennyroyal Tea (instrumental)
[O] Rape Me
[X] Radio Friendly Unit Shifter (instrumental)
[X] tourette's (instrumental)
[O] Jam

Notes: Under duress from their record label, NIRVANA returned to the studio in October 1992. The band opted for the familiar surrounds of Word Of Mouth Studios, formally known as Reciprocal Studios, utilizing the same console employed on Bleach. Session producer, Jack Endino, found the atmosphere markedly different to that enjoyed on previous occasions, however. "It was very tense," he explains. "There was something dark in the air. It was dysfunctional in some way. People were not communicating with each other. Kurt was sort of in a different reality from everybody else. It made me very uneasy. Everybody seemed to be very on edge. It just wasn't the same band it had been." (1) At this time, Cobain and Courtney Love were embroiled in a custody battle for their two-month-old daughter, Frances Bean.

The session began badly, with Cobain failing to arrive on the first day, "He didn't show up at all the whole first day – didn't show, didn't call, just no Kurt." (57) Cobain's negligence came as a shock to Endino, "For him to book studio time and then not show up was completely unlike anything he’d done in the old days." (57)

Cobain's attention was further sidetracked when Courtney Love arrived at the studio with baby Frances the following evening, "It was a little distracting!" admits Endino. "[But] Frances was only two weeks old or something, [and] I have to say that they were both very cute with the baby. You just had to grin and bear it - It's a baby and they're new parents, so you have to let them do their thing." (57)

Cobain only ended up recording a vocal track for 'Rape Me', (8) "[Frances] was sitting on his lap, and then they held her up to the mic while Kurt was singing." (57) Endino admits to finding the result somewhat unsettling, "as a piece of art, he's singing in this very cracked, too-many-cigarettes voice 'Rape Me' and then there’s a baby crying. It does creep me out. I think he wanted to disturb people with that juxtaposition." (57)

The session was "enlivened" by the arrival of the police, due to a noise complaint - Grohl was playing his drums too loud, "His drumming was so loud, it was going right through the walls of the building," Endino says. "It was only the second noise complaint we'd ever had! It was kind of embarrassing. But they were almost done at that point." (1) Endino tried to assuage the officers with a bit of name-dropping, "The cops were cool, they knew who NIRVANA was and they were like, 'Well, you guys should wrap it up pretty soon...'" (62)

No one from the band returned to finish the demo, to do vocals, or to mix it. (1)