Montage Of Heck Long Version

From Jack Endino:

The "Love Buzz" single version had an intro, originally twenty seconds long, that was an audio collage of little snippets put together by Kurt at home through skillful use of the pause button on his cassette deck. We spliced it on to the beginning of the tape but the Sub Pop folks made us shorten it. A long version (of just the intro) has been bootlegged (Christ! What hasn't??) as "Montage of Heck" and "Buzz Cut" (also called "The Landlord" I think), and if it was ever longer than the twenty seconds they brought to the studio, I don't remember ever hearing about it at the time. The album version of "Love Buzz" is a different mix, without the intro. Another difference is that in the middle of the single mix, there's a "noise break" which has extra noises from the same collage cassette (another thing he did, not part of the intro) added in. Since all 8 tracks were full on the master tape, we had to plug the studio cassette deck into the board like a virtual 9th track, and each time I ran through the mix, Kurt had to press "play" on the cassette deck at the right instant so that the stuff would be blended into the mix I was doing. When we later went to re-mix Love Buzz for the album (the single mix ain't that great) Kurt forgot to bring that cassette, so those noises are absent. (Take that, trivia fans...) Actually, it hardly makes any audible difference.

Short Version:


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"Montage Of Heck" is a collage that Kurt Cobain assembled with a 4-track cassette recorder around 1988. It features sounds from Kurt's extensive and bizarre record collection, manipulated recordings of the radio, elements of Nirvana demos, and sounds created or recorded by Cobain.

Kurt used to include "Montage Of Heck" on demo tapes.

There are TWO complete and different versions of this "song" to surface:

a long stereo version (about 36 minutes long)

a short mono version (about 8 min long).

Some material in the short version isn't on the long version, and vice versa.

For instance, the clip of a Nirvana song referred to as "The Landlord" -- where Krist sings that "the landlord is a piece of shit from hell!" -- only appears in the short version.

The two versions are mixed very differently. In the long version, layers of sound move around in two speakers. The short version tends to highlight certain sounds by themselves, rather then presenting them as layers.

Kurt used part of the short version as an intro for the Love Buzz single and this short snippet is often referred to as "Buzz Cut."

Cobain made some other 4-track experiments, too. One of these is often incorrectly referred to as "Montage Of Heck Pt 2" on bootlegs; it is listed in this guide as "Escalator To Hell." It features Kurt recording his voice backwards to say "she's selling the escalator to hell" and some obnoxious guitar noise.


The following songs are featured and/or hidden in either version of "Montage Of Heck" (NOT in this order):




"The Men In My Little Girl's Life" by Mike Douglas

"The Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" by The Beatles

"A Day In The Life" by The Beatles

"Eruption" by Van Halen

"Hot Pants" by James Brown

"Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" by Cher

"Go Away Little Girl" by Donny Osmond

"Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver

"Everybody Loves Somebody" by Dean Martin

"The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr.

"In A Gadda Da Vida" by Iron Butterfly

"Wild Thing" by William Shatner

"Taxman" by The Beatles

"I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family

"Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?" by The Barbarians

"Queen Of The Reich" by Queensryche

"Last Caress/Green Hell" covered by Metallica

"Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin

"Get Down, Make Love" by Queen

"ABC" by The Jackson Five

"I Want Your Sex" by George Michael

"Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden

"Eye Of The Chicken" by Butthole Surfers

"Dance of the Cobra" by Butthole Surfers

"The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave" by Butthole Surfers

"New Age" by The Velvet Underground

"Love Buzz" by Shocking Blue

Orchestral music from 200 Motels by Frank Zappa

"Help I'm A Rock" / "It Can't Happen Here" by Frank Zappa

"Call Any Vegetable" by Frank Zappa

"The Day We Fall In Love" by The Monkees

"Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath (intro)

Theme from The Andy Griffith Show

Mike Love (of The Beach Boys) talking about "Transcendental Meditation"

Excerpts of Jimi Hendrix speaking at the Monterey Pop Festival

Excerpts of Paul Stanley from KISS' Alive!

Excerpts of Daniel Johnston screaming about Satan

Excerpts from sound effects records

Various children's records (Curious George, Sesame Street, The Flintstones, Star Wars).




The following Nirvana recordings can be heard in "Montage Of Heck":




"The Landlord Is A Piece Of Shit From Hell" - demo (short version only)

"Blandest" - studio version (brief snippet in short version only)

"Help Me" - demo (brief snippet in long version only)

Unidentified Song - demo (near the end of the long version only)

"Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves" - jam w/ Dale Crover (at the very end of the long version only).




The following Cobain-made sounds can be heard in "Montage Of Heck," especially the long version:




Somebody taking a piss (probably Kurt)

Kurt vomiting into a toilet

Krist ranting about having some pot and whiskey

Kurt moaning and various other distorted vocal sounds

Kurt imitating James Brown

Kurt mimicking some foreign vocal music

Various phrases muttered by Kurt.

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from www.nirvanaclub.com:
Q #129: What is "Montage of Heck" ?
A: "Montage of Heck" is basically the name of a collage Kurt made back in the 80's. It was originially to be included with the "Bleach" album but Sub Pop thought it was stupid. Thus, it was never released officially, and only a very short clip of the collage was used as an intro to Love Buzz on the original 7" single (it doesn't appear on the album version). The whole thing is about 40 minutes long, and a complete recording of it was uncovered by me a couple of years ago. Later, a lower generation copy has turned up. A circa 10 minute clip of the montage, including a clip of something called "The Landlord", was originally released on one of the Outcesticide bootlegs. The montage largely consists of clips from Kurt's record collection (Led Zeppelin, Cher, Aerosmith etc.) and stuff from TV shows. The tape I got with it also offered a cover of Cher's "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" with Krist Novoselic on vocals! There is more information about the montage - specifically which songs Kurt used - over at The Happening.