A box of cassette tapes, unearthed by an anonymous collector at an Aberdeen, Wash., garage sale, might prove to be the earliest known home recordings by a pre-teen Kurt Cobain.
According to Blurt, The KDC Tapes -- named after the magic marker scrawlings of the singer's initials on each cassette -- feature a grade school aged Cobain singing original songs with titles like "Nixon Must Die (Or Resign)," "I Wanna Be Just Like a Weatherman," and a cover of Steve Miller Band's "The Joker," with accompanying ukelele.
Through an attorney, the individual that discovered the tapes has contacted the Cobain estate, and the recordings' authenticity has been verified by producers Butch Vig and Jack Endino, both of whom worked with Nirvana. Now, the collector is reportedly in negotiations to sell the tapes to the late icon's estate and his record label.
So what do the bedroom jams of an eight- or nine-year-old Cobain sound like?
"There's nothing there that would really give a blindfold test listener the sense that Cobain would go on to form one of the biggest bands on the planet, although it is worth nothing that even at that age you could hear the initial stirrings of his trademark rasp," a source who's heard the tapes told Blurt.
"At least three songs contain the word 'vagina,' each part of some childlike rhyming scheme, one of them being 'your mama,'" the source continued. "[T]here's an unusual fixation on firearms too, such as in 'Weatherman' where he sings in a kind of taunting tone of voice, 'You'll wish you were dead / When I point my gun at your head.' That's followed by the popping sound of a kid's cap gun."
It's an eerie association, especially today, on the 16th anniversary of Cobain's 1994 suicide in Seattle. Check out Chris Norris' 2004 tribute to the late Nirvana man here, and a photo gallery of some of Cobain's most poignant appearances in SPIN here.
And for a look back at Nirvana's first SPIN cover story in 1992, check out our Google Books archive version right here:
Sent from James' iPhone
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