From Playlouder:

MILK IT
Nirvana producer sheds light on box set
15 Nov 2004


Nirvana producer Jack Endino has told PlayLouder that he thinks the new rarities box-set, 'With The Lights Out', will be followed by a flurry of live albums.

"I can’t speculate what the estate will do," he told us, "but you’ll notice there’s no live stuff on the box-set. Originally there was talk about having one disc for b-sides, one disc for live stuff etc, but when they realised how much live stuff there is they decided just to tell the story with songs that nobody has heard. There are multi-track recordings of many live shows and, down the road, I could imagine them doing, you know, a 'Munich 1993' album, like Pearl Jam and the Grateful Dead and the Hendrix estate have been doing."

The Seattle producer, known as the godfather of grunge for his work on 'Bleach', among others, is credited as a consultant on 'With The Lights Out'. He produced Nirvana’s first demo and, four years later, the early demos they did for 'In Utero'.

"I got the impression when they were doing the 'In Utero' demos that they didn’t really care whether they did them or not," he also told us, "but that somebody somewhere suggested to them that 'you really should go in and do some demos' and they went (resignedly) 'yeah OK, we'll go and do some demos'. It was strange really. It was right after Frances was born so Kurt was very distracted. He didn't show up at all the whole first day – didn't show, didn't call, just no Kurt. I thought 'that’s very strange, that's not like Kurt at all. Something’s changed in the last few years'.

"For him to book studio time and then not show up was completely unlike anything he’d done in the old days. I thought 'yep, rock star!' He’s busy dealing with the management, and lawyers, and phone calls and family and the baby and he can't be bothered to show up to the studio because he’s got a lot of other equally important things that are demanding his time."

One of the most harrowing moments on the box-set is a version of 'Rape Me' where you can hear Frances Bean crying in the background.

"She was sitting on his lap," Jack explains, "and then they held her up to the mic while Kurt was singing. It was a little distracting! Courtney came down to the studio with Frances and immediately everything was centred on the baby. Frances was only two weeks old or something. But 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. There was nothing harrowing about the recording session at all, Kurt was a nice guy, the band were always pleasant, make that clear. But, 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."

The box-set features 61 tracks of unreleased demos, including early versions of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and 'All Apologies', as well as previously unheard tunes, and an 18 track DVD. It’s out on Nov 22.

Trevor Baker

i would love to get some live albums!!
thanks for posting!!

ive never ordered from
http://members.tripod.com/~bootlegsfanclub/
but there is live stuff there

They (Geffen, BMG, whoever) are going to F this stuff up just like was done with the Hendrix catalog, where there will be one release after the next, constant remastering, until someone puts a stop to it and cleans it all up, returning to that which was originally released as the artist(s) intended.

Krist and Dave really need to put their proverbial foot down and say "hey, wait a minute, maybe NOT" to some things.... after all, the people who are going to be sucked dry of funds on each of these are the "fans", perhaps they should side for "quality" rather than "quantity". Or better yet, release that which the hard core fans don't already have via bootlegs and internet trading.

They should take a lesson from the remaining Beatles and the fact that McCartney keeps re-releasing stuff that hard core fans have had their hands on for years, while truely and authentically "unreleased" material just SITS in the Apple vaults (and there are thousands of hours of the stuff, they record ever take of ever song from every session and they are all saved). Cut the Anthology style "crap" and get on to the real, "rarities".

I hope the Nirvana "owners" don't mke the same mistakes and insult the intelligence of their hard core fans the same way the Beatles "owners" have over the last 30 years.

Don't get me wrong, I'm digging the new boxed set, but from the thread on the subject, http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewt ... ht=nirvana , there is clearly already OVERLAP surfacing (between the CD-Singles and the Outsecticide bootlegs, for example).

They need to be "careful" not to screw up.

And they need to make sure that FRANCIS get's royalties (that clover can't spend).

c-

They'll be hard pressed to find bootlegs and performances that aren't available to the hardcore Nirvana fans. The market for their bootlegs is huge. There are, of course, shows and sessions that have yet to be released, or some that are available in incomplete formats. If they could whip out some better sources (ie: soundboard) that we haven't seen yet, I'm sure they could generate a lot of hype.