Picture the scene: 29 October 1997, Mrs 1537 looking slightly miffed as her saintly patience is tested yet again by her feckless husband as he dives into yet another record shop. She didn’t mind yesterday, when he bought two LPs but it’s all starting to wear a bit thin now. She understands he likes records, hell she used to buy even more than he did, but this is getting a bit much. Especially in this heat. Especially as they’ve got stuff to see and do. Like walk up to the Goddamn Acropolis like you’re supposed to when you go to {CENSORED} Athens!!
Oops. Nirvana Incesticide was another buy from HMV Athens, because … vinyl, intense grunge-heroin-downer-music, sea and sunshine*. Mrs 1537 will go to heaven for her tolerance and forbearing, or maybe just get to go to Athens, in peace.
So what did I get for my drachma?
Incesticide is a lengthy odds and sods, B-sides, radio sessions and unreleased stuff compilation put out in December 1992 by Geffen to stop fans being fleeced for rarities, if anyone was going to take fan money it would be Geffen. Basically this is Hatful Of Hollows in a plaid shirt.
I have not played this LP very many times in my life, because why would I? when I want to hear Nirvana I tend to throw on Bleach or Nevermind, listening to assorted B-sides and squalls is less appealing to my middle-aged ears. Today though I have been very pleasantly surprised by a decent tranche of it.
The first notes heard on Incesticide are from Krist Novoselic driving us hard into ‘Dive’, a primo slice of grunge**, that rough edge powered hard by the band, sportign a really nagging melody that jabs the song through my defences right into my affections. Good drumming from Chad Channing too^.
I also loved ‘Sliver’ from the first time I ever heard it and I like the way it works as such a dramatic retelling of such a banal childhood episode; hey these things matter when you’re little. Everything that was great about Nirvana is right here again, melody, real emotion, great dynamics; ‘Sliver’ really is up there for me. Plus I love the fact that Kurt called it ‘Sliver’ knowing that everyone, myself included, would keep calling it ‘Silver’.
Take him home already, grandma!
The Bleach-era B-side ‘Stain’ is yet another good one, recorded a little later than the LP (for the Blew EP) it harnesses the best darkling rage of the album with better dynamics again, Steve Fisk producing, without sacrificing any of the fuggy heaviness of it all.
The poppy on Incesticide‘s front cover makes a point but I like to think that poppy really was what Nirvana did best – the BBC radio session version of ‘Been A Son’ and the Devo cover ‘Turnaround’ being a pair of great cases in point. As do the pair of Vaseline’s covers ‘Molly’s Lips’ and ‘Son Of A Gun’, all of which harnessing the band’s considerable engine power to great affect.
I love it because there’s such a happy blast about it all, which is the way I remember Nirvana – a band who knocked me and all my friends for six when we first heard them. So many intensely happy memories of leaping around to that-certain-song on sticky dancefloors for years. They were a full joyous noise and fun live too. It is worth remembering that when later events cast such a pall over recollections of their time.
Which is why ‘(New Wave) Polly’ is such a wonderful treat, my oftimes Nevermind favourite belted out at a breakneck pace – all very ‘up’. Cleverly throwing the harrowing lyrics into even starker relief. Clever bastards^^.
You need a high GTL^* score for the next 6 tracks though, short though a few of them are, they sound like rejected demos and ideas to me, B-side fodder. To accentuate the positive here I love the title ‘Aero Zeppelin’*^, the downbeat ‘Big Long Now’ sets a mood and I do like the stream-of-consciousness burbling on the tautly sprung ‘Downer’. It’s telling that iTunes tells me I had not played any of these tracks since 2014, although I have played the vinyl a couple of times in that period.
Incesticide has a great ending though with ‘Aneurysm’, a different recording to the one on the B-side of Smells Like Teen Spirit. This version is a less pronounced, more organic-sounding version of the song without some of the starkness of the other version (I don’t know which was first). A wonderful death-rattle-dry humoured song about heroin, is how I’ve always seen it. Cynical as fuck.
Come on over, do the twist, aha Overdo it and have a fit, aha Love you so much, it makes me sick, aha Come on over and do the twist, aha
Incesticide is a much better LP than it has any right to be, some of Nirvana’s very best stuff is right here but, more than that it does seem to hang together pretty darned well as an album.
All the things that attracted me to Nirvana are right here and so are their flaws, everything writ large and loud and when I weigh them all up, they come out so far ahead it’s beautiful.
Sadly my Greek version of Incesticide was not one of the initial pressings that came with Kurt’s heartfelt message, later taken out by Geffen I believe:
If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us—leave us the fuck alone! Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.
I still think his painting on the cover is wack though.
1038 Down.
*although I forgot about it in my write up for Oh Canaduh!
**for want of a better word.
^one of four drummers playing here along with Mudhoney’s Dan Peters, the Melvin’s Dale Crover and some dude called Grohl.
^^even if I think ‘Polly’ steals a trick or three from Hüsker Dü’s ‘Diane’.
^*Grunge Tolerance Level – as defined by the WHO, on a scale of 1 – 20 (20 being highest).
*^although Judas Sabbath, Iron Trick and Cheap Maiden would have been even better.
Your ear and guts will guide as they did on this one.
I loved them a lot, briefly. Poor sod.
No kidding. When it comes down to it “sad” is the word.
this was the first Nirvana album I bought and it’s always had a special place in my heart. I think I still have the same copy 20+ years later.
There’s some true greatness right here.
You hardly listen to this because you’re too busy listening to D’Molls. Just admit it!
You’re just jealous because I knew about Desi Rexx before he joined Alice In Chains.
He did whaattt?!
You knew. Seriously, I thought you knew that.
I love this one, top to bottom. Sometimes even better than the main studio albums. Sacrilege!
Barbarian! I find the 4 tracks on side 2 hard to get through before ‘Aneurysm’. ‘Sliver’ is such a brilliant track though, I listen to it more and more.
Barbian! That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in ages! I love that!
I have to tackle ‘In Utero’ for the 33 ⅓ book club soon. Any advice?
Yup. Don’t let Kurt’s fate overshadow the experience and just listen for the melodies in there, occasionally well-hidden, admittedly. I think All Apologies and Heart-Shaped Box are beautiful exemplars of their kind.
I find the LP a tough listen myself because of someone I knew who was really into it, who took his own life later. Too many layers in there for me, too high a risk of emotions and whatnot.
Watch those emotion whatnot’s, Joe.
Thanks for the suggestion – that was what helped a lot with Nevermind, and for that matter, “Be here now’.
Also I really admire the chutzpah to make such an abrasive follow-up to the biggest album of the entire era.
For the record I do really admire the album rather than like it. I get the music industry metaphor but I never liked them making too free with the word ‘rape’, that never sat well with me. ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ and ‘Scentless Apprentice’ were very good – although it’s been about a decade since I played it.
Hatful Of Hollows in a plaid shirt is a brilliant definition.
(bows, takes the applause)
It’s well-deserved applause!