Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York was released commercially 20 years ago today on CD, almost a full year after its taping... Following the recent appearance of Roxette in the MTV Unplugged franchise, an awkward acoustically toned down Nirvana entourage hobbled into Sony Studios in New York in November of 1993... The show producers sent a production assistant to Sam Ash to buy Dave Grohl some new percussion gear, including wire brushes and sizzle sticks, so he could blend in better sonically with a seasoned cellist. The rough edged band was perhaps just not really ready to perform in an acoustic style setting, and picking the setlist wasnt going smoothly either. The MTV brass in partcular were not pleased with the direction the show was taking, Cobain was already insisting on NOT performing any of the bands biggest high rotation MTV hits, and who the hell were the Meat Puppets? Said show producer Alex Coletti later: I said to MTV, `Theyre going to bring some guests on. And at first everybodys eyes lit up, like, `Whos it gonna be? They wanted to hear the `right names- Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos or God knows who. But when I said, `the Meat Puppets, it was kind of like, `Oh, great. Theyre not doing any hits, and theyre inviting guests who dont have any hits to come play. Perfect. Their special guests, were their current tours opening act... the Meat Puppets , who were going to make one of their only national TV appearances, and ultimately last functional appearance in the public eye for nearly a decade... They were a band special to Cobain, who was particularly fond of the 1984 SST Records LP Meat Puppets II, which featured 3 of the songs they were going to play Plateau, Lake Of Fire and Oh, Me The show was surprising for many Nirvana fans to see the oft raging, angry band stripped down to show a gentler side. Krist Novoselic looks like hes trying not to bump into shit on the flower strewn stage, and he fumbles with an accordion in a Vaselines cover of “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam”. Their nervousness shows through, particularly the prickly Cobain who prefaces a cover of David Bowie s The Man Who Sold The World. with the comment I guarantee you I will screw this song up. After a vocally strained, dramatic solo reading of Pennyroyal Tea, Cobain bristles when Grohl, rocking a turtleneck & ponytail, puts down his brushes and gleefully announces “That was really great!” Kurt responds, “Shut up.” After the stark and dark conclusion of the Leadbelly blues song Where Did You Sleep Last Night reinterpreted in a howling manner by Cobain in his Frightwig T-shirt, the set was officially over ... It was almost exactly 56 minutes from start to finish. The pricks at MTV quickly sent their minions backstage to try to goad the boys to lay down a few more tunes ... I really tried to get him to do an encore, producer Coletti recalled. I had Dave, Chris and Pat ready to do it. But Kurt just wasnt into it. I was just doing my job for MTV at that point, trying to get that one extra song in the can, to see if the night could produce one more gem. The pleading went on for about five minutes. Finally Kurt said, `I cant top that last song. And when he said that, I backed off. Cause I knew he was right. No Shit Sherlock... the audio recording of the loosely rehearsed one off performance topped the charts in 7 countries around the world, went 5x Platinum in the US alone...
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 21:04:41 +0000
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