Sub Pop is reissuing and remastering Nirvana’s first album, 1989’s “Bleach,” for its 20th anniversary, and with it will come some previously unreleased material.
“Scoff,” included on the original tracklist, was one of the many songs performed at a concert in February 1990, at Portland’s Pine Street Theatre; that show is included in the extra disc/vinyl record in the forthcoming deluxe edition.
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The original producer of “Bleach,” Jack Endino, had the honors of remastering this expanded, sexy set, due Nov. 3.
A now a fun, fun fact in the world of Nirvana and small, stalwart independent labels: A few years ago, before he announced the label would quit putting out new records this spring, Touch & Go’s beloved founder Corey Rusk, in an interview, described to me how Nirvana could have, should have, been on his label.
“I met Kurt Cobain at a Nirvana show, around the time Bleach came out,” says Rusk. “As I was talking with him, he said, ‘Touch and Go was my favorite label growing up. We sent you a demo but we never heard from you.’ Back in those days, we listened to every demo. We’d still felt like some kid took the trouble to send this to us. I actually kept every demo that ever got sent to us back then, so I got home and dug through every box in the garage. I felt like, ‘Did he really send it?’ But it wasn’t there. ‘Did I throw it out? Maybe it never made it?’ I loved Bleach. It was heartbreaking, because here was a great band that sent us a great demo.”
It is hard to believe this music is now 20 years old.
