I was familiar with Nirvana’s Bleach album. I knew indie and punk rock as I have been a straight edge punk since I was 15 in one form or another. I don’t listen to hard core as much anymore, but my ipod is filled with one form of noise or another.

So Nirvana wasn’t a band that came out of nowhere for me. But they killed it that night. I was blown away by this show, it’s one of the best I’ve ever been to. People will look back and wonder why Nirvana was so pivotal. It’s the context, everything else was either hair metal or Michael Jackson in the pop world and the indie music world was still full of R.E.M. sound-alikes. Punk was in the middle of breaking apart into retro-punk and post-punk.

Nirvana grabbed the best of everything in Seattle and drove right through the middle.

Enjoy this video of Nirvana before they were a household name.

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The Casbah held a special concert at the peak of this movement. Orca, a San Diego supergroup, was formed from members of many San Diego bands. More than a dozen guitars, bass, and drums packed the tiny stage. In fact, there was probably one musician for every 4 members of the audience that night. I brought a camera and my friend Donnie brought his tape recorder.

I was afraid our bootleg of the concert was lost forever. Fortunately, I discovered it while selling much of my stuff for the move to Paris. A friend at work ripped it to MP3 and now it is yours to enjoy. It is 45 minutes long and consists of one multi-part song. Listening to the song brings back vivid memories of the commotion, the heat of packed bodies, and the overall good will of the show.

Download: Orca at the Casbah (mp3, 47mb) – This link should work now.

Update

Rob Crowe had this summary on the Pinback mailing list:

this was obviously before the invention of floor pedal tuners.

from what i remember, rick froberg(pitchfork, drive like jehu, hotsnakes) was the main wrangler.

So, he got me and travis nelson (heavy vegetable, other men), O and johnny donhow (olive lawn, fluf), atom willard (rocket from the crypt), denver lucas (powerdresser), gary davis (custom floor,inventor of the boneless), and todd swank (crankshaft, foundation skateboards) together for 2 practices and 1 show.

no one from ujbod was in it.

whatamess
Rob Crowe