The album was the band's major label debut after releasing their previous albums through the independent label Boner Records. Even so, Johnston continued recording prolifically, and his remarkable life (including his connection to Nirvana) was chronicled in the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston.Houdini is the fifth studio album by American rock band Melvins, released on September 21, 1993, by Atlantic Records. Instead, he opted for Atlantic Records, who released 1994’s Fun, which duly flopped. The sudden attention meant that Johnston became the subject of a bidding war - even though he was living in a mental hospital.ĭespite a generous offer from Elektra Records, Johnston rejected them because they also had Metallica, who the singer considered to be possessed by Satan. That was still the case when Cobain turned up to the MTV Video Music Awards in 1992 wearing a t-shirt of Johnston’s 1983 album Hi, How Are You. Nirvana's 'MTV Unplugged' 20 Years Later: Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood Looks Backĭaniel Johnston’s early self-released cassettes of fragile, lo-fi songs had earned him cult status during the 1980s, but the Texas singer-songwriter had also spent much of the decade fighting mental health issues. The hard-living San Francisco punks had burned out by the end of the 1980s, but found themselves getting called out by the newly-famous Cobain, who made up his own Flipper t-shirt with a sharpie before appearing on Saturday Night Live in early 1992, and wore it again in the video for “Come as You Are.” The t-shirt became so iconic in Nirvana folklore, that Forever 21 brazenly repurposed it, and and sold it on their own website in 2011. Sure enough, the album became one of the Melvins’ biggest commercial successes, with Osborne later referring to it as “our biggest selling record, although not so much that I could put a down-payment on a new Rolls or something.” “Kurt was a genius at choruses, and his main contribution was to focus on them,” recalls Melvins A&R rep Al Smith in Serving the Servant. Nirvana Topped the Billboard 200 25 Years Ago, But Garth Brooks & MC Hammer Still Dominated the…Īs the band worked on that set’s follow up In Utero, Cobain took time out to sit in the producer’s chair (for the first and only time) for the Melvins’ 1993 major-label debut, Houdini. As Captain America changed their name to Eugenius in 1992, Cobain personally recommended them to Atlantic Records, who released their first two albums. But 10,000 miles away in Washington state, Cobain was listening intently to their first two EPs - 1987’s Son of a Gun, and the following year’s Dying For It. When singer Eugene Kelly formed his new band Captain America in 1990, Cobain paid back his self-confessed debt by having the band open on their 1991 tour of the U.K., frequently inviting Kelly onstage to sing backing vocals on Nirvana’s cover of the Vaselines track “Molly’s Lips.” “Just as important,” recalls Goldberg “ shared the beer that promoters provided.”Ĭobain also made a point of wearing a Captain America t-shirt during photo shoots for British magazines, and one shot end up on the cover of NME, giving them an instant profile boost. In the late-’80s, Scottish indie-pop group The Vaselines were an obscure name even within the U.K. Here are five of the best examples of Kurt Cobain’s indie-rock altruism.
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