Boxset, Update #4: Changing My Name and Cutting My Hair

  • Posted by mariteaux on April 15th, 2021 filed in Remasters/Restorations
  • Comments Off on Boxset, Update #4: Changing My Name and Cutting My Hair

So all that junk I accumulated the last time? It’s finally been sorted through. Have a look:

All the best sources I can find for Sound of Dentage
Few live sets in there just because I have them and why not. Believe me, I wasn’t keeping around a ton of extra stuff unless it really warranted it (like, say, an instrumental mix next to the vocal mix).

Got it down to a crisp five-and-a-half gigs. Basically, I went through and compared where I had two sources for the same track for completeness and sound quality and kept only the better of the sources. Part of it’s just plain bias; I’ve had two sources be clearly from the same transfer, but one’s been EQ’d, and that usually ends up being the one I keep. Basically, congrats to The Chosen Rejects for being the single bootleg that still occasionally manages to beat the circulating trading circle copies!

Comparing two sources for the 1987 KAOS session
Basically staring at this over a period of a day or three.

I was genuinely quite surprised to find out that the Elmo set actually wasn’t the best place to get some of its material. The 1987 KAOS session, “White Lace and Strange” from which you see in the above waveforms, was cut down to shit, despite sounding fairly close to the ones I’d just downloaded. Seriously, occasionally dead air between even the noises they did leave in got cut, let alone actual banter with the radio station people. They also ran fast, as do a lot of the bootleg copies of early Nirvana stuff. A quick bit of speed correction and they’re alright, generally, but yeah, aside from “Vendetagainst”, which clipped really badly on the trading copies, I about tossed the entire Elmo source for those.

I think I’ll reintroduce some live stuff into discs one and three because I’m a bit at a loss as to why I’m not really into my sequenced tracklists, how to start them and how to end them. There’s tons of good studio stuff from 1990 and 1991 to make a disc out of that, but the other two prove elusive. Ah well–what I can say I’m settled on is a new name and perhaps artwork. I figured Sunbeams was a bit of a mouthful to say and type out, so I replaced it with one of Kurt’s coolest-sounding song names, which I think sums up what Nirvana would become quite nicely:

Potential disc two cover for Sound of Dentage
Click for full-size

Finding good pictures for album art proved a similar challenge. Initially, the one I settled on was actually their Sub Pop promo photo (seen below), but I knew I wasn’t gonna get away with using a photo with Chad instead of Dave. Rather than drop the one I really liked, I decided instead to pick two additional ones, both black and white to match. The main one is what you just saw, and here’s the other two:

Potential disc one cover for Sound of Dentage
Disc one’s cover (click for full-size)
Potential disc three cover for Sound of Dentage
Disc three’s cover (click for full-size)

Frankly, this is likely the weirdest part of the entire package for me to put together. I’m pretty averse to the ~image~ of these guys because they’ve (and mostly Kurt) have become such fashion statements and I’ve just seen too much bad Kurt fanart to wanna bother myself. Still, need album art. The crops are about final, but I kept the originals in case I wanna tweak the text or layout or anything (and I really still might), but here’s what I’ve got for now.

Gonna go copy these to my backup drives and be done with listening to Nirvana stuff for the rest of the day. Maybe play more Amplitude (tune in to this week’s stream!).

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