Classic Rock Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind by Charles R. Cross

Author:Charles R. Cross [Berkenstadt, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-768-6
Publisher: Music Sales Limited
Published: 2012-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

Endless, Nameless

Recalling the first difficult day of recording “Lithium,” Butch describes how a breakdown caused the birth of “Endless, Nameless.” “I remember the first day we were cutting it. Kurt got really pissed off because it was taking too much time.” Acknowledging Kurt’s lack of patience, Vig wisely kept the tapes rolling as the band launched into a jam they had rehearsed in different forms months before the session. Cobain’s moodiness—both in the studio and at live performances—was well documented by associates and the rest of the band, so his “Lithium” frustration wasn’t anything new. “Kurt was such a complex personality,” Grohl told Hit Parader in 1997. “He could be incredibly warm and funny, and the next moment he could just become totally absorbed in thought. I don’t think any of us truly understood what was going on inside his head.”

On this day, however, Kurt’s feelings were obvious to everyone present in the studio. “During ‘Endless, Nameless,’” says Butch, “Kurt was really pissed off, thrashing and screaming, and he smashed his guitar in the middle of it.” The band continued to play through the death of Cobain’s guitar (which can be heard around the nineteen-and-one-half-minute mark of the last CD track). Kurt ran back to the microphone to scream some barely audible words. Reflecting back on smashing his guitar, Kurt explained simply, in the home video Live! Tonight! Sold Out!, “You get satisfaction, climax.” In the aftermath of this apocalyptic recording, the producer calmly recalls telling the band, “Okay, well, I guess we’d better go out and find a left-handed [Mosrite] … [laughing] because we can’t record any more guitar today.” (Others at the session remember the guitar being a Fender.)

Later that evening, Vig went back to Sound City to review the day’s tapes. Kurt’s shattered guitar was still in a heap as Vig filled out the tracking sheet for “Endless, Nameless.” It was the only tracking sheet from the session that wouldn’t be covered with marked-out notations, since it was the only one done after a session had ended. The entire recording had been made live with no overdubs. Kurt’s “scratch” vocal and guitar were recorded from the center of the room (a “scratch” is a vocal take done to show placement—it is not meant to be used in the finished product). The spontaneity of this track is evidenced by Cobain’s use of a Shure 57 microphone, normally set up for talkback to the control room. This microphone was designed for conversation—not music—and was intended to be used only for the musicians to communicate with the control room. Unlike the other microphones used for recording, which were directional and didn’t pick up the other noises in the room, this Shure recorded everything else in the room. “We had tremendous bleed from the bass and drums all pouring into Kurt’s microphone on that one,” recalls Vig.

Never seriously considered as part of the album’s original running order, the omission of the song’s title from the album sleeve was purposeful. The relatively

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