The First Time: You Heard Nirvana

By Ned Hepburn on March 27th, 2009

• Tweet
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 2 Comments

April 8th marks the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. I asked a group of people to tell me about the first time they remember hearing Nirvana, here’s some of the best stories.

Sharilyn Neidhardt, Designer: I remember it so clearly! I was driving my grandfather’s ginormous 1972 Mercury Montego northbound on the 110 freeway in south central LA, headed back to USC. I was nearly at Exhibition Blvd and the sun was beginning to set. I was listening to KROQ and when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came on I honestly thought that another, weirder station had snuck onto the same frequency (which happens a lot in LA, only usually the station that overrides is playing a Mexican polka marathon). When I realized the lyrics were in English, I wondered if I was somehow getting radio from Mars, or from the future. Back at school, I pressed some of my hipper friends for information, one of whom actually had an old cassette copy of “Bleach”.

Peter Atencio, Filmmaker: “I think it was sixth grade, in my friend Mark’s bedroom. My friend Brady was the cool kid in our group, the one who RLOLERBLADED before anyone else (no…really) and he was always on the cutting edge of shit. Mark and I were still really into early 90s gangster rap, and then Brady came over and said, “you guys NEED to hear this shit.” Then he put on Nevermind, but I don’t remember which song. Actually, I was underwhelmed at first by most of it, but I remember it grew on me. Like I kind of shrugged it off at the time, but then later I was “I wanna listen to some of that Nirvana shit again.” Within about a month I was fully in love.”

Ned Hepburn, Writer: “we had a sub, Mister Brill, in 5th grade for 3 weeks.
He let us play cds
Some kid put in Unplugged
I badgered the kid who played it to tell me who it was
and two days later sold my Looney Tunes cd to get Nevermind”

Josh Wimmer: “We were driving home from cross-country practice in Ryan Donahue’s red Honda—Nevermind must have just come out, because it was fall of ’91. He started the tape from the beginning, and I heard “Teen Spirit” in full for the first time. I’d caught the video in part on MTV once or twice, but not the whole thing.

Chris Swanson was in the car with us. In a grand moment of high school alternative-music one-upsmanship, he said that if we liked this, we should get into the Jesus and Mary Chain. And I did get Honey’s Dead about a week later, and still think it’s a very good album, but it’s not Nevermind.

(Swanson, shortly after that purchase: “Oh. You should have gotten Automatic.” Naturally. Yeah, he runs a record label now.)”

Nicolesblergh.com Weird, I have a really strong memory of hearing Nirvana for the first time, but I don’t remember how old I was. I might have been in the 6th grade, but it could have been 5th. I was in New Hampshire with my best friend and her family on vacation, and we were in the backseat of her parents car. Her dad was fiddling around with radio stations as we waited for her mom to come out of the hotel, and he found an Alt Rock station. Back then, I had no idea what alternative was. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came blasting through the airwaves. My best friend’s dad started to head bang and told us it was Nirvana. I remember being amazed by the sound, it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. My best friend beside me crinkled her nose, and told her dad in an embarrassed tone to turn it down. I was sad he listened to her, because it was in that moment when my whole taste in music did a complete 360, and I’ve never looked back.