| Source | Quality | Complete | Runtime | Lowest Gen | Tracks Featured | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBD #1a | 9.5 | No | TBC | Official 7" (Love Buzz) | • Montage Of Heck (short version) | |
| SBD #1b | 8.5 | No | 0:10:46 | Unofficial CD (Dressed For Success) |
• Unknown • Clean Up Before She Comes • Beans • Unknown (instrumental) • About A Girl |
The two unknown tracks appear under the bootleg-given titles Bambi Slaughterand Black And White Blues, respectively. Beans cuts out. Clean Up Before She Comes appears slightly more complete here than on SBD #1h, but is of inferior sound quality overall. |
| SBD #1c | 9.0 | No | 0:09:12 | ANA(2)>CDR(1)>FLAC |
• Beans • Unknown (long version) • Montage Of Heck (short version) |
This source is sometimes referred to as the Touch & Go demoor Kurdt's Kassette; it omits the intro to Beans found on other sources. |
| SBD #1d | 8.0 | No | 0:36:36 | ANA(X)>CDR | • Montage Of Heck (long version) | Amateur remaster. This source is more complete than SBD #1i, but of inferior sound quality overall. This source is sometimes referred to as the
Joris Baas tape. |
| SBD #1e | 9.0 | No | 0:00:38 | ANA(2)>DAT(1)>FLAC | • Unknown (short version) | This source is sometimes referred to as the Master reel compilation tape. |
| SBD #1f | 8.5 | No | 0:07:21 | Unofficial CD (The Demos) |
• Polly • Seed • Sappy |
This is the best available source for Polly and Sappy. Polly fades out. |
| SBD #1g | 8.5 | No | 0:08:06 | ANA(X)>DAT(1)>FLAC |
• Polly • Seed • Sappy |
More complete than SBD#1f, but slightly inferior sound quality. Polly fades out. |
| SBD #1h | 9.5 | No | 0:12:24 | Official CD (With The Lights Out) |
• Beans • Seed • Clean Up Before She Comes • Polly (alt. mix) • About A Girl |
Seed appears under the title Don't Want It All. |
| SBD #1i | 8.5 | No | 0:35:58 | ANA(X)>CDR(X)>FLAC | • Montage Of Heck (long version) | Less complete than SBD #1d, but of superior sound quality overall. |
While these songs are grouped together here, they were most likely not recorded at the same sitting, or even within the same year. All are Kurt Cobain home demos, recorded some time between 1987 and 1988, presumably at Cobain's contemporary residence.
Circa Summer 1988, Cobain was dubbing many of these tracks onto cassette compilations and sending them out to prospective record labels. One example of such a compilation can be found on page 81 of Come As You Are: The Story Of Nirvana, where Cobain annotates
Polly, Seed and Sappy (Sad
) as Mellow 4-track shit
. (4)
Beans is a quirky acoustic number that sees Cobain adopting a cartoonish falsetto and experimenting with the speed on his vocal track. Cobain had hoped to include the song on Bleach, but met with heavy resistance from Sub Pop co-owner, Jonathan
Poneman. He thought we were retarded,
Cobain told NIRVANA biographer, Michael Azerrad, believing that the band had been bulldozed into suppressing their more diverse and experimental tendencies to fit the grungy Sub Pop formula. (4)
Sound collage, Montage Of Heck, features samples taken from Cobain's extensive record collection, TV and radio commercials, original NIRVANA demos, and other Cobain-created/recorded oddities. Some of the samples found on the short version are not present on the long version, and vice versa. In among the debris of the short version, snippets of original NIRVANA demos, including Blandest; within the long version, one can make out snippets of Vendetagainst and Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves.
The intro to the Love Buzz single is sourced from the short version of
Montage Of Heck; Cobain had intended for the intro to be some 45-second long, but it was trimmed down to 10-seconds at Sub Pop's request.
They were just constantly having control right away,
grumbled Cobain. Doing exactly what a major label would do and claiming to be such an independent label.
(4)
Another Cobain-assembled sound collage makes reference to the backwards masking of Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven, with Cobain recording himself backwards to say, She's selling the escalator to Hell!