But it was two weeks earlier that Nirvana raised the stakes by unveiling a game-changing new song at a grubby nightspot in the oldest section of downtown Seattle. In the end, DGC would step up with the winning offer and sign the band on April 30, 1991. Nirvana continued rehearsing and playing scattered gigs in Washington, including one on November 25 at Seattle's Off Ramp Cafe at 109 Eastlake Avenue E where A&R scouts - among them Susie Tennant, the Seattle-based promotional rep for David Geffen's DGC label - from at least six big-time record labels came to watch what would later be widely described as an incredible performance.
In early November Nirvana signed a management contract with a major Los Angeles-based firm, Gold Mountain, and - even though the band members, like so many in the punk-rock subculture, had a healthy disdain for careerists who obsess about achieving mainstream success - scoring a major-label recording deal would become their next goal. 1969), the former tub-thumper for the Washington, D.C., punk band Scream, who auditioned, by invitation, with Cobain and Novoselic on September 25, 1990, and made his debut with Nirvana at Olympia's North Shore Surf Club (115 E 5th Avenue) three weeks later on October 11, 1990. Their final, and most talented, one was Dave Grohl (b. 1965), who played with a succession of about six drummers. The group was formed by guitarist/vocalist Kurt Cobain (1967-1994) and bassist Krist Novoselic (b.
In time, and largely due to the September 1991 album Nevermind - and its hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana would become the most celebrated group to emerge from the globally recognized "grunge-rock" art movement. As the band-members developed their unique sound - and moved around to Olympia, Tacoma, and eventually Seattle - they built an enthusiastic following on the Northwest's simmering scene that already boasted popular young groups such as the U-Men, Wipers, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Melvins, Soundgarden, Malfunkshun, Green River, and Mother Love Bone. Nirvana was a rock 'n' roll band from Aberdeen, Grays Harbor County, that formed in the late 1980s. But a film crew (whose footage will later appear a grunge-scene documentary) is present, and among the fresh tunes the filmmakers capture is the very song that will soon cast the band into the eye of an approaching global media hurricane and into the history books as well: "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Other recent catalog sales include Motley Crue ( $150 million), Neil Young ( $150 million for half his catalog) and ZZ Top ( $50 million).On the evening of Wednesday, April 17, 1991, members of the grunge-rock group Nirvana - in the relative calm just prior to the frenzy that will begin to engulf them six months later - perform a set of songs during what would normally be a rather undistinguished last-minute midweek gig at the OK Hotel, an all-ages rock club located in Seattle's Pioneer Square at 212 Alaskan Way S. Last month, Bruce Springsteen sold his masters and publishing catalog for a combined $500 million.
In recent years, record labels and publishing companies have been keen to snap up legacy artists' publishing rights and master recordings for eye-popping sums. “I’m glad that all my recordings can stay where they belong.” Stringer added that “Columbia Records has had a special relationship with Bob Dylan from the beginning of his career” and praised the singer-songwriter as “one of music's greatest icons and an artist of unrivaled genius.” “Columbia Records and Rob Stringer have been nothing but good to me for many, many years and a whole lot of records,” Dylan said in a statement. The sale of Dylan’s masters follows the sale of his publishing rights to Universal Music Publishing Group in December 2020, a deal estimated to be worth $300 million or more.
The agreement comprises Dylan’s entire body of recorded work, including 39 studio albums - from his 1962 self-titled debut through 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways - as well as his 16-volume “ Bootleg Series” and various singles.