A previously unheard mixtape made by a 19-year-old Kurt Cobain has been unearthed, shedding light on the late grunge-rocker’s broad music taste.
Dangerous Minds has published the mixtape Cobain put together a couple of uears before Nirvana’s 1989 debut ‘Bleach’. Made using a four-track cassette recorder, the 36-minute long recording is a collage of noises, sounds and extracts from Cobain’s own music collection, as well as from the radio and other sources.
Throughout the recording titled ‘Montage of Heck’, you can hear clips of songs such as The Jackson Five’s ‘ABC’, James Brown’s ‘Hot Pants’ and William Shatner’s ‘Wild Thing’. Other musicians that feature include Frank Zappa, Shocking Blue, the Barbarians, and Daniel Johnston, along with classic acts such as Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, and even Sammy Davis Jr.
You can also hear various miscellaneous clips such as Jimi Hendrix speaking at the Monterey Pop Festival and Fred Flintstone yelling for his bowling ball.
Kurt Cobain’s “Montage Of Heck” from SpaceEcho on Vimeo.
Last year, Crossfire Hurricane director Brett Morgen revealed that his forthcoming documentary about Kurt Cobain would show unseen sides to the Nirvana frontman. He told `NME: “If you think about Kurt, he’s a contradiction. He could be sincere and sentimental, and also ironic and sarcastic. He was sweet and sour. He was incredibly funny too, and the film has to reflect his spirit.
“The thing about him people might not know too is that he was an incredible visual artist and left behind a treasure chest of comic books, paintings, Super8 films, all sorts.”
Though it was billed for a 2014 release, further details about the documentary are yet to be released.
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