I Found My Friends by Nick Soulsby

very tall, as am I … But I’m only six-four and I always enjoyed having to look up at someone for a change. Local artist and guitarist Whiting Tennis is also super-tall. We were like the “I could never fit in a Ferrari” club.
    It’s telling that there was more note made of Novoselic than of the future iconic front man.
    PETER LITWIN: Back at that time, they didn’t seem to be a very exciting live band. Kurt seemed kind of shy onstage. I think Krist and Chad were a bit more animated, and Kurt wasn’t … My stand-out memory is just what a nice bunch of guys they were … I remember Kurt as being a quiet, kind of shy pothead. Krist was super-cool and has always been a really friendly guy.
    GEOFF ROBINSON: Kurt had a huge chip on his shoulder (I now know it was because he was picked on by jocks in Aberdeen, and three members of Blood Circus were over six foot tall—I’m six-six), so we didn’t interact with him too much …
    SLIM MOON: The main “audience interaction” … was just Krist being drunk and grabbing the microphone to say something weird or funny. That started early …
    Sub Pop made use of what advantages they had to get Nirvana’s name out.
    SCOTT VANDERPOOL: I met Jon Poneman when I started doing radio at the University of Washington’s then all-volunteer not-so-student radio station KCMU … Mark Arm followed me on-air Friday afternoons … all the future Sub Pop band members that worked with Bruce at Muzak would call in with requests … I ran live sound for a lot of Poneman-produced rock shows, and played briefly with him and Gary Thorstensen (later of Tad) in his band the Treeclimbers before he quit to make Sub Pop a full-time concern.
    JAIME ROBERT JOHNSON, Crunchbird: The first time I heard “Paper Cuts” by Nirvana I was down at the Comet Tavern one night and they had KCMU on the overhead speakers, who were playing the song. Hearing that was a revelation to me because here was a band thinking about rock in the same way I felt I was …
    PETER LITWIN: I was listening to a local radio show called Audio Aces on KCMU and heard a Nirvana song. I immediately called the DJ (who happened to be Jonathan Poneman) and asked him who it was. I loved it! I loved the heaviness of it; it reminded me of the Melvins, but with more melodic vocals. I just know I loved them at first after hearing that song on the radio. I think that same week I went and saw them play one of their first shows in Seattle at the Vogue. I was one of six people at the show. They were great.
    Poneman’s presence at KCMU got Nirvana on-air almost immediately while Bruce Pavitt’s work at the Rocket meant by the time of an April 24 show, the fliers and listings already showed “Sub Pop w/Nirvana.”
    Of Nirvana’s eleven Seattle shows in 1988, three were branded Sub Pop Sunday. Instead of trying to promote individual bands, Sub Pop used the prestige they’d earned from existing successes and sold that connection to audiences; buying a Sub Pop release always meant buying not just the band but the label, too.
    SHAMBIE SINGER: At times on that tour we were booked to play with other bands either from Seattle, or with a Sub Pop release. Usually both. In some cases it was clear Sub Pop had booked us with other bands on the label in order to promote the label itself. I recall, for example, being one of the bands on the bill for “Sub Pop Night” in Houston, Texas. I felt like putting together Sub Pop bills was part of the whole Bruce and Jonathan Motown hit factory aspiration.
    The label also used their many friends to get Nirvana out there.
    SCOTT VANDERPOOL: I think Jon asked me if one of his bands could open a show we already had down there …
    JOE GOLDRING, Amorphous Head: At our first show in Seattle, Jonathan Poneman happened to be there. He liked a couple of songs and paid for us to go into the