I Found My Friends by Nick Soulsby Page A

studio with Jack Endino to record a seven-inch for C/Z … One of these tracks ended up on the Teriyaki Asthma compilation (also with Nirvana). So when Nirvana were heading down to San Francisco for the first time, Poneman asked us to put together a gig at an appropriate venue … so we booked it at the only place we could; the Country & Western saloon. We also gave them a place to crash at George [Miller—Amorphous Head guitarist]’s house—George suspected they were some kind of weirdo Christians … I have no idea where this came from.
    SHAMBIE SINGER: They’d put out the single “Big Cheese”/“Love Buzz.” Loved it. Especially their version of “Love Buzz.” Think a chick named Shannon who was a DJ at WOZQ [Smith College] played it for me one afternoon when I was hanging around the station.
    Sub Pop made the call that Nirvana’s cover of Shocking Blue’s song “Love Buzz” should be the A-side for the single. The decision made perfect sense; it was the most pop-oriented song Nirvana possessed, and the provenance of the song was a talking point for musos.
    GEORGE SMITH: At that show I remember them playing “Love Buzz” and being very taken by that song, a little piece of the crowd thinking, Hey, these guys are pretty good …
    LINDSEY THRASHER, Vomit Launch: I really liked them because they covered “Love Buzz” and I’m a Shocking Blue fan and had never heard anyone cover that song … I remember telling Kurt how much I loved “Love Buzz” … They played with Tad in Chico once and I asked him to please play “Love Buzz,” which they were going to do anyway.
    The single wasn’t just Nirvana’s first release. More important to Sub Pop, it was the inauguration of the Sub Pop Singles Club, a series aimed at collectors that quickly needed to secure an audience so the label could gather sorely needed member fees—which is why Sub Pop was so particular about the release, insisting on a particular song and sending Cobain back to the studio to rerecord vocals.
    SCOTT VANDERPOOL: I do remember thinking it somewhat brilliant they’d covered that obscure Shocking Blue song … Managed to hang on to a test pressing of “Love Buzz” that Jon gave me to play at KCMU … sold it on eBay about ten years ago during some financially tough times … got quite a lot for it, which sort of made up for Sub Pop never paying me my sales commission.
    It was a first vindication of Nirvana’s efforts, too—something they marked with a pointed joke.
    RYAN AIGNER: You’ve seen the “Love Buzz”/“Big Cheese” single? Have you noticed the inscription on the vinyl? Around the label it says “Why don’t you trade those guitars for shovels?” That quote happened during a rehearsal with Robert Novoselic, myself, and a friend called Brett Walker. We were at Krist’s house; we’d gotten together after school … trying to rehearse and learn some cover songs. Krist came home, came upstairs, listened to what we doing, and gave us his opinion about what was going on, helped us out—showed us some guitar leads he knew—then Krist and Robert’s father came home. He was a construction worker and he wasn’t happy about this noise, so he came upstairs to the boys’ bedroom, forced the door open. He was yelling. Krist was yelling back, “Aw, leave them alone! They’re just kids, you know!” Finally they let him in. We didn’t know him well; we introduced ourselves and let him know who we were. And he says with a frown on his face, “You kids, why don’t you kids go sell those goddamn guitars and buy something useful like shovels or something?” That’s where the quote came from—many years later, the story had a mythological life-span and kept coming up. They found it pretty funny so they