Wax Nostalgic #3: Nirvana - 'Saturday Night Live' bootleg 7''

By Jason Duarte

Artist: Nirvana

Title: Saturday Night Live

Inches: 7

Label: Unknown

Pressing: Unknown (Possibly/500)

Color: Swirly grey

Release date: Unknown

I don't own much bootleg vinyl (if any besides this one), but I couldn't pass this up when I saw it.
It was September 2009 and I was on tour with my old band, The Kobanes, in Japan. We were trekking around Hiroshima for the day and visited Dumb! Records - one of the labels (also a record store) that co-released our album (the other label being Fixing a Hole Records).
I'd already had the way common "Sliver" b/w "Dive" 7'' by Nirvana and thought this bootleg would be a nice addition to my budding Nirvana collection. It was 500 yen, which translates to about $6 USD. I picked this up with some other records (The Riverdales' S/T album, The Damned's Music For Pleasure, etc.) and neatly put them in my rolling suitcase.

I remember it was awesome hanging with Nass (owner of Dumb! Records/drummer for So-Cho Pistons) and his girlfriend in the store. It was a small store with beer on tap and bottles of soda for sale. They had a pretty decent selection of vinyl, and a lot of CDs. They also had a Johnny Ramone signature guitar hanging on the wall, a signed Teenage Bottlerocket/Ergs! 7'', and other fun punk memorabilia. It also humbled me to see our CD, Japan Invasion, on display above the CD section.

This 7'' features live versions of "Rape Me" and "Heart-Shaped Box." As you can see, the vinyl has blank labels, and was pressed on black, and a swirly grey (shown) color of vinyl. I did a little research and found the date of the Saturday Night Live episode where the tracks were recorded for this 7'' was September 25, 1993.

Fun fact #1 - in 1993, Kurt Cobain called Pat Smear of The Germs, and asked if he'd be Nirvana's second guitarist. Pat thought it was a joke his friend Carlos Nunez was playing on him, but it wasn't. He accepted, and September 25, 1993 - this same SNL performance, was the first time Pat performed with Nirvana on second guitar (see links from the show above). He played with Nirvana till Cobain's death in 1994. That, to me, makes this 7'' go from pretty cool to incredible, and I'm fairly certain that's the reason it was bootlegged in the first place. As far as the pressing goes, one eBay lister claims there were 500 pressed on grey.

Fun fact #2 - Eric Cobain, Kurt's cousin, did the artwork for our album, Japan Invasion (see below). Holy Nirvana twists and turns, Batman!