Yes! I was there! And this is my story and experience being at the Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video shoot. Most of this story was posted on Facebook about 10 years ago and shared by none other than Krist Novoselic himself, going “viral”. But now that I have my own blog, I can post video, pictures, and audio. Not to mention the fact that I just ran into Radi from Verbal Abuse at the Pat Todd show not even 2 weeks ago! He’s the person I met up with to go to the video shoot and I hadn’t seen him much since then. He has some memories, not much, of the video shoot, and I’ll update the story accordingly.
The video shoot was in Culver City. I lived in Palms, a couple blocks away from this troublemaker, Snoop Doggy Dog. The Culver City studio was about 2 miles away from me. It wasn’t at Fairfax High School like everyone online says it was. I think the scenes of the janitor were shot at Fairfax High School, but that’s it. The night before, I was at Raji’s probably seeing the Muffs, Lazy Cowgirls, and/or Claw Hammer, and saw a friend at the door who just came in from the Nirvana show at the Roxy that I didn’t even try to get into (“I saw them at the Casbah. It couldn’t be as good as that show, so why should I bother?”). Gave me this flier for the video shoot:
Nirvana was fairly big back then. I mean, they could sell out Raji’s or the Roxy on their own, but they still were just a club band. The flier told us not to wear any clothing that had “logos” or “name brands” on them and to just wear what you would’ve worn in high school. I can’t remember what I wore, but I think it was my Sub Pop “Loser” t-shirt, probably a big no-no considering they were filming a video for a Geffen release and Nirvana kind of left them on bad terms. Whatever I wore, it didn’t fit the guidelines. EDIT: Radi says I was wearing a white sleeveless shirt. This had to have been my Hickoids t-shirt, as it was the only sleeveless white t-shirt that I had at the time. So I definitely did not fit the guidelines. I guess I should’ve actually read the details on the flier before getting dressed that morning.
We were kind of separated into two groups. Three, if you count the band. There was the group who were to be in the bleachers who either won a radio contest or had the connections to be there, and then there was the rest of us, who were just grouped to be next to the bleachers, standing to the side. I was about 3 people deep into the crowd seen below:
The band was sectioned off by the basketball net. I thought it was unusual the band was so separated from everyone else. You weren’t even allowed to go talk to them. That was very weird considering that they just weren’t that big of a band! Why all the security?! Kurt mostly kept to himself behind the line. No one was really talking to him. Nor did it seem he wanted to talk to anyone. Dave (the new guy) was mostly hanging out by his drums, and Chris would occasionally walk around and talk to people. In fact I totally blew it in front of him, like I always did in the past.
In between takes, while walking up to try and mingle and get closer to what was going on, I overheard two people talking behind me. One of them was saying “I can’t believe this is such a big production!” I turned around and said really sarcastically “Yeah, man, what a bunch of sellouts!” One of those people turned out to be Chris Novoselic himself who got extremely bummed out and said to me “Oh man, do you really believe that?” NO, not at all. I was being totally sarcastic. But I was like a deer in the headlights. I knew that they should film a video in order to at least get more exposure. I felt really embarrassed and disappointed with myself that I really bummed Chris out. I think I kind of stuttered “Well, the label does want to make sure they can maybe sell some records.” Keep in mind that I think there is nothing wrong with “selling records”. I have no problem with that, as long as you can keep writing good songs. Which Nirvana did in spades. But my sarcasm was lost on Chris and his friend. And my delivery stank. Once again, things just didn’t go right whenever I tried talking with Krist. He has since shared this story on Facebook, so I know he has read this and understands my sarcasm, knowing that he himself has done the same thing many times before and since. LOL.
The conditions were horrible. All that smoke you see in the video? It wasn’t smoke. More like chalk dust to show up for the cameras better. I can’t stand cigarette smoke and this was worse. It was incredibly hard to breathe there. And the song was “ok”, but nothing special. They had it coming out of one speaker that was placed on the right side of the basketball court. It was incredibly muddy. Imagine taking a 10th generation cassette copy of the song, putting it on “mono”, with the bass turned all the way up and no treble.
This is what I remember it actually sounding like in the studio hall: mono, echoey, and lots of bass:
It may have even sounded worse than that. But that’s what my first half dozen times of hearing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ sounded like. The whole time I’m thinking, “They’re doing a video for this song?!?!” It wasn’t until a couple weeks later when I heard KROQ playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by “this new band called ‘Nirvana’” that I “got it”. Oh yeah, this sounds SO MUCH BETTER! Like INCREDIBLE!
There was a ton of waiting around too. Too much waiting around. When they were ready to shoot, we were directed to stand around and watch and look bored. Then as the chorus and comes up, we were to get “really into it”. We were also told to not directly look at the camera. Having only been living in LA for a few months and not being used to being around cameras, I couldn’t help myself but look directly at the camera as they it passed in front of us. I had my glasses on and as the song got to the part where people were to get “really into it”, this guy jumped off the bleachers and landed right on my head, almost breaking my glasses.
By then I was so fed up with the conditions, the waiting, the people almost breaking my glasses (and almost my neck), I mostly hung out in the back of the crowd until lunchtime. Right before lunch, we did one last take, and everyone just charged the band and the set. That was pretty funny. I don’t remember being directed to do it, but when people rushed the band, I was wondering if I missed some direction or something. I got in there a bit, but kind of late. Then again, I was really self-conscious and feeling “unhip”, so I didn’t really even try to get in the frames more.
Years later, I bought the Making Of Nevermind DVD and went through ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ frame by frame, but couldn’t see myself in it at all. I can understand why though. I wore a shirt with another band logo on it, I was looking directly at the camera, and had my glasses on. Three no-nos, I’m sure. I also remember watching a guy jumping off the bleachers? That was probably my head he landed on. I don’t remember anyone else diving off the bleachers except that one time. And I could swear that was in the video (maybe near the end) when it first aired on MTV. Though I can’t find it anywhere now. Were there different edits? It’s possible I just remembered it wrong. Going through the latest version on youtube, this is the closest I can see that I could maybe have made the video cut:
I think they did a few more shots after lunch, but the conditions, the waiting, and the rude security guards were just too much. We waited until they fed us (sandwiches & chips; we were singing “Hold the mayo, and the tomatoes” to the chorus of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’; I mean we did like the song, but it sounded like crap in the studio hall), ate, said “Fuck it”, then left for home. As we were in line at the Kraft services tables for the lunch, Nirvana walked past us with photographer Kevin Estrada to take some pictures of the band which would soon to become famous.
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