NIRVANA ORIGINAL MECHANICAL MASTER ART CONCERT POSTER 1991 SEATTLE, WA FIRST SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT PERFORMANCE.
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Item Description
8.5x14" hand cut and applied collage art on thin white stock to be used to print the concert poster. Signed and inscribed in pencil on verso by artist Mark Bendix "Original Paste Up Master MB". Trivial handling wear with all pieces remaining affixed. Exc. This original art mechanical was what went on the photocopy machine to produce the distributed 11x17" posters. Promoting a concert at OK Hotel in Seattle, WA on April 17, 1991 that also featured Fits [sic] Of Depression and Bikini Kill, the Riot Grrrl band in one of their first Seattle gigs. This night was organized relatively late as an avenue to allow Nirvana a chance to warm up new material and to provide gas money for getting to Los Angeles where the Nevermind recording sessions were to commence at the beginning of May. The legendary gig saw Nirvana debut a new song "Smells Like Teen Spirit", its primal energy unleashed for the first time on an actual audience. Bendix, a now deceased and highly regarded poster artist in the Seattle area, was given the job of designing the poster and retained it in his archives where this piece was obtained by the consignor. The artwork notes the "All Ages" show entry price of "$8". A pretty low threshold for what would turn out to be one of the most important concerts from the grunge era and thus American music history as a whole.
This piece is truly unique, 1 of 1, making this perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to obtain a direct link to the historic night. Provenance is impeccable and includes a dated and signed descriptive bill of sale signed by both Bendix and the consignor. Original posters from this show are extremely rare with less than 10 examples of truly original pre-show produced examples known to us and the only auction record of an original printed poster landed just shy of $10,000 in 2020. The original set list fromm this concert was sold at auction in 2023 for a little over $50,000.
For additional perspective, the wellspring of the Northwest scene had not yet erupted into a geyser in April of 1991. Only Alice In Chains was in the midst of breaking through with their video for the single Man In A Box starting to garner daytime rotation on MTV. Pearl Jam was still known as Mookie Blaylock, the moniker they'd adopted after Eddie Vedder arrived from San Diego as Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament picked up the pieces of Mother Love Bone in the wake of leader Andy Wood's tragic overdose death. Soundgarden and Nirvana had both released banger albums in Louder Than Love and Bleach, but had yet to rise from the underground. By April of 1992 Alice in Chains were nearing the release of Dirt, Mookie was now Pearl Jam and their debut album Ten was garnering praise on its trajectory to meteoric heights, Soundgarden had fully broken through with Badmotorfinger and Nirvana- well, they were the biggest band in the world with their album Nevermind and the smash hit single Smells Like Teen Spirt changing the landscape of popular music. Going back to the night of April 17, 1991 when SLTS debuted, if you would have asked any of the capacity 200 crowd present at the OK Hotel if Nirvana was going to be the biggest band on the planet this time next year they would have laughed you out of the room.
Speaking about the writing process of SLTS to Rolling Stone in 1994 Cobain mused "I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. ... We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard." adding that it was "such a clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff or 'Louie, Louie.' When I came up with the guitar part, Krist looked at me and said, 'That is so ridiculous.' I made the band play it for an hour and a half."
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