Nirvana "Love Buzz"/"Big Cheese" Original Pressing Sub Pop Singles Club #1 7-Inch Vinyl Single (SP 23)....

Description

Nirvana "Love Buzz"/"Big Cheese" Original Pressing Sub Pop Singles Club #1 7-Inch Vinyl Single (SP 23). A very rare copy of one of the 1,200 copies made of the first entry in the Sub Pop Singles Club. Numbered with a red tip on the back of the sleeve "826" out of 1,000 (the other 200 copies were not numbered). Unlike on bootlegs, where the "Alice Wheeler" credit on the back cover is blurry, this "Alice Wheeler" is clear. And both sides of the runout groove feature the "k disc" stamp.

Recorded by Jack Endino, Sub Pop's main engineer, at his Reciprocal Studios in Seattle, Nirvana's trajectory changed with these two songs: a cover of Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz" and the original "Big Cheese."
Prior to this, the Aberdeen-based trio played around the Pacific Northwest with no official recordings to their name. Burning through a few drummers and borrowing Melvins' drummer Dale Crover a few times, they found a reliable drummer in Chad Channing. Playing originals and covers at their shows, the word on this band exponentially grew following the release of this single.

Displaying a harshness found with a lot of their Seattle-based contemporaries with a melodic touch, people around the area couldn't stop talking about this little band. Based on what came through the tape deck or turntable speakers, these guys sounded like they had spent plenty of time with the Beatles, Black Flag, Led Zeppelin, and Cheap Trick. It was different, and it certainly did not sound like Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, or Def Leppard.

With their first official release through the upstart Sub Pop Singles Club in 1988 - where the smart owners collected the money from subscribers before the records were pressed - Nirvana was on their way to being way more than another scrappy band from the Pacific Northwest.

The band's Bleach arrived in 1989 and then was followed by the pop culture denting Nevermind (featuring new drummer Dave Grohl) in 1991. For teenagers who had never heard of the band prior to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the fall of 1991, they had some catching up to do. Nirvana didn't pop overnight, as people around the Seattle area and in England knew about them for years.

But in a mainstream sense, Nirvana and their contemporaries (along with introduction of the SoundScan tracking service for all physical releases) quickly showed pop culture in 1991 and 1992 that there was a healthy (and large) audience that wanted something different than hair metal and dance pop. "Alternative rock" would cease being relegated to college radio stations, MTV's 120 Minutes, and handmade zines after this.

This copy's story stems from a lucky chance at a record store a few years ago. The consignor found it in Minneapolis in late 2017 at Treehouse Records as the store closed down for good. The store's owner sold this copy to the consignor, a very rare copy.

The sleeve is in NM 8 condition and the disc is in EX 7.5 condition. COA from Heritage Auctions.

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