Reciprocal Studios - Seattle, WA
1989-08-20 · United States · Studio · Mark Lanegan / The Jury Sessions · more gigs in Seattle
Circulating discs (3)
Sliver The Best of The Box Album
(dgc - dgc)
- 8. Ain't it a shame 2:03
With the lights out Album
(DGC - LC07266)
- 18. They Hung Him On A Cross 1:57
- 19. Grey Goose 4:36
- 20. Ain't it a shame 2:01
Kurdt's Tape Side A Tape SBD
- 10. Ain't it a shame 2:07
Notes & circulating recordings
Reciprocal Recording Studios, Seattle, WA, US
Band members: Kurt Cobain (guitar, vocals), Krist Novoselic (bass), Mark Pickerel (drums), & Mark Lanegan (guitar, vocals)
Producer: Jack Endino
The Jury Sessions
By Gillian G. Gaar
In 1989, as the seeds of grunge were being sewn in the Pacific Northwest, two of the prime progenitors of the style, Nirvana and the Screaming Trees, were busy investigating another genre-the blues.
It seemed like most bands were reinventing stoner heavy metal through punk-rock aesthetics, says Mark Pickerel, the Trees’ drummer. No one thought about trying to reinvent early Delta blues, early rockabilly, early Country & Western or anything like that. This was a decade before alternative country gained any momentum-at the time, there wasn’t even a term for it.
As Pickerel and Trees lead singer Mark Lanegan became increasingly inspired by everything from early blues records to the Gun Club, Nick Cave, and the whole Americana scene from the ’50s and ’60s, they decided to approach Nirvana’s singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic about forming a blues supergroup.
Since Kurt and Krist were both becoming fans of the same genre, we thought it’d be cool to be the first band out of the Northwest that already had some notoriety to try and forge ahead with a different sound or a different vision, Pickerel explains. But aside from one track, the results of the Screaming Nirvana (as producer Jack Endino jokingly dubbed them) sessions remained unreleased-eluding even the wiliest bootlegger-until the appearance of last year’s Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out.
The four musicians, eventually dubbed The Jury, initially gathered at Nirvana’s practice space, rehearsing Leadbelly songs they’d each brought in on cassette. The idea was to do a session devoted to Leadbelly, then go back in later on and do some other blues artists as well, Pickerel says. They then entered Seattle’s Reciprocal Recording, with Jack Endino producing, and four songs were recorded on August 20 and 21: Where Did You Sleep Last Night, lead vocal by Lanegan; Ain’t It a Shame and They Hung Him on a Cross, lead vocals by Cobain; and the instrumental Grey Goose.
But, ironically, the combination of Mark’s and Kurt’s personalities slowed things down, says Pickerel. Mark is normally a very aggressive, dominant personality when it comes to rehearsing and recording, and I’m assuming Kurt was the same way. But I felt like there was so much mutual admiration and respect for each other, neither one of them really wanted to be the instigator. I remember Kurt and Lanegan standing around staring at their feet the whole time while Krist and I waited for direction from people we were used to taking directions from.
Where Did You Sleep and Ain’t It a Shame were considered for a single, but the idea was scrapped. Sleep later appeared on Lanegan’s The Winding Sheet, but the other tracks languished in Sub Pop’s vaults, until last summer, when Endino mixed them for With the Lights Out. By then, Endino had forgotten that Grey Goose and They Hung Him on a Cross were recorded. Probably the day after the sessions, no one ever talked about ‘Grey Goose’ again, he explains. It was just an instrumental with two chords, basically. And I didn’t remember ‘Cross’ at all. But I was thrilled to find them. I called up Nirvana’s management and was like, ‘Hey!’
Though Pickerel really wanted this to be a band that rehearsed every few months, recorded once a year, and maybe went out and did a tour, the Jury never recorded again. “Who knows what we might have done? Pickerel says. Lanegan and I have massive record collections, so there would’ve been a wealth of music for us to listen to, to learn from and research and recreate. I really regret that it didn’t happen.
Recorded:
Where Did You Sleep Last Night features on Mark Lanegan's solo album, entitled The Winding Sheet.
Ain't It A Shame features on The Box and The Best of the Box.
Please note that other songs were recorded in December 1989 for the Lanegan part of the session, which you can read about here.
Notes: In August 1989, Mark Lanegan (lead singer of Screaming Trees) and Cobain decided to collaborate on Lanegan's solo album, The Winding Sheet. (4) Cobain found writing with Lanegan difficult, so the pair resolved to record some Ledbelly cover songs instead. There were initially two recording sessions: (a) 20 August [6 hours], (b) 28 August [3.5 hours]. (1)
With Cobain on guitar and Novoselic on bass, the group recorded a rock version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which NIRVANA later covered on MTV Unplugged some four years later.
Cobain was promoted to lead vocals and guitar on another Ledbelly cover, Ain't It A Shame, with Mark Pickerel (of The Screaming Trees) on drums and Novoselic on bass and providing backing vocals. Gillian Gaar reported that Ain't It A Shame is in the [Sub Pop] vaults somewhere (1), and later informed Nirvanaclub in 2000 that she had heard the track. (12)
Jack Endino was unimpressed, dubbing the track, "a very short throwaway traditional-type tune ... Everyone thought it was pretty silly and it has remained in a Sub Pop vault, unbootlegged to my knowledge." (8) According to Jonathan Poneman, however, it was "one of Kurt's greatest vocal performances". (4)
The four musicians began to perform as an informal blues band, which Mark Pickerel wanted to call The Jury whilst Cobain preferred Lithium (which would later become the title of one of NIRVANA's best known hits). (4) Jonathan Poneman had expressed an interest in recording an album for the group, but this did not happen. (4) According to Dylan Carlson, their best song was Grey Goose (4), but this song was not recorded at this, or any other, Reciprocal session, as once thought. According to Jack Endino only the Ledbelly covers are on the studio tapes: "I don't know where this Grey Goose thing came up, it was NOT recorded for either session as far as I remember, I have no tape of it anywhere (I kept cassettes of the stuff we did, which was two songs) so it's a complete mystery to me what people are talking about or where this info came from". (41)
Band members: Kurt Cobain (guitar, vocals), Krist Novoselic (bass), Mark Pickerel (drums), & Mark Lanegan (guitar, vocals)
Producer: Jack Endino
The Jury Sessions
By Gillian G. Gaar
In 1989, as the seeds of grunge were being sewn in the Pacific Northwest, two of the prime progenitors of the style, Nirvana and the Screaming Trees, were busy investigating another genre-the blues.
It seemed like most bands were reinventing stoner heavy metal through punk-rock aesthetics, says Mark Pickerel, the Trees’ drummer. No one thought about trying to reinvent early Delta blues, early rockabilly, early Country & Western or anything like that. This was a decade before alternative country gained any momentum-at the time, there wasn’t even a term for it.
As Pickerel and Trees lead singer Mark Lanegan became increasingly inspired by everything from early blues records to the Gun Club, Nick Cave, and the whole Americana scene from the ’50s and ’60s, they decided to approach Nirvana’s singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic about forming a blues supergroup.
Since Kurt and Krist were both becoming fans of the same genre, we thought it’d be cool to be the first band out of the Northwest that already had some notoriety to try and forge ahead with a different sound or a different vision, Pickerel explains. But aside from one track, the results of the Screaming Nirvana (as producer Jack Endino jokingly dubbed them) sessions remained unreleased-eluding even the wiliest bootlegger-until the appearance of last year’s Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out.
The four musicians, eventually dubbed The Jury, initially gathered at Nirvana’s practice space, rehearsing Leadbelly songs they’d each brought in on cassette. The idea was to do a session devoted to Leadbelly, then go back in later on and do some other blues artists as well, Pickerel says. They then entered Seattle’s Reciprocal Recording, with Jack Endino producing, and four songs were recorded on August 20 and 21: Where Did You Sleep Last Night, lead vocal by Lanegan; Ain’t It a Shame and They Hung Him on a Cross, lead vocals by Cobain; and the instrumental Grey Goose.
But, ironically, the combination of Mark’s and Kurt’s personalities slowed things down, says Pickerel. Mark is normally a very aggressive, dominant personality when it comes to rehearsing and recording, and I’m assuming Kurt was the same way. But I felt like there was so much mutual admiration and respect for each other, neither one of them really wanted to be the instigator. I remember Kurt and Lanegan standing around staring at their feet the whole time while Krist and I waited for direction from people we were used to taking directions from.
Where Did You Sleep and Ain’t It a Shame were considered for a single, but the idea was scrapped. Sleep later appeared on Lanegan’s The Winding Sheet, but the other tracks languished in Sub Pop’s vaults, until last summer, when Endino mixed them for With the Lights Out. By then, Endino had forgotten that Grey Goose and They Hung Him on a Cross were recorded. Probably the day after the sessions, no one ever talked about ‘Grey Goose’ again, he explains. It was just an instrumental with two chords, basically. And I didn’t remember ‘Cross’ at all. But I was thrilled to find them. I called up Nirvana’s management and was like, ‘Hey!’
Though Pickerel really wanted this to be a band that rehearsed every few months, recorded once a year, and maybe went out and did a tour, the Jury never recorded again. “Who knows what we might have done? Pickerel says. Lanegan and I have massive record collections, so there would’ve been a wealth of music for us to listen to, to learn from and research and recreate. I really regret that it didn’t happen.
Recorded:
Where Did You Sleep Last Night features on Mark Lanegan's solo album, entitled The Winding Sheet.
Ain't It A Shame features on The Box and The Best of the Box.
Please note that other songs were recorded in December 1989 for the Lanegan part of the session, which you can read about here.
Notes: In August 1989, Mark Lanegan (lead singer of Screaming Trees) and Cobain decided to collaborate on Lanegan's solo album, The Winding Sheet. (4) Cobain found writing with Lanegan difficult, so the pair resolved to record some Ledbelly cover songs instead. There were initially two recording sessions: (a) 20 August [6 hours], (b) 28 August [3.5 hours]. (1)
With Cobain on guitar and Novoselic on bass, the group recorded a rock version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which NIRVANA later covered on MTV Unplugged some four years later.
Cobain was promoted to lead vocals and guitar on another Ledbelly cover, Ain't It A Shame, with Mark Pickerel (of The Screaming Trees) on drums and Novoselic on bass and providing backing vocals. Gillian Gaar reported that Ain't It A Shame is in the [Sub Pop] vaults somewhere (1), and later informed Nirvanaclub in 2000 that she had heard the track. (12)
Jack Endino was unimpressed, dubbing the track, "a very short throwaway traditional-type tune ... Everyone thought it was pretty silly and it has remained in a Sub Pop vault, unbootlegged to my knowledge." (8) According to Jonathan Poneman, however, it was "one of Kurt's greatest vocal performances". (4)
The four musicians began to perform as an informal blues band, which Mark Pickerel wanted to call The Jury whilst Cobain preferred Lithium (which would later become the title of one of NIRVANA's best known hits). (4) Jonathan Poneman had expressed an interest in recording an album for the group, but this did not happen. (4) According to Dylan Carlson, their best song was Grey Goose (4), but this song was not recorded at this, or any other, Reciprocal session, as once thought. According to Jack Endino only the Ledbelly covers are on the studio tapes: "I don't know where this Grey Goose thing came up, it was NOT recorded for either session as far as I remember, I have no tape of it anywhere (I kept cassettes of the stuff we did, which was two songs) so it's a complete mystery to me what people are talking about or where this info came from". (41)