Shortly after Paul McCartney finished the debut performance of a new original called Cut Me Some Slack with former Nirvana members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear at Wednesday’s 12-12-12 benefit, a website called CutMeSomeSlack.net went live. Included within the site was word that the quartet had recorded a studio version of the tune for an album inspired by Grohl’s Sound City Movie. Today, the studio version of Cut Me Some Slack has surfaced.

Cut Me Some Slack is one of 11 songs on Sound City – Real to Reel, an album that also includes contributions from Trent Reznor, Stevie Nicks, Josh Homme, Rick Springfield and more. The album is due out on March 12 though the pre-sale went live on iTunes yesterday.

Take a listen to the studio version of Cut Me Some Slack…

Cut Me Some Slack

We’ll see if Macca and the Nirvana gents perform the tune tonight on SNL.

[via Gothamist]

The months in the planning 12-12-12: The Concert For Sandy Relief benefit concert is finally here. We’ll update this post with a setlist, photos, videos and our thoughts as the night goes along. The expected order of performances is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band > Roger Waters > Bon Jovi > Eric Clapton > Rolling Stones > Alicia Keys > The Who > Kanye West > Billy Joel > Chris Martin > Paul McCartnirvana.

Setlist:

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – Land of Hope and Dreams, Wrecking Ball, My City of Ruins, Born To Run (w/ Jon Bon Jovi), Living On A Prayer

Roger Waters: In The Flesh, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2, The Ballad Of Jean Charles de Menezes, Money, Us and Them, Comfortably Numb (w/ Eddie Vedder)

Adam Sandler: Hallelujah (w/ Paul Shaffer)

Bon Jovi: It’s My Life, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Who Says You Can’t Go Home (w/ Bruce Springsteen), Living On A Prayer

Eric Clapton: Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, Got To Get Better In A Little While, Crossroads

Rolling Stones: You Get Me Rocking, Jumping Jack Flash

Alicia Keys: Brand New Me, No One

The Who: Who Are You, Bell Boy, Pinball Wizard, See Me Feel Me/Listening To You, Baba O’Riley, Love Reign O’er Me, Tea and Theatre

Kanye West: Clique > Mercy > Power > Jesus Walks > All Of The Lights > Run This Town > Diamonds From Sierra Leone > Diamonds > Touch The Sky, Gold Digger, Good Life, Runaway, Stronger

Billy Joel: Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway), Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song), Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas > New York State Of Mind, River Of Dreams, You May Be Right, Only The Good Die Young

Chris Martin: Viva La Vida, Losing My Religion (w/ Michael Stipe), Us Against The World

Paul McCartney: Helter Skelter, Let Me Roll It, 1985, My Valentine (w/ Diana Krall), Blackbird, Cut Me Some Slack (w/ Dave Grohl, Pat Smear and Krist Novoselic), I’ve Got A Feeling, Live and Let Die

Alicia Keys: Empire State of Mind Pt. 2

All proceeds from tonight’s concert benefit the Robin Hood Relief Fund and will be used to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Please head to the organization’s website to donate to the cause.

READ ON

We’re expecting big collaborations tonight at Madison Square Garden for the 12-12-12: Concert For Sandy Relief, but if a report from The Guardian holds true we sure know what the biggest one will be. The Guardian reports that Paul McCartney will perform with the surviving members of Nirvana.

Apparently Dave Grohl phoned up Macca to “jam with some mates,” leading to a session that also included Pat Smear and Krist Novoselic. The Guardian goes into a bit more detail…

McCartney said: “I didn’t really know who they were. They are saying how good it is to be back together. I said: ‘Whoa? You guys haven’t played together for all that time?’

“And somebody whispered to me: ‘That’s Nirvana. You’re Kurt.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

If today was April Fool’s Day we’d think this was a joke. Macca and Cobain are on opposite ends of the anger spectrum, though Helter Skelter was as punk and grunge as it gets. Now we’re even more excited for tonight’s benefit which also features Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Roger Waters and more.

[via Ultimate Classic Rock]

UPDATE: Novoselic has confirmed the collaboration and shares details:

It is a new song that's kind of Helter Skelter meets Scentless Apprentice. It rocks with a heavy groove. St. Paul is powerful. @Pontifex

Wednesday, December 12, 2012 4:12 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@KristNovoselic

Krist Novoselic

This is expected to take place near the end of the show.

Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain wasn’t much of a sentimentalist but that didn’t stop him from forging a connection with Terry Jacks’ 1974 hit Seasons In The Sun which was the first record he ever bought. The song was penned by Rod McKuen as an English-language adaption of  Jacques Brel’s 1961 tune called Le Moribund. Rod McKuen recently came to our attention thanks to Aaron Freeman’s recent album of McKuen covers entitled Marvelous Clouds. Jacks recorded the maudlin Seasons In The Sun in 1973 and the song enjoyed a three-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts the next year marking the Canadian artist’s one hit here in the States.

In 1993 Nirvana entered a studio in Rio de Janeiro and laid down a version of Seasons In The Sun that wasn’t released until it was included in the 2004 box set With The Lights Out. For their take on Seasons In The Sun, the members of Nirvana switched instruments. While Kurt handled the vocals, he also played drums on the track. Krist Novoselic traded in his normal bass duties for a six-string electric guitar leaving Dave Grohl to play bass. A video of Nirvana’s Seasons In The Sun circulates complete with home movie footage. Take a look…

Nirvana – Seasons In The Sun

Over the last few years the brewers at Dogfish Head have rolled out a handful of their “uniquely off-centered ales” that have had a direct correlation to the music world, honoring Miles Davis, Robert Johnson and Pearl Jam with their own signature beers. For their latest crossover, the Delaware-based brewery is teaming up with the folks at Grateful Dead Productions for their latest collaboration, which will be called American Beauty. The beer, which is still in the development phase, will be a strong pale ale with all-American hops and barley, but they are reaching out to fans of both the band and the brewery for help in choosing a special final ingredient, and asking for their the Dead-inspired story behind it. The brewers at Dogfish Head will be accepting suggestions online starting in December, with a joint panel set to select the ingredient they feel works best in the context of a strong pale ale recipe. American Beauty is set to hit taps and shelves in October of 2013, we can’t wait to try it!

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Finally, in what seems like a sure fire sign of the apocalypse, CBS has inked a deal with The Big Bang Theory’s writer/co-executive producer Dave Goetsch to produce a multi-camera family sitcom to be called Smells Like Teen Spirit. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show “revolves around an 18-year-old budding entrepreneur who forgoes Harvard and instead opts to launch a multibillion-dollar Internet company from his garage with the assistance of his sister, best friend and his 1990s indie-rock parents.” Somewhere, Kurt Cobain is crafting a t-shirt that reads “Corporate Sitcoms Still Suck.”

Little did the small crowd in attendance at Nirvana’s April 17th, 1991 show at the OK Hotel know that they were about to witness a historic moment when Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl launched into a new song they called Smells Like Teen Spirit. By the end of the year Smells Like Teen Spirit had become a huge hit and propelled Nirvana to mega-stardom.

While most of the elements that make Smells Like Teen Spirit great are found in its debut performance, there are a few changes from what would be recorded for Nevermind at Sound City in Van Nuys, Calif. just one month later. Not only are a few of the lyrics changed, but Nevermind producer Butch Vig convinced the trio to move a guitar riff into the chorus and switched up the ending. Take a look…

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

[Originally Published: November 9, 2011]

This opening track from Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind has spawned a whole lot of covers – many of which are instrumental, the vocal melody seems to speak to jazz piano players especially. Female vocalists also like taking a shot at this grunge classic – we round out with a few male-vox covers, a guest appearance from The Muppets and you’ve got – 10 covers of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

The Contestants:

Artist: Tori Amos
Album: Crucify
The Skinny: Tori Amos was one of the first major artists to record this cover back in 1992 for an EP where she also covered Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. Cobain once said that this cover was, “a great breakfast cereal version”.

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And a live take:

READ ON

Seattle and Nirvana fans celebrated the 20th anniversary of the band’s Nevermind with a live performance of the classic album last night at the Experience Music Project’s Sky Church. The performance of the definitive grunge record was led by Nirvana co-founder and bassist Krist Novoselic and was a benefit for Seattle music industry staple Susie Tennant (@susietennant), who recently was diagnosed with cancer.

The show featured local musicians The Fastbacks, Ravenna Woods, The Long Winters, Visqueen, Champagne Champagne, Presidents of the United States and others. Last night’s show was webcasted via Livestream.com, which is now archived, and fans used the hashtags #NEVERMIND20 and #EMPNevermind to comment as they watched the concert. As you can see below, the venue’s official account, @EMPMuseum, did a thorough job updating as the night progressed.

READ ON to see what fans had to say about the show…

As we mentioned yesterday the latest issue of Spin magazine is dedicated to to the 20th anniversary Nirvana’s seminal album Nevermind, with the cover story dedicated to answering the question – What Nevermind Means Now. The album, which essentially eliminated hair metal, introduced the world of the heavy rock sounds emanating from the Pacific Northwest that came to be known as Grunge. As a way of celebrating the record SPIN assembled an impressive array of musician to record a Nevermind tribute album, that features the likes of the Meat Puppets, Titus Andronicus, Jessica Lee Mayfield and JEFF The Brotherhood. The album is currently available from now through July 25, as a free download via SPIN’s Facebook page.

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• RHCP have hired Mr. Brainwash to promote their new album

Finally, while shows from jam favorite’s The Slip have become a rarity over the last few years, two of the band’s principal members, the brother tandem of Andrew and Brad Barr, have continue to make music on their own under the suiting moniker of  The Barr Brothers. The four-piece act, whose sound is rooted in folk and Americana, will release their ten-song,  self-titled debut on September 27, via Secret City Records and currently have three songs from the new album streaming on their website.

Anyone who has seen Deer Tick can attest to the fact that they are prone to busting out random covers. With an encyclopedic memory of rock history, they are able to tackle everything from John Mellencamp’s Pink Houses to Santo & Johnny’s Sleepwalker to Bobby Charles’ Down South In New Orleans. Earlier this year, John McCauley & Co. took their love of covering another artists material to a whole new level by playing under the moniker of Deervana – which featured the band playing the music of grunge icons Nirvana for an entire show.

Last weekend, the band revived the project for a special gig at SXSW to rave reviews, as McCauley’s raw croaky growl sounded eerily reminiscent of Kurt Cobain’s. Today, Deer Tick announced that they will bring Deervana to New York, for a June 19 performance at Brooklyn Bowl – a venue they had previously played a Halloween show of Sex Pistols covers at - as part of the Northside Festival. As the band has pointed out, this will not be a traditional Deer Tick gig, with a handful of covers thrown in, it will exclusively feature the band playing the music of Nirvana. Tickets are currently on sale now for just $15.

Among all the fleeting genres that show up briefly as a blip on the popular culture radar screen only to quickly fade away, there are a few that really manage to stick, and ultimately define a sub-culture or even a generation. We’ve seen it to varying degrees with genres like punk, heavy metal, or rock n’ roll itself; all essentially made up terms that went on to mean everything.

For better or worse, another one that stuck was “alternative.” Initially, an outcrop of the grunge scene, alternative went on become an all-consuming pop culture multi-beast; taking hold of not just music, but cinema, fashion, and art as well. Alternative was everywhere, which begged the question: to what exactly is this an alternative? It was a brand, a marketing gimmick that was consumed – no, devoured – by the mainstream.

Yet beyond the irony of it all, it also represented a relatively heroic period in popular music whereby genuinely awesome bands ruled the radio. Pop culture, the mass media, and most of all, kids, were actually listening to good music. It was one of those rare times in modern music history where to some extent, the best bands were also among the biggest, most famous, and widely listened. READ ON for more from Ryan…

[Originally Published: December 24, 2009]

Making a list of the Best Concert DVDs of 2008 was a struggle, because there weren’t many quality releases to choose from. This year, we have the opposite problem as there were tons of terrific Concert DVD releases.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the Best Concert DVDs of 2009…

10. Arcade Fire – Miroir Noir

Arcade Fire fans were thrilled when the band announced they would be releasing a concert film chronicling the recording of Neon Bible and the subsequent tour. Unfortunately, director Vincent Morisset works so hard at not being a typical concert film that the documentary, which appears to be shot by cell phone cameras at points, isn’t all that entertaining. The bonus material makes Miroir Noir worth owning and earns it a spot on this list.

9. Return to Forever – Live at Montreux 2008

Legendary jazz fusion supergroup Return to Forever reunited in 2008 and this DVD gives a good illustration of how good this group of musicians continues to be. Filmed in Montreux, Return to Forever Returns contains a nice of mix of tunes from all of their albums played with passion and verve.

READ ON for the rest of our list of Best Concert DVDs of 2009…

While this decade may have been tough for the recording industry, music fans can’t complain about the number and quality of the hundreds of archival releases that have flown out of the vaults since 2000. Record labels realize that there’s plenty of money to be made after the comparatively negligible cost of mixing and digitizing these old releases.

2009 was another fantastic year for live archival releases as we’ve seen massive box sets from the likes of Neil Young, Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead that featured impressive recordings of high-caliber performances. Let’s take a look at Hidden Track’s Top 10 Archival Releases of 2009…

10. Widespread Panic – Huntsville ’96

The Widespread Panic Archives opened wide in 2009 after years and years of fan requests for older material to be released. Carbondale 2000 started the action last year, Valdosta 1989 came next followed closely by Huntsville 1996 and Montreal 1997. Out of the three that were released this year, Huntsville ’96 stands out due to Panic’s spine-tingling performance of an incredible setlist as well as the quality of the recording.

Where You Can Sample This Release: WSP Archives Blog

READ ON for the rest of our list of the top archival releases of 2009…

While the members of The Black Keys are both busy touring with their solo projects this fall, the Akron-based act did manage to make their way into the recording studio this summer for an interesting collaborative project they’ve dubbed Blakroc. The duo, who are known for their fuzzy blues-rock, have teamed up with an all-star roster from the world of hip hop that includes Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Pharoahe Monch and Ludacris. The results will be heard on the collective’s self-titled debut, which hits stores on November 27.

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• Iggy Pop will reunite with The Stooges for some 2010 dates

Finally, it seems like the surviving members of seminal grunge band Nirvana aren’t happy with the makers of Guitar Hero over the use of Kurt Cobain’s likeness in the latest version of the popular video game.

In a press released issued by Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic the duo stated they were dismayed in “the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game.  The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate – we have no control whatsoever in that area.” They also went on to denounce how gamers will be able to unlock Cobain, allowing the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants and have asked Activision to “re-lock” him. No more Kurt playing Bon Jovi.

Up until OK Computer came out, most Americans knew Radiohead as the band who put out Creep. OK Computer quickly erased that perception amongst the mainstream but Radiohead always hated the image that Creep projected. Our friends at Spinner put together a fun list of 10 songs disowned by the people that made them famous, including Creep.

We’ve got six more links to help you get over that dreaded hump…

• If you buy Joy from Newbury Comics you’ll get a pint glass
• iClips unveils Woodstock TV with Mountain Jam footage
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• Sub Pop’s Bleach reissue includes a live Nirvana recording
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• R.E.M. unveils the details of their new 39 track live DVD/CD

Finally, there’s been more questions than answers about the contents of the new Beatles remasters up until recently. Beatles News summarizes the details about the remasters that were unveiled by a couple of Beatles historians at a fan festival in Chicago. The remasters hit stores on 9/9/09.