You HAVE To See This 90s NIRVANA Instructional!
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- čas přidán 3. 11. 2022
- -You HAVE To See This 90s NIRVANA Instructional!
Special thanks to my friend Bob L. for pointing this in my direction. :)
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Just heard back from Curt Mitchell. He was totally cool with this video. Expect a future collab between Curt and myself most likely in the form of a podcast first. 👍
Plot twist: this guy was still bitter about grunge music taking over so he decided to teach people to play it incorrectly.
He was probably locked into a contract with one of those vhs guitar lesson production companies and had like a day to learn a few songs by ear and throw together a quick 30 minute lesson. Still seems like a cool guy
Kurt was a songwriter. His music wasn't complicated but it doesn't have to be. He knew how to write songs that appeal to a wide audience. He sang with a lot of emotion and people liked that. Had a good harmony to his voice that matched what he was playing.
Black Sabbath was a huge inspiration for Nirvana. I remember reading Ozzy Osbourne was a huge fan of Nirvana and then he freaked out when he heard that Kurt was inspired by him.
There's a quote where Kurt said he wanted to mix The Beatles with Black Sabbath, so that dude was spot on with that.
Let me tell you something about these videos, I had several of them on vhs growing up when I was first learning guitar. Curt Mitchell is a very good guitar player and he was in a rock band called The Bangalore choir back in the '80s. He is a very good guitarist but the hair metal scene was so big that his band never really broke through. Anyway, had a bunch of his videos and I'm thankful that I was able to learn a whole lot from him. Keep in mind guys, this was before the days of CZcams and this was one of the only resources we had. However, I can assure you that his VHS tapes were in every guitar store Coast to coast. On a side note, he was a huge Eddie Van Halen fan and his guitar is a custom built Warmoth. He talks about it in some of his other videos.
I like Curt's interpretation of these songs. Almost sounds like Alice In Chains doing Nirvana covers. Everything is in the pentatonic box and the chords are all super tight and crunchy.
This dude actually teaches guitar in Carson City and I’ve been taking lessons from him. It’s always fun guy and he is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He’s taught me a lot of cool songs and he’s really good at making sure I don’t take shortcuts with my playing. He actually let me play the guitar you see in the video and it has scalloped frets.
Curt is a legend. A myth. An enigma. Check out his work with Bangalore Choir. This dude can rip and tear.
I had his Randy Rhoads tape as a teen and that open A is so burned into my brain 20+ years later I can still tune to it.
He is 100% correct on his assessment of Cobain as a guitarist vs Cobain using the guitar as a tool to write incredible songs.
Its fascinating how Curt breathes life into "Breed". His natural 80s rock style when demonstrating the riff makes it sound like Ratt"s "Body Talk". It really is an interesting clash of style and era here as shred players adapted somewhat reluctantly to the grungy change of tides.
For those who are mistaking this Curt Mitchell with the guy who murdered Tanya Tandoc, that's a DIFFERENT Curt Mitchell. A simple Google search proves that.
Whew, that takes me back. I bought Curt Mitchell's video+tabs for Metallica, Ozzy, and Korn, out of the Musician's Friend catalog in the late 90's. The tabs weren't always spot on, but the guy was basically my teacher in a pre-youtube small town where everyone listened to country music. And he wasn't any worse than the "official" tab books back then anyway. XD
Curt Mitchell is phenomenal. His Van Halen tutorials are still some of the best. He doesn’t bash grunge. He has comments which I’m sure the company he worked for made him do the video like if a virtuoso had to teach Billie Eillish method lol. He does praise Kurt for being a lyricist and melodic to his chords. A game changer.
He’s a legendary guitar instruction video tutor. My dad had his VHS tapes when I was little and I grew up watching them. Love seeing this. Gave me a whole new level of respect for him seeing him talk highly about Cobain and not so much on the typical shredders of the 80s who were “so much better”. They were all talented, but Kurt had something they didn’t.
All of the guitar solos on Nevermind were recorded with a telecaster; specifically the one that Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead is famous for playing as his favorite guitar. It was an old telecaster that I converted into a Telecaster Plus clone. Radiohead, Nirvana, and Mazzy Star was touring Europe at the same time. We (I was a guitarist for Mazzy Star) went to each other's shows and partied together. Jonny won that guitar from me in a game of poker.
Curt can be forgiven because his EVH lessons still stand up today, despite all the new transcribing tech. It does feel though like Curt didn't take any time at all on this video. I feel like Curt couldn't quite believe that anyone would need a lesson to be able to play this stuff, like someone being asked to do a lesson on how to walk. It was a missed opportunity to drill down on some of the subtle things in Cobain's guitar parts that people still don't pick up on now (like the correct strumming pattern for Smells like Teen Spirit) and Curt Mitchell was the MAN for forensic deep dives, as evidenced by his work on the VH stuff.
The thing that struck me towards the end is that he felt legitimately bothered that Kurt took his own life. That is the element of shared humanity and compassion that can connect us all, and that shows up in music that speaks to us as human beings.