Jack Endino

The two friends finally settled on a name for their band, Nirvana.

With that name, they set out to record a demo tape with local producer Jack Endino.

Kurt financed the session by selling laughing gas he had pilfered from a dental clinic where he worked as a janitor.

Kurt on guitars and vocals, Chris on bass, and a returning Dale Crover on drums recorded seven songs, six originals, and Love Buzz, a pop rock song by Dutch band Shocking Blue.

The program, pre-recorded at the Long Beach Studios of label owner Greg Ginn, includes special features and commentaries, including a legal advice segment called Screw the Law, along with the music.

SST is home to such interesting bands as the veteran LA garage punk Flesh Eaters, the OC-spawned jazz rock power trio Bazooka, and Skin Yard, led by Jack Endino, a cult hero from the Seattle grunge rock scene.

However, the label, based in Los Alamitos, has lost a good deal of the luster it enjoyed during a remarkable run in the mid-'80s, when it was the very heart of American independent rock, issuing definitive albums by Black Flag, Husker Du, the Minutemen, Sonic Youth, and the Meat Puppets.

There's a certain amount of snobbishness in college radio land about SST.

On this week's episode, we are joined by Cormac Butler, guitarist and songwriter with legendary Kilkenny rock band Kerbdog.

Cormac takes us back to the early days of the band, their influences, recording their self-titled debut album with Nirvana producer Jack Endino, and the making of their second album, On the Torn, in Los Angeles.

We talk about the frustrations around the delayed release of On the Torn, the album's growing reputation, Kerbdog's reunion, and the experience of playing those songs live again.

From being one of Ireland's most exciting young rock bands in the '90s to becoming a hugely influential cult favorite, Kerbdog's music has continued to find new audiences long after the band originally split.

Yeah, I, I, I...

There wasn't really other bands that are doing what we were doing in Ireland, but there certainly was around the rest of the world.

Cormac, the band's first album, the self-titled Kerbdog, was recorded at Rockville Studios with Jack Endino, who had produced Nirvana's Bleach.

Yeah.

And, uh, and then so that, and that was like the only stuff that I had, and then that was gone through.

It was, I think Jack and Dino went through it all, and it was authenticated and all that kind of stuff.

Uh, so that was kind of my contribution.

I can't remember what songs exactly are off that tape.

Right

...

when I talked to Jack Endino, he showed me his, and it was a counterfeit.

Oh, well, let's find out.

All right.

So jumping into your book, it starts off with a pretty big figure in the grunge scene in the early days, Jack Endino.

Uh, his forward says that when you're writing for Don Anderson's Backlash under a pseudonym, he and Don just called you G3, as in, "G3 left you a message." So before anything else, who was G3, and why did half of The Rocket's writers need fake names to write for Don?

Well, that's just my name, Gillian G. Gaar, so three Gs.