2019 already?!

Sorry for the years of not keeping this up. I got busy with college and graduate school.

I'm working on a complete revision here: http://kurtcobainguitars.com

I'm leaving all of these posts intact and creating all the updates on the new site.

Hello 2012

No worries. This guide is not dead! It's just slow.

I've been waiting for Apple to announce what they are going to do about iWeb.

I built up a new version of this guide in iWeb but then Apple announced they were going to discontinue it and I didn't want to proceed with a dying platform.

Once I get that figured out, this guide will be a lot better. Right now navigation sucks. You have to click on the little triangles on the right to get to all the cool stuff. I want to do away with that.

Tips and suggestions welcome! Leave them in the comments.

In the meantime here are some minor news.

Fender has released a Kurt Cobain edition Jaguar and Mustang.

The Vandalism Strat info was recently updated with corrected information on the necks (Kramer necks?!)

There were two amazing contributions left in the comments of one of the posts. One was regarding Kurt's pedals, the other regarding a possible KC Univox find. I'll clean this up once the new guide is up sometime in the (near?) future.

Univox Mosrite Copy

The following is from Bruno. What a fantastic find! Thank you Bruno.

Hi, i don't know if this is the right place to contact you, but i couldn't find any other place to....I was just listening to that Nevermind 20th thing with Jon Stewart interviewing Krist, Dave and Butch Vig, and Dave starts telling a story about how they came up with Heart Shaped Box...They were at The Posies practice space and they started jamming on the song, and when Kurt went up to the microphone to sing he got shocked....so he was like fuuuck and stepped back and they stopped the jam...then they start the jam over, and he goes up to the microphone and gets shocked again, and smashes his guitar in rage...then Krist adds up to the story, saying he just played the Experience Music Project thing and Kurt Bloch from the Fastbacks had a Univox Mosrite copy and Krist was like oh cool he has one of those too...so the story is that apparently Kurt Bloch found a smashed guitar in a garbage can at a practice space, glued it back together and kept it in his closet for like 20 years and brought it back for this show...here's a link to the performance...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z5sQLHS8qc

i thought it was cool little story that he has kurt's guitars now and i don't know if you were aware of it...anyway ur site is awesome man, keep up the good work...cheers from brazil!!!

Pedals

The following was left in the comments for the entry on the reissue Jag.

It's too good to not post. The poster is "anonymous". Whoever you are, thank you!

When the new guide is up, I'll embed the pictures and make your contribution pretty.

people who were asking about pedals:

ds-1 japan silver screw (likely 1980ish...you can actually see the silver screw here):
http://www.nirvanaguide.com/images/1990/051390.51.jpg
and here
http://www.kurtsequipment.com/pictures/kurts_ds1.jpg
(the second one seems to be sent from bailey?)

kurt's polychorus (formerly bailey's? - sent in from bailey?):
http://www.kurtsequipment.com/pictures/kurtspoly.jpg

used an original small box proco rat (likely 86-88?) here:
http://www.nirvanaguide.com/images/1989/100889.10.jpg
http://www.nirvanaguide.com/images/1989/100889.15.jpg
along with that Arion mij tuner from the 80s black with white stripe
he also trialed it again when switching to the ds-2 - I've seen a photo where he's trying both the ds-2 and the rat together after putting the ds-1 away...I dunno if the ds-1 was really broken or if someone (earnie?) told him to stop using it live because that thing is pretty rare...like $200 on ebay rare not $25 mit ones...maybe it was broken I dunno...the distortion pot had it's knob removed or lost...hard to tell lots of things were taped or wired/modded to only function one way to avoid accidents live right


on a tangent, the univox custom (it is a custom, says so on the headstock) used on snl rape me, etc has the ibanez gibraltar bridge on it not a badass bridge and it has two humbuckers, likely a dimarzio paf type in the neck and a dimarzio sd (or maybe a sd jb sh-4) in the bridge - basically a univox that would sound like the jaguar...the original p90s are amazing though (see rio guitar) - this guitar is like 1968 and rare - the exact same guitar was made in Canada, just a different headstock logo/brand, same with the phase II flyers (see wikipedia - cheaper than erm $500 on ebay unless you want it to say univox and not something else...)

the small clone is rare 1980/81 version (the first version) that had mini chorus on it (perhaps because the first boss chorus was huge compared to the small clone) - see it here:

http://www.spin.com/gallery/instrument-stories-behind-kurt-cobain-bon-iver-and-more-artists-favorite-gear?page=2#main
http://www.spin.com/sites/spin.com/files/imagecache/gallery_landscape/sites/spin.com/files/images/cobain_1_B_Instrument.png

the ds-2 is likely a japanese ds-2 and those are a bit more rare as well:
http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/DS-2.xml

any ideas what these two are from 1989-06-27?:
ds-1 and??? pedal that is more red...
http://www.nirvanaguide.com/images/1987/062787.04.jpg

the rest is pretty decent on the equipment faqs

someone needs to figure out the story on the ibanez (pre-lawsuit?) 1970s set neck cherry sunburst les paul copy with the coil tap switches on it...saw a black lefty one on ebay before but that was a mid-late 70s model with bolt on neck, not the prelawsuit with the set neck...anyway this guitar is a total mystery to me and not in these faqs anywhere...super rare guitar.

the ultra-linear twin blackface rivera twin reverb from 1982 135w or whatever is rarer too

more info on the peavey vintage coming but something is in the works first.

Kurt Cobain's 1965 Fender Jaguar - Photos soon?

Looks like close up photos of Kurt Cobain's 1965 Fender Jaguar are going to be released soon. Here is a screenshot from a teaser video on Fender's Facebook page regarding the release of the replica Jaguar.

The Jaguar in this photo is different from the replica in that it has the neck pickup in the correct spot and the strap peg on the left horn (for a right handed player). It also appears that the Jaguar is still strung up for a right handed player, which has been the case since it's last known whereabouts (Eric Erlandson of Hole).

Special thanks to Twitter user @Act902 for letting us know about this!

Here is a previous post regarding this guitar.

Here is a previous post about the replica that Fender is gearing up to release soon.

Fender soon to release Kurt Cobain Jaguar Replica

Rolling Stone blog was the first release information about this. Read it here.

Fender has posted a teaser video on Facebook.

There is a frame in the video with what appears to be close ups of Kurt's actual Jag.

Watch teaser video here.

While it is not an exact replica, it's the closest that's ever been produced by Fender.

Here is a photoshopped version with the pickups placed correctly, angled bridge, single string retainer, right-handed strap peg, and the extra hole on the trem.

White Fender Stratocaster

White Fender Stratocaster

One of two white Fender Stratocasters mentioned at http://www.kurtsequipment.com/ It is currently on display at the EMP's dedicated Nirvana exhibit. Long time friend of the band Rob took the photo above and hooked us up with this info:

"The story on the white Fender Stratocaster is that it shows up in Kurt's arsenal late 1991. It is first destroyed in Ghent, Belgium 11/23/91. It is repaired (new neck, pickguard, etc.) Then it sees it's final destruction 9/11/92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum show."

Videos

1. MTV Music Awards performance

2. Kurt smashing white Strat in 1991 Ghent, Belgium

Source

Rob

http://www.kurtsequipment.com/

EMP - Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibit

The EMP (Experience Music Project) in Seattle opened up it's Nirvana exhibit last month. This story is being covered by loads of media.

This story on MTV.com is one of my favorites so far because it has video clips featuring the curator of the exhibit, Jacob McMurray, giving a guided tour of some of his favorite pieces in the exhibit.

Here is the EMP's Flickr feed featuring photos from a special member only preview.

Guitars on display:

1969 Fender Mustang

Vandalism Stratocaster

Univox Hi Flier Body

Black Fender Stratocaster body

Smashed Fender Mustang (entry coming soon!)

White Fender Stratocaster (need more info, if you have any please send!)

Sorry for the lack of post in the last few months. I designed a dedicated web site for this guide (with the intention of getting rid of the "blog" format) but it's taking longer than anticipated to bring it live. I'm contemplating leaving it on Blogger but the templates are so damn ugly!

Thanks to all of you who come here regularly. You will not be disappointed once this gets cleaned up. Also if you attend the exhibit, EMP is allowing non-flash photography! Feel free to post links to your photos in the comments section.

Fall 2010 Update

This entire guide will be redesigned from the ground up. I finally found a way to make it so it's easier to navigate (namely; taking it out of the "blog" format). Stay tuned. I hope to have the new Kurt's Guitars Now live by December.

I'm really excited to have a proper format! No more annoying blog! wooo!

Your support is encouraged. The new guide will be costing more than time (as in money). Show your support by clicking on the sponsor ads, or email me for donations.

Experience Music Project will open world's biggest Nirvana exhibit

Curated by EMP's Jacob McMurray, "Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Massess," is scheduled to run April 16-22, 2011.

More info here:http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=1538

Who's coming with me?!

Happy Spring 2010

Semester in school is over and I'm working on revising and cleaning some of the previous entries. Yes, I know about the Kurt neck that recently hit eBay. I will be posting information about it soon. I purposely avoid making posts of things while they are available for sale. Once the sale is finalized I will post the entry.

Anyway.

I'm working on a new design for the entire guide.

What do you guys/gals think of this?

Courtney < 3 Telecaster Neck

Fender Telecaster Neck

This neck was once attached to Kurt's Japanese made Telecaster. Kurt had painted the front of the guitar's body with blue latex paint and etched out "Courtney" and the shape of a heart. The neck is now part of Recordmecca's impressive collection.

From Jeff of Recordmecca

"This broken neck is from Kurt Cobain's blue telecaster from the Sao Paulo "Hollywood Rock Festival." I obtained it from Louie Mathieu, who was the Red Hot Chili Peppers' road manager (the Chili Peppers co-headlined the festival with Nirvana, and Louie picked up the neck off the stage when Kurt threw it towards the audience--obviously it didn't make it.) As you can see, it has bits of the blue paint Kurt used to paint the Tele on the sides. Anthony Kiedis of the Chili Peppers talks about Kurt smashing the guitar at the festival and Louie coming away with the neck in his book, "Scar Tissue."

From Louie of the RHCP

"As far as the body of the guitar goes I can't really recall think it was either snatched by the crowd as he threw it out there or remained strewn about the stage? He threw the neck out to the crowd as well but it landed kinda lamely in the no-man's land between the crowd and the stage. I jumped off stage to retrieve it and as I got back up on stage Courtney Love was walking by and I said "Hey, you forgot this" so as not to appear like an over-eager souvenir scavenger. She reached out for it and went "ugh, thanks". Cut to years later I'm at a show and I run into Jennifer from L7 and we're reminiscing about that time and those shows. I mention how much I regretted not having held onto that neck.

She turns to me and says: "I have it"

I say, "What are you kidding me!?!"

She says, "Not at all! Courtney left it in the corner of the dressing room and after taking it to Kurt's tech and determining that it was beyond repair; I took it home."

She then said I could have it back seeing as if it hadn't been for me it would have never been rescued."

Jeff from Recordmecca was awesome enough to provide numerous close ups of the neck. You can check out the collection of photographs here. Recordmecca also owns "Sky Stang III" which is on public display at the RRHOF in Cleveland. Thanks to Jeff, a revised entry for Sky Stang III is in the works!

Louie deserves a special thanks for sharing his story and placing the neck in proper hands. He also sent in photographs of the neck. You can check out Lou's photos here.

Below is the video of Kurt jabbing the Telecaster into the amplifier during Scentless Apprentice @ 3:37.

Sidenote

Video also shows Kurt splitting the black Stratocaster body @ 2:39.

Sources

Louie

Jeff of recordmecca.com

nirvanaguide.com

Updates for Spring 2010

I have a lot of cool NEW entries in the pipeline!

Sorry it's taking me longer to post. I'm currently in school, broke ($), and my schedule has been constricted. Nonetheless there are about 4-5 entries in the pipeline as well as cleaning up previous entries (fixing links, updating info etc).

Update

All of the embedded videos are now working. YouTube likes to remove them from time to time and our links get lost. If you come across a broken link or missing video please email me.

In the meantime check out Jaime's entry on Nirvana's Tijuana (Mexico) gig. He has an amazing video of Kurt smashing the Sluggo-trade SG.

Stay tuned. Lots of cool post coming!

Giant Cobain-inspired guitar marks Seattle's new Hard Rock Cafe

In Miami 1993 at the Bayfront Amphitheater Kurt pointed out to a green giant Stratocaster on top of the Hard Rock Cafe and said "Hey after the show let's all go over there and throw rocks at that stupid fucking neon rock and roll guitar over there".

Now the Hard Rock has mounted a giant guitar in Seattle. It's modeled after his Competition Mustang.

Full article here.

Case for 70's Fender Mustang

From Mark Spiders of Willard,

"I believe I have the guitar case from the smashed Sluggo Mustang. In Oct 1989 Nirvana was on the Bleach European tour with TAD. Tad had no case for his Fender Musicmaster and Kurt gave him a Fender Mustang case. Kurt played Tad's Musicmaster on occasion as stated in the letter of provenounce from Tad. I bought it from Tad Doyle several years ago."

Thank you Mark!

Mark's band, Willard, was very much a part of the Seattle music scene. And we all know TAD's close association with Nirvana. Mark says he has letters from Tad Doyle and Sub Pop regarding authenticity.

Epiphone ET270 Neck

This may or may not be the neck from Kurt's Epiphone ET-270 that popped up for sale on eBay in 2009. This guide does not offer a strong opinion either way. It could be real. It could be fake.

The seller pulled most of the photos (including the ticket/flyer) from nirvanaguide.com and did not including any form of authentic certification so there is no telling if it's the real deal or not. The only evidence that shows it may be Kurt's is the replacement tuners.

Update

I received email from readers saying they've communicated with the eBay seller. The seller does not personally have a back story on the neck. They are selling for somebody else under consignment. 

Update 2

According to trusted sources "the real neck is documented and accounted for. Currently in a NW collection". I know this was left as a comment below but additionally I've received email with this information.

Update 3

Another reader has brought up an excellent observation. Kurt's Epiphone ET270 was outfitted with Gotoh tuners from the late 1980s/early 1990's. The tuners in the photographs of this neck appear to be Schaller tuners found on Mexican made Fender Stratocasters from the early 2000's. This information cannot be verified and the information is intended for entertainment purposes only.

Update 4

A trusted source pointed out that there are recently (September 2020) surfaced photographs of Kurt playing one of these that appear to have Schaller tuners similar to the ones shown on these photographs. 

Disclaimer: This guide is not claiming that this neck is a fake, nor is it claiming that it's real. This guide is only reporting opinions based on observations, not facts. This guide is intended for entertainment purposes only and has no business affiliation with collectors, buyers, or sellers. It was never intended to be any source of such information or a "buyer's guide" for Kurt's guitars. The guide's primary intention is to obtain close up photographs of Kurt Cobain's guitars and speculate as to where they may currently be.

Photographs from the auction:

Sources

Olly

nirvanaguide.com

ebay

1970's Fender Mustang

70's Fender Mustang

Kurt used this guitar on Nirvana's 1989 US tour. At some point in the northeast part of the tour Kurt had smashed the guitar to the point where it was rendered unplayable. He took it into Mouradian Guitar in MA to fix the broken neck but either did not have the time or the money to go through with the repair.

While in New Jersey Kurt traded his broken Mustang with Sluggo (of the band Grannies and Huballaloo) for a Gibson SG that Kurt ended up painting light blue.

At one point the guitar was on display at the Seattle EMP on loan from Sluggo himself. It was taken off display to be auctioned off. In December of 2008 the smashed guitar made news headlines when it sold for $100,000. It is rumored to be returning there on loan from it's current (private undisclosed) owner for the Nirvana 2010 exhibit at the EMP.

If anyone has more photos of this guitar please send!

Pictures of the trade @ Sluggo's house in NJ

1. Kurt and band holding SG

2. Kurt - Mustang seen on floor

Sources

Esteban B

livenirvana.com

NME

The photograph above is from the last show that this guitar was used on (Wilkinsburg, PA 7/9/89). There are no videos of the show but it's assumed that's where the guitar was smashed last. The video below is from a performance on 7/12/89 in Philadelphia, PA. No Mustang, but still a neat insight on this era of the band.

And another great montage of photos from this era.

Univox Hi Flier - Sunburst - 2 of 2

This was the second sunburst Univox Hi Flier photographed for the Cobain Unseen book. Unlike the first one (see other entry) this one was published in the book. In the photograph we can see a replacement humbucker in the neck position. The rest of the guitar appears to be stock.

Source

Geoff Moore

kurtsequipment

Univox Hi Flier - Sunburst - 1 of 2

This is the Univox Hi Flier famously used in the encore of the Rio De Janeiro show. Video of "Dive" can be seen on the Live Tonight Sold Out video and also below.

According to Kurtsequipment.com

"Univox Hi-Flyer, mahogany neck and stock single coils at the Rio show encore. Kurt liked this one too. Later got a humbucker in the bridge"

The humbucker in the bridge alteration can be seen in the latest photograph above (by Geoff Moore) as well as the show on 7/23/93 at The Roseland in New York City.

Geoff Moore is the photographer that shot most of the photos for the Cobain Unseen book. He was the sole photographer allowed to shoot the guitars that are in the Cobain estate vault. This guitar was not featured in the Cobain Unseen book. For other guitars photographed by Moore please visit the "Geoff Moore" tag below, as well as Geoff Moore's website.

Note: There is another Geoff Moore photographed Univox Hi Flier that ended up in the Cobain Unseen book. Entry coming soon.

Source

Violent Addiction

Geoff Moore

nirvanaguide

kurtsequipment

Additional Links

1. Video Stills of Rio performance 1 and 2

2. Rio performance of Territorial Pissings

Kurt Cobain Guitar Hero 5 Jagstang

The guitar being played by the virtual version of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5 appears to be a hybrid of a Jagstang and the In Utero era Mustangs. It has the Jagstang body shape and the trimmings (pickguard and pickups) of the In Utero era Mustangs.

Of special note; the headstock shape is that of a Telecaster.

As speculated by forum members of Offsetguitars.com this could be due to possible copyright infringements; "Guitar Hero is sponsored by Gibson and Rockband by Fender".

Because the Cobain estate was involved in the creation of this character it is also a possibility that the headstock design was influenced by Kurt's favoring of Telecasters in 94 and/or later sketches by Kurt of the Jagstang which showed a smaller headstock.

Read Rolling Stone article on Cobain's cameo on the game here.

Actual game play video here.

Update: Krist and Dave have made a comment on the Kurt Cobain Guitar Hero Avatar.

Read statement here.

Source

Rolling Stone

Offsetguitars.com

Livenirvana.com