ALBANY - The city of Albany sits a good 200 miles from the muddy banks of the Wishkah River, where a young Kurt Cobain found solace from his life in Aberdeen, Wash., a town he once described as a place where "99 percent of the people had no idea what music was, or art." Cobain proved an exception in 1987 when he formed the trio Nirvana, which, for a time in the early '90s, was one of the biggest bands in the world, popularizing a dissonant, cathartic punk/metal/college-rock hybrid that pundits christened "grunge."

Cobain left this world in 1994, but his legacy reverberates still. Tonight it hits town with a wallop, pounding the Calapooia Brewing Company in the form of Nirvana tribute band Bleach. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $3.

The one sound you won't hear, however, is the riff that made Nirvana famous. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the freak-success Top 10 single that launched both group and sophomore album "Nevermind" to global prominence in 1991, is not on the Bleach set list. (Even the band's name avoids the association; "Bleach" was the title of Nirvana's debut, predating "Nevermind" by more than two years.) According to guitarist/frontman Terry Geil, that too is a tribute, to Cobain's contrarian bent.

"I think it's not that he hated the song as much as the attention it received and how much it became a cultural phenomenon," Geil said, citing incidents in which the bandleader teased audiences with "Spirit's" opening chop before swerving into Boston's "More Than a Feeling" instead. "He'd say, 'We're not playing that tonight,' " Geil continued. "There's more to Nirvana than 'Come As You Are' and 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' "

Bleach's repertoire is ample proof of that, reaching deep into the storied band's catalog. Recently, at Woody's Bar & Grill in Halsey, the Brownsville-based trio uncorked an impressively diverse 40-song set (it can play 60 in all) that included everything from album cuts like "Floyd the Barber" ("Bleach") and "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" ("In Utero") to such rarities as "Beeswax," which initially surfaced on a 1991 Kill Rock Stars label compilation, and "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," from 1993's "The Beavis and Butt-head Experience."

Bleach was born in 2000 as an offshoot of Sullen, a trio Geil formed in 1997 with Victims of Internal Decay band mate and longtime musical cohort Pat Wombacher (bass) and Scott Young (drums). (Geil's introduction to the group came courtesy of Victims vocalist Lance Thill, who loaned him a copy of "Bleach" in 1990.) Packed within their originals was an arsenal of 30 Nirvana covers, an aspect they highlighted one night at Albany's First Round Bar & Grill, where they performed every other Saturday.

"It got a good response," Geil recalled. "I was surprised. There were a lot more people than I thought there'd be. It was fun. Afterward, we'd hear 'You should do that again.' "

So they did. Sullen and Bleach swapped personalities off and on until 2006, when the main band dissolved. Bleach's trajectory might've ended there as well, were it not for the 2007 entrance of Jared Johnson. He was the perfect candidate: Not only did he ably fill Young's vacant seat, he was also an aficionado of Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl.

The trio's chemistry is undeniable, their honed attack tight and brutal. Wombacher and Johnson keep a loose-yet-firm watch on Geil's boiling hooks, complementing and abetting his approximation of Cobain's scalded growl. Onstage, they just flat-out stomp, probably the most important attribute of a successful tribute act.

"The key is replicating the music in its truest form," Geil said. "For instance, God of Thunder (a KISS tribute) goes all the way, with the costumes and makeup and explosions. That's awesome in its own respect - and with KISS you can do that - but the sound is what counts. Like, Stairway Denied is incredible. None of them look anything like the guys in Led Zeppelin, but they play the songs to a 'T."

"As for us, we act like Nirvana a little bit, but that's about the closest we'll get. We're more of a tribute to live Nirvana. They sound way different live than on record. We won't be dressing like them anytime soon. I mean, I'll wear ripped jeans, but I wear ripped jeans, anyway."

Bleach is only part of the tireless Geil's menagerie. The multi-instrumentalist pulls duty in four other bands: the landmark death-metal collective Victims of Internal Decay (set to play their first show in 11 years on Nov. 13 at Bogey's Bar & Grill in Albany); hard-rock outfit Sons of Confusion; classic-rock devotees the Bone Jars; and Kill Yourself, a tribute to Anthrax side project Stormtroopers of Death. On top of that, he operates a karaoke service, "Terry-oke," all while maintaining a solid family life with his wife, Danna, and five children. But for a man immersed in music nearly from birth, it's the only way to live.

"I always hated it when guys would quit bands and say, 'That's it. I can't waste my time playing music anymore,'" Geil said. "They forget what they loved about it. Even if I didn't make any money, I'd still be playing music. It's a godsend to me. Music is life."



Fuente: Gazzette Times