happy friday friends welcome back to between bells and
chatter news and baker machado in new york and Nirvana
played a live show on october the 1st 1991 in
philadelphia that in front of 100 and 50 people.
And that was just six days after the release of Never Mind.
And it was only weeks before the band became famous.
And now one photographer has those rare images from
that night and she's selling them as N.
F. T. S on sunday, and that would have been kurt Cobain's 55th birthday.
Now,
these pieces from the collection ranged from $99 to a quarter of a million dollars
and some of the proceeds from the sale going to go
towards the Trevor project and also grid alternatives as well.
So joining us now to discuss is Faith West photographer,
music journalist and founder of pop legends.
Such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us.
Faith Now, this 1991 show, such a historic performance for fans.
A lot of us didn't even know that that even existed that night.
What do you remember the most of that night?
The energy in the room was just electric.
I was a fan of alternative music and there's been
a buzz about this band for quite a while,
but you know,
there were a lot of good grunge bands at the time that we're sort
of competing for attention and it wasn't clear which would become the most popular.
Um, but I showed up at a small club, 150 people,
not quite knowing what to expect brought my camera
and halfway through the show I knew music history was
being made and I just felt nervous photographing it
because I knew that these pictures were so important.
How did you know that history was being made?
Because look, as I mentioned, never mind was already released.
And for every music magazine out there has basically called that the
greatest album one of the greatest albums at least of all time.
How did you know that this was sort of history in the making?
And do you think the band knew that they were making history here?
You know,
they were very humble and I'm not sure they understood how important
they were going to be to the history of rock music.
Um But I was a fan and I knew that there hadn't been a band to combine heavy metal,
punk and pop hooks in that way before.
Um if you think back to the 80s it was a lot of hair bands and uh a lot of electronic pop.
This was a combination of the things that have
been going before and it was just phenomenal.
It was just so great.
Yeah, I changed rock music in the 90s in particular just rock music forever.
As a result of that. Now you're selling these as N. F. T. S.
I'm curious why you're selling them as an N. F. T.
Instead of maybe just like as a book here.
Well I wanted to share it with as many fans as possible and N. F. T. S are so much fun.
There are a combination of the fun of
trading cards with the ledger of the Blockchain.
So it's kind of like if you went to an art gallery and you bought an expensive
painting and then you get that ledger of ownership
all the way back to the original artist.
So it's very it's a very wonderful way to share this with the fans. Okay, so
I want you to walk us through some of the images here because I mentioned, you know,
they range in price, the cheap ones, you know, $99,
It goes all the way up to a quarter of $1 million.
What are sort of the pieces that people can really look at here.
So it really gives you a sense of the energy in the room that night,
which is really unique for these images.
I didn't bring any lighting with me.
So this is all natural lighting that was their
existing in the that that club that night.
And so the what you're looking at is that that emotion just running
over kurt Cobain's face and the interplay of the three band members.
So, if you take a look at the images on our site, pop Legends with a Z dot com,
you'll see what I mean.
It's unmistakable.
I mean, we're showing some of our viewers some of them here and even still,
it looks so amazing and you kind of just feel like you're already in this sort of,
didn't you, sort of like, you know, amazing place to watch this band who has no idea,
they're about to become the biggest band on the entire planet here.
In just a few weeks, a lot of musicians, faith sell a lot of their stuff. As N. F. T. S,
photographers are starting to get into this,
is that sort of a recommendation maybe that you
think more photographers should go is the N.
F. T. Route here?
I totally agree with that,
because this is a revolution for artists up until now there's
been a lot of copying and pasting as you know,
and there's been no way to prove the ownership of a piece of art.
N. F. T. S are allowing artists to quit their day jobs.
It's amazing because now they can prove ownership of their artwork and and
and they get royalties as the artwork is sold down the line.
Okay, so what's next for you with Pop legends?
Do you have more photos, you're gonna start selling his N. F. T. S.
Is Nirvana just sort of the tip of the iceberg here for you?
Well, I do have to work out the licensing,
but I do have more photos that I'm going to try to make into N.
F. T. S. And then we're going to try to combine it with gaming um as you know, N. F. T.
S came out of the gaming world that started out
as tokens that you would earn for playing a game.
Um and so we're going to come up with music trivia games
and things that really can get the fans involved in the community.
Have you ever photographed another musical artist,
the way that you have Nirvana in the sense where there's, you see,
you feel history sort of happening right around you?
Well, I was very lucky to be a pop music critic in the nineties,
which is completely important time for pop music.
So yes, I did see quite a number of artists that are legendary now.
And um, you know, I saw the sex pistols in the seventies,
I saw Peter Gabriel in the eighties staying.
Um, I saw the police are, am, I mean,
it was an amazingly fertile time for music and I was very lucky.
What an amazing stuff that you've got here.
Faith West, photographer, music journalist and founder of pop legends.
Faith such a pleasure to have you here