Listen to four extremely rare Nirvana demos which have surfaced online

Four rare demo tapes from Nirvana‘s early days have surfaced online after being uploaded to YouTube by musician John Purkey.

The tapes, which Purkey claims were personally given to him by Kurt Cobain, include demos for Bleach which were reportedly recorded back in 1988 during the band’s first ever session at the Reciprocal Studios in Seattle.

The recordings, however, do not feature the band’s drummer Chad Channing as the sessions took place before his arrival into the band. The drummer heard on the tapes is actually The MelvinsDale Crover who recorded the drums for Nirvana’s debut album. All of the tapes pictured in the videos are the actual cassettes. Check out the demos below.

In the collection, there is also a second tape which features demos from Nirvana’s iconic album Nevermind. These were recorded in the 1990s also with Channing before Dave Grohl took his place.

Purkey says that one of the rare tapes was stolen from a friends car which prompted him to sell two of them. he stashed the rest of the cassettes away in a metal box.