Here's a weird deal: I found this in a Kinko's folder while cleaning out my desk at home a few years ago. I have no idea who wrote it or how I got it or why it was in my desk. It was written in ink on loose-leaf paper in tiny, meticulous, androgynous handwriting. It's apparently someone's track-by-track review of the Melvins' "Houdini" album and Nirvana's "In Utero album, and although I've certainly known plenty of diehard Melvins fans, I've never associated with too many people who were professed Nirvana acolytes, at least not at that stage of their career.

Ordinarily, I would have just thrown something like this away, but the quality of the writing struck me somethin' powerful, and so I thought I should at least give it some light of day, and maybe its author can step forth and claim credit for it.

UPDATE NOV 11, 2009: Its rightful owner has come forth, and it is my old old old friend Tate "Stanislav" Stansberry! (Psst: I had always suspected he was in fact the author but I wasn't about to risk getting run out of the scene on a misattribution charge)

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Meditations on Houdini

1. Are MTViewers prepared for this, an accessible track, but hardly the type of loser-friendly song any chump can grind to? Pray for a buzz clip from Houdini's first video.

2. The 38-second mark and beyond serves to illustrate my rule about the hi-hat.

3. Mettal (sic) bands over the centuries have used the slow, quiet song to leaven the heaviness of the load and end concerts with, but Osbourne exploits this other dynamic for blacker purposes, crooning ominously over a fragile dissonance. The calm portends dire consequences, and delivers them, where littler mettlars (?) would have fashioned a Tolken (sic) ballad. Instead of pandering a flaccid acoustic number, B.O. has made an unfortunate mettal (sic) cliche into a more arresting expression of his conception.

4. One is always impressed by how completely the Melvins inhabit, nay, dominate, another band's bailiwick. The ability to annex territory with such authority is but another spoil of having created a truly separate and singular style.

5. What can be said about "Honey Bucket" that hasn't been said before? A comparable roundelay to the earlier "Zodiac," this is the kind of tuneless thrashing Rob Zombie dreams of.

6. "Hag Me" nicely condenses the economy-size epicness of Lysol into a saner seven minutes. The inevitability of the awesome chord changes suggest shifting tectonic plates 'neath So-Cal.

7. At hearing this at the legendary Boise recital, this critic pegged it for a cover, so dissimilar an opus it is to others of the catalogue. And because it has more than passing resemblance to any "Bleach" song, adroit listeners may wonder just how much the producer's influence is felt. Is Cobain "in the house" in more ways than one?

8. Who woulda funk it? K.C. donates tastefully reticent guitar work, a lovely palate cleanser for Lori's tastefully gregarious funksmanship.

9. Appearing on the Boise set list as "Joan of Archie," this cut sports fine vocal production and pays tribute to the glory (read: hubris) of metal with one chord and a sustained falsetto battle cry.

10. Similar in approach to "Lizzy," although less severe dynamically, "Teet" really satisfies with nutty chord changes and mounting, contrapuntal vocals. How can all that nougat fit in a fun-size song?

11. Recorded at the Laundry Room in Seattle, "Copache" finds Buzz insisting he have change for a dollar, in no uncertain tone, threatening the night clerk with an aggressive, starchless riff.

12. Discerning Top 40 fans will like to think of this song as an imprecation on Vedder & Co., and such an intention seems likely given the vitupery and pejoratives aimed at same by this band and their producer. Musically, Pearl Bomb evokes the tension of waiting for an ague to break, with anxious pacing, a febrile, restless, but restrained bass line, and a peevish, sneering whisper testing the bounds of allowable bedside manner.

13. The only drum solo ideal for sleeping purposes, with additional "percussion" from K.C.

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Meditations In Utero

1. With Nevermind still fresh in everyone's ears, "Servants' marks a departure from crisp, garden-fresh power chord action, using a refreshing fretful insouciance to illustrate the chord progression in the usual's stead.

2. The author puzzled over an MTV spot in which college kids received free copies of In Utero in exchange for reviews. Why would this Big Black-ish song —the least accessible of the 12 trackxx— make an enthusiast out of a black student who had never heard of Nirvana? The answer must be that "Scentless," by sheer coincidence, has the same tuneless charm as any number of P.E. songs, with a soaring guitar standing in for a siren, and of course a fat, fat beat.

3. Again donning his songwriter's cap, Cobain crafts a perfectly impertinent response to charges that he's too opinionated and critical for a superstar — "Hey... wait / I've got a new complaint." As importantly, he ends his chord progression beautifully with a flatted fifth, resolving it before continuing. Bitch!

4. No relation to "Hag Me," although the two are often mistaken for each other at parties. it is to marvel at that the title lyric needed to be classified (obligingly, I might add) "anti-rape" by Our Leader on the MTV.

5. Compares the studio system of 40s Hollywood with the hit makers of Jet City.

6. Viewed as a companion to Teen Spirit, this lieder offers no glimpse of a practical limit to what Cobain can do with four chords. Where Queen, Aerosmith and G'n'R would add an entire philharmonic to inflate an already pretentious and distended song, the Nirvana engage a lone cellist, for the excellent reason that it sounds good. Going even further, the allow her to provide some counterpoint instead of supportive cushion. But with our hands tiring of applause, we turn a critical lobe to "Dumb"; As tastefully as the cellist is exploited, she makes too early an entrance and is only really needed during the chorus.

7. A quick box of the ears. Kurt's gossamer-like delivery of the slight melody over the pulsing riff and manic beat stitches up the wound that is "Very Ape," paradoxically making it slightly infectious.

8. A favorite at any Mankiewicz jam session, this tune has, structurally, everything in common with "It's Shoved." Play and compare, noting incidentally that Steve Albini held this the closest to his heart of all twelve collected here.

9. The first thing one notices about this song is its subtlety. During the daintily bombastic choruses, Albini has buried the vocals up to the neck in "hardcore helper" mix. With no real musical reason for this, he may yet be pinched and booked on anti-commercial charges. Or are the vocals mixed lower to encourage us to listen more carefully? The Anne Frank in me wants to cry "Yes!"

10. Also finding itself on the FM playlist with heavy rotation, "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" showcases Cobain's inscrutably preternatural feedback.

11. This critic's nominee for the cleverest song title of the millennium.

12 & 13. While "All Apologies" is clearly meant to end the LP and "Marigold," a B-side, would seem more a natural to begin one, both songs are lugubrious charmers apparently from the same pen. After several listenings, any aficionado would suppress a gasp to learn that both were entirely written by different people ("Marigold" was writ by D. Grohl). Grohl does ape Cobain's intonational peculiarities, but should be absolved, probably, as K.C. likely doesn't mind. Besides which, Grohl can't be expected to invent his own complete vocal style for a single song.