Usually a twentieth anniversary means you and your spouse head to Bermuda or your company honors you with a gold watch. If it’s a birthday, and you live in the States, you get jack shit but another year of waiting before you can legally purchase 40 oz. malt liquor at your favorite corner store. If you’re a certain band from a certain coffee-loving city in the Pacific Northwest, it means you get a deluxe, remastered, reissue of your first album, ya know, the one before that dude from Foo Fighters joined. (That dude rules!)

The folks at Sub Pop understand milestones, and so the label is set to flesh out Nirvana’s classic debut Bleach with a boat load of extra features and cool shit that Courtney Love may or may not have a problem with, depending on what day it is. More importantly, the kingpin label has made “Scoff,” an unreleased song recorded live at Portland’s Pine Street Theatre on February 9th, 1990, available for free download. The show also features Nirvana fan favorite “Love Buzz” and a cover of the Vaseline’s “Molly’s Lips.” Check “Scoff” below, then check out this absurd three part interview Canadian music journalist, and interviewer extraordinaire, Nardwuar did with Kurt, Kris and Courtney in 1991. Nothing says grunge like pizza and cigarettes.

Nirvana, Scoff (Live @ Pine Street Theater, Portland, OR)

MP3 Download

Despite Courtney Love’s protestations via Twitter that she had no idea that Kurt Cobain’s likeness would be used in the latest edition of Guitar Hero, much less playing other people’s songs, Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig revealed to NME.com that Kurt Cobain’s estate has “cashed the check” after signing a contract that allowed for a Cobain avatar in the game. He went on to suggest that Love was fully aware of the contract that she agreed to and had accepted the money offered: “I do know that there’s absolutely a contract and we know that the cheque has been cashed,” he told NME.COM. “I can only deal with the facts. It’s very clear what the terms are.”

Love took to Twitter to respond to Rosensweig’s comments, stating: “Call me and tell me what cheque and for how much. You liquidate Kurt and you tell me I’ve cashed a cheque? We didn’t get a cent,” she wrote. “Now Mr Activision if you want to fix that I’d very much appreciate it. You’ve humiliated me and my daughter. People think we did ‘Guitar Hero 5′ for money when in fact we got not one cent. My understanding was you would pay me personally as I stated.”

Rosensweig was apologetic when it came to Cobain’s former bandmates Dave Grohl and Kris Novoselic’s objections to Cobain’s avatar and its ability to play songs other than those of Nirvana, but claimed that the real dispute should be between Love and the former Nirvana members. “We care about the artists more than anyone else and we would like to make artists happy in every circumstance,” he said. “I’m disappointed in this case that there seems to be confusion between the band and the estate.”

OK, Mother Theresa is dead so she doesn’t have an opinion, but if she were alive, and knowing that she fucking loved Bleach, we’re pretty sure she’d be pissed off as all hell about Kurt Cobain’s inclusion in the new Guitar Hero. I mean, come on, the dude can’t be virtually singing “Wanted Dead or Alive” in a video game owned by the company who published “MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat.”

But he is. And ya know who’s pissed off about it? Bon Jovi. Yeah, Jon Bon Jovi. And while the one day future Governor of New Jersey (one can always dream) is speaking out against the inclusion, he isn’t really mad that Cobain’s in the game, as much he is the fact that virtual Cobain sucks at singing “You Give Love A Bad Name.” Quoted Bon Jovi, “To hear someone else’s voice coming out of a cartoon version of me? I don’t know. It sounds a little forced.” Sort of like Bon Jovi’s movie career.

With Courtney Love having used Twitter to foment her rage (or smear her tracks,) Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic issued a joint statement late yesterday in regards to their former bandmate’s likeness being used so excessively in the newest installment of the Guitar Hero franchise. Below:

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate – we have no control whatsoever in that area.
While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

Meanwhile, Activision issued the following statement:

Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero® 5.

Apparently, we’re not the only ones who are/were slightly offended by the presence of a Bon Jovi and Bush-fronting Kurt Cobain on the latest installment of Guitar Hero: Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, demonstrated her dissatisfaction with the appropriation of her husband’s license via Twitter yesterday.

Her wrath was initially incurred by journalist Everett True, who blamed Love and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl for the Guitar Hero fiasco on his blog, calling them ”Fucking corporate cock-sucking memory-destroying fret-wanking MTV-supporting fame-chasing money-grabbing grave-turning publicity-loving vacuous spoiled jaded cunting rock whores.” He mentioned Love’s Twitter ID while linking to his post on Twitter, inspiring the following series of tweets from Ms. Love:

when did @everetttrue get bitter, i own my rage but im not yet bitter, and if you think for one second from the lunchbox and now this..NO

the goddammed Lunchbox was it for me i get crucified over Converse shoes i didnt approve and stood it, then spy a lunchbox and nowGHERO?NO!!

btw @everetttrue Jack fucking White your personal god is doing Ghero, do you think they told me that this mfucking avatar’s(badenuff)”featur

yeah Jack WHite,Dylan,Petty,Kings of Leon, i dragged my ass and never signed of on the avatar, let alone this fucking”feature”i have NO say

correction i do have say, theres been 4 breaches of a very strict contract, eg i was forced by lying bankerlawyers to sell some publishing,

wich forces me to lose some power, the loser bully who put money in the bank commissioned illegally a child and then stole every pennydid it

and @everetttrue he did it in breach of contract if you had listened to my ranting raving “bizarre”etc youd see that i speak only the truth

Sigh.