If you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of rock and roll history, now’s your chance as one of the many guitars Kurt Cobain wrecked on stage is up for auction.
The piece on offer is a 1973 Fender Mustang that Cobain used on Nirvana’s first-ever US tour.
Might have to break a few piggy banks for this one as the current bid for the Fender is US$200,000 (NZ$346,551).
Julien’s Auctions are the ones selling it, as part of their ‘Icons & Idols: Rock ‘N’ Roll’ event. Guitars and other instruments used by legends like Eddie Van Halen, Gene Simmons, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC, Nikki Six and more are all up for grabs at the auction, which will take place at New York’s Hard Rock Cafe on November 11, 12 and 13.
Cobain definitely did a number on the guitar. The strings are goneburger, there’s a hefty amount of duct tape around where the body meets the neck, and there are cracks all over it. On the plus side though, there’s a message Cobain wrote on it when he traded it to Sluggo Cawley of the band Hullabaloo.
“Yo Sluggo,” it reads. “Thanks for the trade / If it’s illegal to Rock and Roll, then throw my ass in jail / Nirvana.”
Another of the Nirvana frontman’s guitars is the most expensive guitar ever sold. It was used by Cobain during his band’s iconic ‘MTV Unplugged’ performance in 1983. The left-handed, acoustic-electric guitar went for an absolutely whopping US$6.01 million (NZ$10.5 million) at another Julien’s Auctions event in June 2020.
Fair enough mate, that ‘Unplugged’ performance is legendary and timeless, even though the whole band thought it would be a disaster, with drummer Dave Grohl telling American Way magazine:
“That show was supposed to be a disaster. We hadn’t rehearsed. We weren’t used to playing acoustic. We did a few rehearsals and they were terrible.”
