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Orange Dunlop Tortex .60mm guitar pick personally used by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana's performance at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California, on Thursday, August 15, 1991, a concert widely considered as the greatest of their legendary career. Includes a section of the original picture notebook to which the pick was previously affixed; the section contains a trimmed color photo of Cobain strumming his guitar during the Roxy show, and an upper handwritten notation: “Took this pick from Roxy stage, Nirvana 1991.” In fine condition, with expected signs of use.
Roughly one month before Nirvana released their breakthrough album, Nevermind, on September 24, 1991, the band played a concert at the Roxy Theatre that many have deemed the greatest of their career. The show served as an industry showcase meant to introduce the trio to their new major label, DGC Records (a subsidiary of Geffen), and a 7-song warmup before heading to Europe in support of Sonic Youth on August 20th. After they performed ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ the Geffen art director handed out casting call flyers while Krist Novoselic announced to the crowd that they would be filming a music video for the song that weekend. Two days later, in Culver City, the band filmed one of the greatest music videos of all time, simultaneously thrusting MTV into the grunge era and catapulting alternative rock into the mainstream.
Accompanied by a modern print of Cobain at the Roxy, a printed copy of the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ casting call flyer, and a signed and notarized letter of provenance from the pick’s owner, who attended the storied Roxy Theatre show and retrieved the pick from beneath a monitor before leaving the venue. The letter, in part: “I attended the show and was positioned at the front of the stage throughout the performance. During the final song of the set, Kurt Cobain's guitar pick fell under one of the front stage monitors. I was able to reach under the monitor and retrieve the pick before leaving the venue. This pick has remained in my possession ever since that night and I added it to my picture notebook along with some notes and other pics and tickets that I collected…
Leading up to the concert, I also helped hand out promotional flyers for the show. As a member of a local band myself, which played both the Whisky a Go Go and the Roxy in 1991, I was active in street promotion along the Sunset Strip. I picked up a stack of Nirvana flyers from a record store and distributed them alongside my own band's flyers the week before the Roxy performance. I also received their flyer at the Roxy about filming their video for Smells Like Teen Spirit but unfortunately I did not attend it. This memorabilia notebook that I created, which included the guitar pick, was in my storage for more than two decades and thought to be lost. I finally went through all my storage boxes and found it which contained the guitar pick and other Nirvana items.”
