Capitol Hill Rewind | Browsing bootlegs with Kurt Cobain at Orpheum Records
Posted on Sunday, December 3, 2023 - 7:03 am by Todd Matthews
Exploring the neighborhood’s record-shop history
Roughly 40 years ago, Bruce Bonifaci was living on Capitol Hill and commuting via ferry to downtown Bremerton, where he owned Penny Lane Records & Tapes, when he spotted a ‘For Lease’ sign at 618 Broadway E and decided to open a Penny Lane store closer to home. Opened in the summer of 1984, the store was later renamed Orpheum Records in “tribute to the demolished theater and an allusion to Orpheus, the legendary musician in Greek mythology,” Bonifaci explained. “I ran the place, and my wife, Barbara Baker, did the office stuff, including the books. We employed her brother, Ashley, as a manager.”
For nearly 20 years, Orpheum Records served shifting musical tastes—from 1980s new wave to 1990s grunge—and hosted countless in-store performances and record signings.
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain shopped at Orpheum Records. “Every rock star would at least stop through, but Cobain was a regular,” one former employee told Seattle Weekly. “He would come up and be like, ‘What’s new, man? What can you show me?’ At the time, that was like absolute, utter heaven. I was like, ‘You’re asking me?’” In 1992, Cobain and his wife, Courtney Love, stopped by the store, with Love incensed by all the Nirvana bootlegs for sale. She left a terse note for Orpheum employees: “I need for you not to make extra money off my husband so I can feed my children. Mrs. Cobain.” Cobain scrawled his own message: “Macaroni and cheese for all. Love, Kurdt Kobain.”
“I was at home when the counterperson called asking for my permission to simply give Courtney the Nirvana bootlegs,” Bonifaci explained when asked about that note. “People who claim their issue with bootlegs is the financial harm inflicted on artists are off base. Buyers are the very definition of fanatics, typically already owning every last bit of the available licensed material out there. Maybe Kurt agreed, scribbling [his] postscript at the bottom.”
Bonifaci added, “The funny part was that he was in there searching for a particular Negativland album the label had officially recalled due to some legal kerfuffle—in other words, contraband. And, no, we didn’t have any on hand.”
Orpheum Records closed in 2003. Today, the restaurant Lionhead occupies the space.
