Twenty years ago tonight, Nirvana took the stage at the OK Hotel in Seattle, Wash., and played ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in concert for the first time — debuting a song that would, in just a few months time, alter the course of popular music and drag much of the ’80s indie underground into the mainstream.

The fabled rock documentary ‘1991: The Year Punk Broke’ — chronicling Sonic Youth’s tour of Europe with opening act Nirvana — finally will be released on DVD this fall in a special 20th anniversary edition featuring 42 minutes of bonus performances and other material.

There’s less than a week left before that holiest of holy days for vinyl junkies: Record Store Day 2011, which, this year, will see special releases in the U.S. and the U.K. by R.E.M., The Smiths, New Order and Joy Division, Kate Bush, Sonic Youth and many more.

The Vaselines made their American TV debut last night, playing the title track to their new album, ‘Sex With an X,’ on ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,’ as well as a web-only performance of ‘Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,’ the song made famous by Nirvana’s ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ cover version.

Late-’70s Los Angeles punk outfit The Germs’ final performance with original frontman Darby Crash — recorded just four days before the singer’s suicide via heroin overdose — will be released on CD next month for the first time.

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  Sub Pop Records began taking pre-orders today for the 20th anniversary deluxe reissue of Nirvana’s 1989 debut Bleach as Pitchfork offered up the first […]