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Watch a Young Kurt Cobain Play With Plasma Globes at Radio Shack

Yesterday, on what would’ve been Kurt Cobain’s 50th birthday, video archivist Mike Ziegler published a previously unreleased video of the Nirvana frontman playing with three plasma globes at a Radio Shack in Aberdeen, WA during what appears to be some sort of photo or video shoot. According to Ziegler, the clip was filmed on January 24th, 1988, the day after Nirvana–then known as Ted Ed Fred–recorded their first demo in Seattle.

The video, which is really only for the most diehard of Nirvana fans, shows Cobain walking into a darkened closet or storeroom, where he sits in front of three plasma globes. He then receives direction from someone off camera “to start doing some shit like you’re receiving serious doses of energy…just wig out on them.” Cobain proceeds to bow his head and wave his hands across the globes; later, he raises his arms up and down as if he’s praying to the balls of static electricity. It’s unclear if the footage was ever used.

Watch the clip, which appears to have been filmed the same day as this performance, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKXTLQXE1ww