The Kurt Cobain-decorated Melvan is the archetypal tour van, in all its filthy charm.
wrenches the column shifter, and the van rolls drowsily out of suburbia. The singer farts and yells, “Window!” The bass player groans. A Fritos bag rustles. Black Flag rages on a boombox. The pedal drops. The engine wheezes. The highway opens up.This story originally appeared in Volume 15 of Road & Track.
Dodge vans have always been simple, almost-reliable transportation, whether taking a band to a gig or shuttling travelers to the airport.Aging tour vans supported young outfits that flamed out after a few gigs and those that launched the careers of legends. They helped put tiny music venues on the map—like O’Cayz Corral in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights, Ohio—and provided a moving platform for hardworking bands lacking chart success to sustain over time.
These days, the Melvins crisscross the U.S. mostly in Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, according to drummer Dale Crover, but they started out in a two-tone 1972 Dodge Royal Sportsman once owned by singer and guitarist Buzz Osborne. Dubbed “the Melvan,” it hauled the band to gigs around central Washington, sometimes with a friend named Kurt Cobain at the wheel, and on the Melvins’ first nationwide tour in 1986.
The Cobain connection made headlines in 2012, when the van’s then owner put the Melvan up for auction. According to provenance, Cobain had used a Sharpie to sketch portraits of the members of Kiss in full Seventies-era makeup on the van’s side, making it an artifact in his deeply examined rise from Aberdeen punk kid to immortal rock god.
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