I should probably comment on the Kurt thing seeing as how this is (primarily) a music blog.
Kurt Cobain’s Lasting Impact
Check out Black Table for some insightful (and some not-so-insightful) recollections from real writers. Also Wil Wheaton’s contribution which unfortunately did not make the cut.
The Original Steve Albini In Utero Mix
“Rape Me” and “Pennyroyal Tea” MP3s at Slatch
What’s Her Name…
Stereogum, while not a Hole fan, will forever love Courtney for her rock ‘n’ roll antics. I was dismayed to see a piece (hosted by Matt Lauer no less) on Dateline this weekend about Courtney’s “role” in Kurt’s suicide. It was tabloid journalism at its worst and incredibly irresponsible. Nice to see Patty Schemel sticking up for her, though: “People want to create someone to blame for what happened and so they’re pointing their finger at Courtney.”
Frances Bean
Looks just like dad:
There’s a crazy number of Websites with the sole intention of preaching to her. Let’s hope she’s not in the habit of self-Googling. Or heroin. No self-Googling or heroin, OK Frances?
Sub Pop
Commercial! Resurgence!
Little Drummer Boy
Also must say how impressed I am with Dave Grohl — basically everything with which he’s been involved since … how he’s handled his former band’s legacy, the great music he’s created, and having a sense of humor through it all.
Sorry I’ve got no baby photos of Kris.
I wonder if I can convince my dad to play MTV Unplugged during tomorrow night’s seder. Though I know he’d totally stick in Ron Sexsmith when the Meat Puppets join in.
In 1994, I was not a huge Nirvana fan (you want me to be honest, don’t you?). But I do remember vividly the day he died … getting home from school, seeing Kurt Loder and David Fricke trying to make sense of it all on live MTV … regretting never seeing the band in concert. What were you doing ten years ago today?
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In 1994, i was 14 and probably the biggest Nirvana fan on the planet. Nirvana made me discover rock n roll and punk rock and i faked sick from school that day, and i remember i was watching Muchmusic (im canadian) and it came on and i couldn`t believe it, i actually cried over a man i didn`t know but who touched my life so much that it brought me to tears. My love for the band has kind`ve dissolved over the years but i still put on their music from time to time.
I wasn’t the biggest fan either. Only a sophmore in high school, I remember being in the cafeteria and all the popular girls were crying. There were also the small groups of superfan girls who wore thrift-store cardigans and dyed their hair and scribbled in their journals and took the week off from school when he died, but I was only marginally associated with them. I was too busy saying that Nirvana wasn’t punk. Oh well. How times change.
for what ended up being nirvana’s last US tour, i pleaded with my dad to let me see them, but it was on a tuesday and he said i couldn’t go on a school night. and, of course, i could “see them the next time.” i still get upset when i think about the arguments we had over it. everything i said was trumped by “no, it’s a school night.”
i have a vague mental image of being in my freshman year dorm room when i heard or read or saw the news, but i don’t remember being shocked by it. i mean, he had tried to kill himself or almost OD’d or something like a month before, right? i was never a huge fan, and i never understood how his death resonated with people on such a Kennedy Assassination level. it was unfortunate, i remember feeling sorry for his kid, but i wasn’t shaken by it personally. i can’t even remember if it was an overdose or suicide.
I was 16 when Kurt’s body was found. I remember riding with my dad in the car to the library and the news was on the radio. Then I remember going home – I didn’t have MTV – and watching TV and wanting desperately for someone to talk about it. The only person who even mentioned it, outside of newscasts, was Shannon Hoon, whose band Blind Melon played on Letterman that night. He dedicated his band’s song “Change” to Cobain, with a scrawled question mark on his forehead. It was a powerful performance of an underrated song, and the real beginning of a terrible, terrible summer.
I was in Seattle praying that the young males body that was found was not that of my brothers, who incidently was Kurt’s friend. My brother was a Meth head and Kurt was Herion chic….both my Mother and Wendy (Kurt’s mother and a high school classmate of my mothers) spent a great deal of time praying that their sons would get their shit together, after hearing of Kurts death my brother went over the edge and after taking a chainsaw to his bass he disappeared.
I went to the memorial at the Seattle Center, I just couldn’t comprehend why all this was happening. I wandered around thousands who felt the same way same way I did, and late in the afternoon Courtney showed up in her jammies to hang with us few lingering fans, the pain in her eyes and voice was too much to bare, so I left with the candle some stranger gave me and I still have today. On my way home, I went to Tower Records and bought Hole’s album, my heart aching and still questioning why. At home I proceeded to get shitfaced, I lit my candle and listened to “Live through this” and all my Nirvana CD’s I was all cried out or until I passed out, its fuzzy, lol.
My brother is alive, well and Sober. Kurt is still a very touchy subject with him. Seattle in the early to mid ninties was a brilliant place to be, but the loss of Kurt and rampant Herion bullshit got old and so did I. I live in the burbs now, but I thank God he gave us Kurt for the few short years he did.
I am in Cali and i remember that Tom Leykis broke the story here. It was all speculative at the beginning, journalists wondering if the body was indeed Kurt, and then the jolting news.
Of course his problems with heroin were already in the pop culture and so this incredibly sad tragic death was not so surprising. What an incredible waste. I loved his songwriting sensibility and the whole power trio thing done up alternatively. And god, that sweet voice that was so raspily powerful but at the same time pure that would border on the verge of a kind of punk yodel or country twang.
I remember seeing him on Mtv and remarking on the Beatles incredible growth form Meet the Beatles to Sargent Pepper and how he wanted to have that happen to his musical outlook, and i think he would of and maybe in that discovery he may of even been able to beat back the heroin demons.
His death has created an industry that is fueled by conspiracy theories and it is a shame that his 10 year anniversary has stirred up more of the same. If you ask my humble opinion, the Charles Cross book, Heavier than Heaven is the definative book on Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love and Nirvana but mostly Kurt. I highly recommend it. It stuck with me so much after I read it that I even wrote a dark song about Kurt’s “love affair” with heroin. It starts…..
black reflection
in my azure day
heart collapses
like paper mache’
and you fill me up
take away the shakes
and you love me like a hooker, like a mother, like a fiend
in the fringe, syringe
I have real mixed emotions as to why he killed himself and of course, no one will ultimately know why. Part of me really thinks that him trying to get off of heroin may of pushed him off that cliff, that maybe he was one of those who needed to be a semi functioning addict on various heroin like chemicals. Or maybe, it was a deep sadness and he was destined to take his life…. he certainly had thought about it since he was a child. And maybe, according to him, his life had run it’s course, maybe he just felt he had to go for some reason.
Whatever the reason, I know that his artistry will surely be missed, I will always wonder what songs may of been.
that day..
“am I going to get laid off today?”
“how am I going to come up with rent?”
“oh look, some ‘punk’ rockstar killed himself”
“I miss gg allin”
[bong hit]
“why wont jerry garcia die?”
roughly in that order
“am I going to get laid off today?”
“how am I going to come up with rent?”
these are probably in direct relation to
[bong hit]
10 years ago today:
i was 18. not much of a nirvana fan anymore around the time he killed himself. i know that i was upset, but not surprised. when i ran into courtney a year or two later i didn’t see a widow…i saw a ladder climber and i hated her instantly.
It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. Dave Grohl’s horse face hasn’t changed one bit. — I was at a music store when the news broke of Kurt, and I bought a bootleg Nirvana 7″ in memoriam. A few years later, I sold it on eBay for five times what I paid. Sorry, it just wasn’t a very good bootleg.
i think if it was 10 years ago and i had a blog then, i would be posting about cobain all week and set my template colors to all black.
(jay, are we related)
“that day..
“am I going to get laid off today?”
“how am I going to come up with rent?”
“oh look, some ‘punk’ rockstar killed himself”
“I miss gg allin”
[bong hit]
“why wont jerry garcia die?”
roughly in that order”
you are a tool.
>you are a tool
Way to raise the bar, kid.
heyyy!!!
dave grohl is so cute!!! haha
may_ff_333@hotmail.com