20 Years

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the recording of Nirvana's Unplugged performance

Nirvana on Ice

I've got nothing against figure skating, OK? I might even admit to liking it as a spectator sport. And I certainly have nothing against U.S. skater Scott Williams. But this . . [weeps] . . . this . . is a MONSTROSITY. Why Scott? Why?



To make things worse, it's not even a cover, which I think would be slightly kosher, it's the actual album version. Therefore *someone* gave permission to use it, which means I have one more f*ing reason to hate Courtney Love.

Kurt Cobain

With yesterday being Easter and all, I figured it wasn't the right time to go ahead and post a tribute to a guy who committed suicide (officially at least).

Anyway, here's a link to an article I wrote in '05 about Kurt.

To quote my '06 entry:  The tribute I wrote last year [2005] strikes me as a little too dramatic and formulaic in retrospect, but the sentiment holds true [and what I wrote in the comments sections is some writing I'm pretty proud of, imho]

RIP Kurt

Tags: Cobain, Nirvana, Grunge

Kurt Cobain

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the (estimated) death of Kurt Cobain. The tribute I wrote last year strikes me as a little too dramatic and formulaic in retrospect, but the sentiment holds true [and what I wrote in the comments sections is some writing I'm pretty proud of, imho]

It's been generating some comments lately, so feel free to give it a read if you like.

BTW - anybody else catch the recent news that Courtney has sold off a large share of the rights to Kurt's work? Always the opportunist . . look, let me be blunt: take a look at the website on the pic above, and tell me she didn't have something to do with his death. Maybe she didn't murder him, but she knows more than she's let on. Take a listen to the genuine (candid) audio tapes that reveal her duplicity and judge for yourself.

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The Post about Kurt Cobain April 5th - 11 years later

Eleven years ago today - as best the medical examiner could determine - Kurt Donald Cobain died.

His death was officially recorded as a suicide, and despite great efforts to prove otherwise, it probably was.

[Yet questions remain. Not the least of them how a man injects a dose of heroin large enough to kill instantaneously, yet still finds the time and strength to roll down and button his sleeve, store his paraphernalia, and pick up and use a shotgun]

Whatever the method, his death was a tragedy.

A tragedy for his infant daughter, who has spent her life spinning memories of her father from what she sees and reads about his career.

A tragedy for his fans, who were denied the gift of his talent -and the dozens who mourned his death by following in his footsteps.

And a tragedy for Kurt himself, whose memory and music are now horribly intertwined with a macabre death.

That quite frankly, is obscene.

Obscene because everything you see and hear about Kurt and Nirvana is viewed through the lens of his death. People refuse to think of him as anything but a character in an art house movie, where every scene and every line of dialog has to foreshadow the end:

• MTV turned Unplugged in New York into a funeral dirge when the station played it endlessly after his death.

Never mind that it was one of the most innovative and enjoyable concerts of the series.

• Biographies of the band read like psychology texts, probing and engorging any event for a clue to the suicide.
• The lyrics are dissected and robbed of context. Why? to find a line that has no literal connection to what occurred, but which proves too tasty a quote for some authors to ignore.

Enough.

Go fire up your stereo and listen to Nevermind, their breakthrough album that knocked Michael Jackson from the #1 slot and ended the reign of Michael Bolton and New Kids on the Block.*

Tell me On a Plain, Lithium, or God forbid Smells Like Teen Spirit are anything but joyous anthems of Generation X.

Or their follow up album In Utero: darker, with less concession to commercial demands, but rife with memorable hooks. From the opening notes of Heart Shaped Box to the relentless attack of Scentless Apprentice, this was not the work of a man who had given up hope and abandoned what was important to him.

Of course Nirvana wasn't the The Judds, and not every song was suitable for a child's birthday party.

But I often wonder how much of that was Kurt just living up to his billing. For a man who allegedly hated the limelight, he certainly sought it out enough. He seemed to recognize this contradiction in himself:

Teenage angst has paid off well

but now I'm bored and old . . .

It may be hypocritical, given that I'm choosing to honor him on the annniversary of his death, but I prefer to forget how it ended and concentrate on the things that made me love his music in the first place.

Ear shattering drums that made your speakers quake. Bass lines that refused to quietly submit to a subordinate role, and in fact led the charge on most songs. Guitar that could be manic one second and controlled and subtle the next, with solos that were truly part of a song, not an excuse to write one. Vocals that were raw emotion, with lyrics that gained their strength and context as they wrapped themselves around the music.

That was Nirvana.

And that was Kurt Cobain.

 

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*long time readers will know what a bittersweet,double-edged sword it is to say that