"You won't catch me crying over Kurt Cobain," he told me 15 years ago this week, lingering on the words "Kurt Cobain," his voice dripping with a disdain for anyone who might feel sympathy for the emotionally tortured rocker who had just killed himself. His coldness took me aback.
If this had been some conservative crank on the opposite side of the culture wars, perhaps it wouldn't have made as much of an impression. But the fellow who made this statement was a prominent member of the Seattle hipster intelligentsia who owed much of his success to the Grunge music movement, if not indirectly to Cobain himself.
This kind of reaction to the Nirvana frontman's suicide was, to say the least, atypical. On April 8, 1994, a dreariness darker than the usual cloud-cover fell over the Seattle music scene. People reacted with sadness, anger, hyper-devotion. Cooler-than-thou types were suddenly prone to open displays of remorse.
Cobain's death wasn't just the loss of a talented musician, although that was part of it. Depending on who you asked, Kurt symbolized Generation X, the Grunge music movement, the Alternative Nation, even Seattle itself.
Perhaps what he symbolized most was success with integrity. He was authentic. Of all the Sub-Pop "losers" (as the label's fans proudly called themselves back in the day), he was the winner. He conquered the world without compromising.
It's human nature to project ourselves onto larger-than-life figures we admire. If you valued Cobain's principled talent, it would be hard not to be affected by the fact that despite all his success he was still driven to blow his brains out.
I moved to Seattle in 1991; the Emerald City was a mecca for creative, open-minded twentysomethings and, in retrospect, it felt like what I can only imagine Haight-Ashbury must have felt like in the sixties (albeit with more rain, gloomier music and flannel instead of tie-dye).
Hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (from "local band Nirvana") debut on Seattle radio didn't bowl me over on first listen. I was so not a Nirvana fan that when I heard they were performing a free Nevermind record-release gig at a Beehive store just two blocks away I blew it off. (I regretted that one almost instantly. But just this week I discovered the gig lives on YouTube. I'm not sure if finally being able to see it 17 years later made me feel better or worse.)
As Nirvana broke, the national media swooped into Seattle, creating, at times, a circus-like atmosphere (the whole thing is captured for posterity in the documentary film "Hype!"). Just a twenty-four year-old fresh from Minnesota, I had never experienced anything like it.
And I didn't again until 1994, when a second wave of national attention hit the Pacific Northwest. Only this time the media swooping in felt like vultures, back to pick at the bones of the monster phenomenon they helped create.
In 1995, I left Seattle for New York City, where I live today. Media sensationalism and exploitation is part of everyday life. And after watching the twin towers fall from my window, and eight years of George W. Bush, it's hard to conjure up the same kind of passionate emotion about Kurt Cobain's death that I felt 15 years ago.
There's a strange paradox: we know that rock stars lose their magic as they age past their prime. Yet we can't stop fantasizing about what died-in-their-prime rock stars would have accomplished if only they'd lived a full life.
Reflecting on all this inspired me to create a cartoon imagining what could have been for the Village Voice. Please check out, "In Bloom: The Alternate History of Kurt Cobain" at:
And if you're interested in seeing some of my Kurt Cobain-related cartoons from back in those heady and tragic days of 1990s Seattle, please visit my facebook artist page.
The Cobain Memorial: Welcome to Cobain.com
After 15 years, Kurt Cobain’s light still shines - Music- msnbc.com
When Nirvana and the other great Seattle bands came along, they helped usher in a D-Y-I era where you didn't need an enormous glitz machine and larger than life pyrotechnics with thousands of cans of flashy lights, you just needed the music and a few people who wanted to hear it. This is the real legacy of Kurt Cobain and the grunge era. Musically, fell back down to earth and made the dream of performing live a reality for a lot of young people who felt it had been out of reach.
The story of Kurt Cobain isn't new, it's the struggle between "indie cred" & acknowledging you have enough talent to be a "rock star". Between fame, expectations, drugs, wife, and the marketing machine, he just lost control of his own future. And he made a mistake.
He earned what was his after a crappy upbringing & living in a hopeless town. These days, rich & plastic alike just get on MySpace & promote single-serving downloads they didn't even write themselves. I still find new music to buy on a weekly basis, but very few these days have the spark & charisma Kurt did. You need to step away from the whole grunge tag & just take him for who he was, a Kiss fan who stayed in his room all day fiddling with a guitar, hoping of making it big someday.
Cobain and company really meant it when they played.
Cobain was a real artist, and suffered like real artists. Most artists seem to go through the usual stuff (crappy upbringing, hopeless town, misunderstood by most, if not all), and even when they make it, they're still scarred. Fame doesn't relieve the pain of being an artist, sometimes it can increase it.
Still, In Utero (and Nevermind, even though I prefer In Utero) will last forever.
Having been an avid listener in late 1980s of bands like Husker Du, The Meat Puppets, The Replacements, Red Hott Chilli Peppers, and Jane's Addiction - The breakthrough of Nirvana was welcome end to the era of the Hair-band.
Artists like Cobain, and Shannon Hoon (Blind Mellon) killed by their own hands were tragic losses to their families. However, the 'artistic' are often also very troubled people and should never be lifted onto some pedestal.
But there are a handful of songs that Kurt wrote that will always be among my favourites -- "Teen Spirit" was one, "Heart-Shaped Box" was another and the video to the latter still gives me the chills when I look out of the camera into Kurt's eyes and see the honest desperation there. In a Rolling Stone interview shortly before his death, Kurt complained that people saw him as "this pissy whiner who always wants to kill himself" -- he said that wasn't true. Then he killed himself.
When he died, my dominant emotion was anger. He represented a movement that I felt intimately connected to, and with his death, I felt that movement was coming to an end. I still miss it and I wish he'd lived on. Maybe then grunge would've morphed into something more worthwhile than just the inspiration for 'Nickelback' and their ilk ...
What was worse was the further pain that would have been inflicted on Kurt if he had been able to see what was done with his legacy. Every kind of rip-off came into the picture like predators. Ludicrous books and films saturated the market, most notably with absurd murder theories. His family was trashed and Courtney was subjected to the same kind of abuse that was imposed on Yoko from the lowest forms of life.
Kurt did maintain his integrity throughout his professional life. It was sad not only to lose an icon, but also a genuine human with so much potential. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
But wow - 15 years ago. A shame that he could never reach his full true potential - because they were just that good!
Certainly, there's a lot of mediocre garbage out there, but you don't have to dig too deep to discover something interesting.
I'm guessing that since you're still spending all that money on music every month, you must still be finding some bands that appeal to you? Or are you simply stocking up on oldies?
(And here are some "old" people putting out great music: Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Tom Waits.)
Few bands from Nirvana's cadre made it too far past the age of grunge, but Dave Grohl's done quite well with the Foo Fighters. Perhaps Curt could have evolved with the times as well. I, for one, miss Curt and Nirvana.
"Grunge" was just another marketed fad like "High School Musical" is today.
It may have been co-opted by the marketing machine, but here in Seattle it was the real deal.
It was a musical response to and rejection of everything that the 80s did to music.
It was boiled down, simple, human and unpretentious.
And it rocked.
Also, it's not strange that hamburgers don't contain ham, since "hamburger" doesn't mean "burger made of ham," but rather "someone or something from the town of Hamburg."
Oh wait... This is a human interest story.
Uh, no. Some rock stars manage to have lasting careers, reinventing themselves quite admirably. Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are two such performers. Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed as well. And they still have the magic/passion their whole lives.
Many rock stars become jokes/dinosaurs because of all the partying/celebrity aspects of the business, but not all of them.
Ultimately, it's just a matter of taste I guess.
Where this story is concerned... It's impossible to tell. Death tends to immortalize. Marilyn Monroe had no noticeable talent (except her looks) whatsoever, but folks are still talking about her.
Look at other guys from the Seattle scene who are still alive. There's no particularly good reason to believe his career would have been any better in the long run.
It has been since 2003 since his last studio album (Reality - a damned fine album), but he still remains relevant.
In Utero is a masterpiece.