I think that was ONE of the appeals to Cobain. We knew him, and many of us WERE him... I feel like he had little interest in those that wanted to BE him. He wrote and sang to us, for us. But at the end of the day, it was all too much. And it proves to the nth degree that we never know the demons that people are battling. All day, every day, we're all doing the best we can at that specific moment, demons be damned. If you see someone really struggling with something, one cashier at the supermarket, a long wait at a restaurant, or whatever it is, remember that. If you're up to it, tell them that you see it and that they're doing a good job. It quite literally could be the difference between life and death.
How different the world would be if Kurt had just hung around long enough to go with the recently sober Duff McKagen.
The first time I heard Nirvana, I thought: this is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. This was the perfect anti-societal expression of angst at the perfect time for teenage me.
Two things I remember about my introduction to Nirvana:
- Doing laundry in some town in (recently reunified) Germany while backpacking Europe, and wandering the streets when I found a record store with Nevermind covers plastered all over the windows. It didn't look at all out of place in Germany, but it was still arresting. Didn't hear any of the music though. This was probably October of 1991.
- At home that Christmas, I had MuchMusic (MTV equivalent in Canada) on in the rec room. My bedroom was also in the basement, and I distinctly remember "Smells Like Teen Spirit" start just as I was about to walk into my bedroom door. The song grabbed me, and I stood there watching the video. This very, very rarely happens. I need to hear a song several times until I become obsessed. But I was transfixed.
I never was huge into Nirvana, other than that song. I do *like* the album, but I've never *loved* it.
The thing I remember about the end of grunge is that the music press (including MuchMusic and probably MTV, etc.) were already waiting for the next big thing. I had the sense that the music journalists wanted to be talking about something else and had already moved on, emotionally at least. But they had to keep writing about this beast. Cobain's death put a cap on it. An end date.
I've since searched, but I never saw anyone else write about that feeling, so maybe it was just me. Or maybe, like so many things, the myth was told so many times that the truth got buried. If rock journalists weren't going to talk about wanting grunge to end *before* Cobain's death, they certainly weren't going to talk about it after.
In any case, do you remember any of that, Kevin?
I have a much bigger appreciation for Cobain and Nirvana in general now (though I still wouldn't classify it as "love"). Their episode on Classic Albums is eye-opening as to how nuanced that "grungy" album actually is. I also have much more sympathy for Cobain and the band during that period. But that's not hard, going from a 20-something boy to a 50-something (let's face it) boy. It was a sad day, -- a sad week, since it took several days to go from "missing" to "found dead" -- but it was a galvanizing day as well. A JFK moment for Gen-Xers: where were you when...? And, perhaps, an end of childhood for many of us. I got married a few months later, which doesn't automatically turn you into an adult, but is certainly a shove in that direction.
Thanks for this, Graham! I think that "stop you in your tracks" feeling is something many of us can relate to when it comes to this band.
I do remember the feeling of grunge being "over," whether that was a media thing or just a general shift in music interest. I know in my own little circle, we were already looking at other artists/genres. It felt like a moment that had passed, with a lot of bands/fans alike ready to move on. With that said, I wonder what Nirvana and/or Cobain would've done next? We'll never know, of ocurse, but it is interesting to think about.
So hard to fathom Cobain has been gone longer than he was alive. I turned 20 years old April 6, 1994 and at the time I had spent the better part of two years playing in a band that toured up and down the east coast. We played every bar, theatre and festival we could land on. I had been living out of a van and sleeping on couches of anybody that cared to assist an "up and coming" act. We had a song that charted in the college radio top 5 and major label interest with a strong management team.
A highlight for us had come a few months earlier when we met and chatted up Dave Grohl at a gig we played at a bar called Mexicano's in Nags Head, NC. Dave was on a break from Nirvana staying in Nags Head visiting his sister that lived there and he showed up at the venue that night. If I remember correctly, Dave knew the bar's owner and was helping him out by working the door, but the news was flying around that the drummer for Nirvana was there.
Our singer, Troy, who was often mistaken for Lenny Kravitz, chatted up Dave and they talked music and whatever else was going on at the time. Troy was trying his hardest to get us an "in" with Dave and the band's management, and maybe we could get on some opening dates with the band. It was a long shot, but things happen. Months earlier we had worked a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" into our set and we were buzzing with excitement that we had the chance to play it for Dave that night, and maybe that would be the deal clincher.
Dave was gone long before we played our final note, and we're not sure he ever heard us attempt his band's radio hit. Probably best he left before he heard it.
Just a few months later Cobain would be gone. We heard the news over the radio in the van on our way to a show in Florida. We took "Teen Spirit" off the set list that night and never played it again. We had lost one of our own.
30 years later my 16 year old daughter is discovering Nirvana. She's watched the documentary, YouTube clips of the band performing and has discussed with me what she likes/dislikes about their music and body of work. Much like Cobain inspiring so many to pick up a guitar and start scratching out lyrics and chords, Nirvana's music, as a whole, has helped inspire my daughter to pick up the drumsticks again after not playing for a few years.
30 years later Cobain's music and legacy lives on. If there's a silver lining to his tragic passing it's that he has helped create more musicians, and continues to do so.
I love this.I could honestly listen to stories like this all day long! And I think you're right about that silver lining; I use the term "your favorite band's favorite band" a lot, but in this case, I really do think each of them inspired a generation of musicians in their wake.
Thanks for this trip down one helluva memory lane. I remember when Kurt n crew blew the doors off MTV Unplugged. Looking back it feels like April 5th also brought a movement to a screeching halt. I know the fight lived on in Gen X but perhaps not with the same fervor(?) Pearl Jam took on mighty Ticketmaster and had some success. Those were the days…
They were indeed! I mentioned it upthread, but I think you're right; there something bigger that died that day. I've never been able to articulate it very well, but it just felt like a lot of the wind had been taken out of our (collective )sails.
In the early 90's I was not really paying too much attention to the music scene. My priorities had shifted and pop music had become too formulaic and too shiny. But when Nirvana broke into the mainstream, I distinctly remember thinking, or more correctly, feeling "This is what we needed. Finally! Rock musicians wearing jeans and t-shirts and just thrashing their instruments." It felt seismic and it felt good.
As for Kurt, I remember him as one of the great rock poets, on Mount Rushmore with Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Gord Downie. Kurt's death still brings sadness, even after 30 years.
He definitely warrants a spot on the musical Mt. Rushmore. And they were the perfect antidote for what was on the charts at the time. In the link below, Matt Mardurski notes that when Nirvana was topping the MRT charts, Michael Bolton was #1 on the Hot 100. Oof.
No one else could have fronted Nirvana because no one else could have written songs that were remotely like Kurt's songs. He was a unique voice if there ever was one
They did actually have a song called "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die," it was on the compilation album The Beavis and Butthead Experience. Great song. This is the first I've ever heard of the Lou Gramm rumor, but then I was about to turn 12 when he died, and at that point I was mostly listening to recent pop music so I had only heard Teen Spirit and Come as You Are. As young and immature as I was, Nirvana was the first band to teach me (around age 14, after he was gone and I was already listening to Foo Fighters) that good music is good music, even if it's not a brand new release, even if it's "old." And they were the first band that made me want to find everything they'd ever done so I could hear it all.
"We literally told musicians not to sell out, and they obliged, which somehow made them even more popular. That dissonance had to be maddening." Super insightful comment. The reverberation of "not selling out" continues to run through my way of seeing the world. I will never be able to escape its influence, even as I browse a stack of Nirvana shirts at my local Walmart (this is meant to speak to my own personal contradictions). Great read. Thanks for sharing.
Also, ...
Top Five, in no particular ranking, I know exactly where I was when:
1) Challenger Blowing up (school -- some students watched live)
2) Magic press conference on having HIV (dorm lounge -- entire track team stopped practice and crowded in)
3) Kurt Cobain's body being discovered (team van radio)
4) 9/11 -- teaching sophomore English
5) Michael Jackson dies (car radio -- wondering why so many stations are playing his songs, not knowing it is a tribute moment)
It still colors a lot of the way I see the world too, even now that I have the benefit of hindsight & (I hope) added wisdom. Old habits die hard, I guess.
And that Top 5! I can explicitly remember where I was for each of those as well. Working for an airline on 9/11 was...something you don't forget.
The word 'unique' gets abused in our discourse, but Kurt's songwriting was unique if anyone ever was. Who else ever wrote a song where you're thinking "hmmmm is that Nirvana?" You know immediately when its Nirvana.
Agreed. In this case, unique is a great descriptor. I'm also grateful (another incredibly overused term) to have been around when he was alive and the band was active.
Can’t believe Kurt’s passing was 30 years ago. I just wrote an article about it from a one-man band and mental health perspectives. I also recommend your article in it! If it’s okay, please check it out when you have the time:
This is very insightful, Kevin! I mean, I only found Nirvana after Kurt had already died... and even then, I felt like I knew him. Thank you for writing this!
I think that was ONE of the appeals to Cobain. We knew him, and many of us WERE him... I feel like he had little interest in those that wanted to BE him. He wrote and sang to us, for us. But at the end of the day, it was all too much. And it proves to the nth degree that we never know the demons that people are battling. All day, every day, we're all doing the best we can at that specific moment, demons be damned. If you see someone really struggling with something, one cashier at the supermarket, a long wait at a restaurant, or whatever it is, remember that. If you're up to it, tell them that you see it and that they're doing a good job. It quite literally could be the difference between life and death.
How different the world would be if Kurt had just hung around long enough to go with the recently sober Duff McKagen.
Thanks for this Kevin.
You nailed it--especially the part about a little kindenss going a really long way.
I can't believe it's been 30 years.
The first time I heard Nirvana, I thought: this is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. This was the perfect anti-societal expression of angst at the perfect time for teenage me.
Same here. They ripped into the opening of 'Negative Creep' at a show, and it was like a kick to the head. Exactly what I needed at the time.
I was way too uncool to go to shows back then, unless it was like a comic book convention.
Two things I remember about my introduction to Nirvana:
- Doing laundry in some town in (recently reunified) Germany while backpacking Europe, and wandering the streets when I found a record store with Nevermind covers plastered all over the windows. It didn't look at all out of place in Germany, but it was still arresting. Didn't hear any of the music though. This was probably October of 1991.
- At home that Christmas, I had MuchMusic (MTV equivalent in Canada) on in the rec room. My bedroom was also in the basement, and I distinctly remember "Smells Like Teen Spirit" start just as I was about to walk into my bedroom door. The song grabbed me, and I stood there watching the video. This very, very rarely happens. I need to hear a song several times until I become obsessed. But I was transfixed.
I never was huge into Nirvana, other than that song. I do *like* the album, but I've never *loved* it.
The thing I remember about the end of grunge is that the music press (including MuchMusic and probably MTV, etc.) were already waiting for the next big thing. I had the sense that the music journalists wanted to be talking about something else and had already moved on, emotionally at least. But they had to keep writing about this beast. Cobain's death put a cap on it. An end date.
I've since searched, but I never saw anyone else write about that feeling, so maybe it was just me. Or maybe, like so many things, the myth was told so many times that the truth got buried. If rock journalists weren't going to talk about wanting grunge to end *before* Cobain's death, they certainly weren't going to talk about it after.
In any case, do you remember any of that, Kevin?
I have a much bigger appreciation for Cobain and Nirvana in general now (though I still wouldn't classify it as "love"). Their episode on Classic Albums is eye-opening as to how nuanced that "grungy" album actually is. I also have much more sympathy for Cobain and the band during that period. But that's not hard, going from a 20-something boy to a 50-something (let's face it) boy. It was a sad day, -- a sad week, since it took several days to go from "missing" to "found dead" -- but it was a galvanizing day as well. A JFK moment for Gen-Xers: where were you when...? And, perhaps, an end of childhood for many of us. I got married a few months later, which doesn't automatically turn you into an adult, but is certainly a shove in that direction.
Great insights here, Kevin. You nailed it.
Thanks for this, Graham! I think that "stop you in your tracks" feeling is something many of us can relate to when it comes to this band.
I do remember the feeling of grunge being "over," whether that was a media thing or just a general shift in music interest. I know in my own little circle, we were already looking at other artists/genres. It felt like a moment that had passed, with a lot of bands/fans alike ready to move on. With that said, I wonder what Nirvana and/or Cobain would've done next? We'll never know, of ocurse, but it is interesting to think about.
Good point! Dave Grohl went on to do some great things, so there's no reason to think Nirvana wouldn't have found new avenues.
THIRTY years? And yet it still seems so recent.
Sure does feel like “yesterday”.
Right?!
So hard to fathom Cobain has been gone longer than he was alive. I turned 20 years old April 6, 1994 and at the time I had spent the better part of two years playing in a band that toured up and down the east coast. We played every bar, theatre and festival we could land on. I had been living out of a van and sleeping on couches of anybody that cared to assist an "up and coming" act. We had a song that charted in the college radio top 5 and major label interest with a strong management team.
A highlight for us had come a few months earlier when we met and chatted up Dave Grohl at a gig we played at a bar called Mexicano's in Nags Head, NC. Dave was on a break from Nirvana staying in Nags Head visiting his sister that lived there and he showed up at the venue that night. If I remember correctly, Dave knew the bar's owner and was helping him out by working the door, but the news was flying around that the drummer for Nirvana was there.
Our singer, Troy, who was often mistaken for Lenny Kravitz, chatted up Dave and they talked music and whatever else was going on at the time. Troy was trying his hardest to get us an "in" with Dave and the band's management, and maybe we could get on some opening dates with the band. It was a long shot, but things happen. Months earlier we had worked a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" into our set and we were buzzing with excitement that we had the chance to play it for Dave that night, and maybe that would be the deal clincher.
Dave was gone long before we played our final note, and we're not sure he ever heard us attempt his band's radio hit. Probably best he left before he heard it.
Just a few months later Cobain would be gone. We heard the news over the radio in the van on our way to a show in Florida. We took "Teen Spirit" off the set list that night and never played it again. We had lost one of our own.
30 years later my 16 year old daughter is discovering Nirvana. She's watched the documentary, YouTube clips of the band performing and has discussed with me what she likes/dislikes about their music and body of work. Much like Cobain inspiring so many to pick up a guitar and start scratching out lyrics and chords, Nirvana's music, as a whole, has helped inspire my daughter to pick up the drumsticks again after not playing for a few years.
30 years later Cobain's music and legacy lives on. If there's a silver lining to his tragic passing it's that he has helped create more musicians, and continues to do so.
I love this.I could honestly listen to stories like this all day long! And I think you're right about that silver lining; I use the term "your favorite band's favorite band" a lot, but in this case, I really do think each of them inspired a generation of musicians in their wake.
P.S. Happy belated birthday!
Thanks for this trip down one helluva memory lane. I remember when Kurt n crew blew the doors off MTV Unplugged. Looking back it feels like April 5th also brought a movement to a screeching halt. I know the fight lived on in Gen X but perhaps not with the same fervor(?) Pearl Jam took on mighty Ticketmaster and had some success. Those were the days…
They were indeed! I mentioned it upthread, but I think you're right; there something bigger that died that day. I've never been able to articulate it very well, but it just felt like a lot of the wind had been taken out of our (collective )sails.
In the early 90's I was not really paying too much attention to the music scene. My priorities had shifted and pop music had become too formulaic and too shiny. But when Nirvana broke into the mainstream, I distinctly remember thinking, or more correctly, feeling "This is what we needed. Finally! Rock musicians wearing jeans and t-shirts and just thrashing their instruments." It felt seismic and it felt good.
As for Kurt, I remember him as one of the great rock poets, on Mount Rushmore with Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Gord Downie. Kurt's death still brings sadness, even after 30 years.
He definitely warrants a spot on the musical Mt. Rushmore. And they were the perfect antidote for what was on the charts at the time. In the link below, Matt Mardurski notes that when Nirvana was topping the MRT charts, Michael Bolton was #1 on the Hot 100. Oof.
https://chartchat.substack.com/p/modern-rock-tracks-no-1s-nirvana
Yeah, I read Matt’s piece, and enjoyed it. The Bolton thing confirmed my memory of that era of pop music.
Lou Gramm was an excellent lead singer for Foreigner, but him fronting Nirvana? Laughable.
I'm actually quite fond of Foreigner and take some flack for it, SIGH. But I agree, he would not have made a good substitute.
Right? And nothing wrong with Foreigner, but had this ever come to pass, it would've been a disaster.
No one else could have fronted Nirvana because no one else could have written songs that were remotely like Kurt's songs. He was a unique voice if there ever was one
100%
Right? And in hindsight, it makes NO sense. But at the time, it was just wild enough to be plausible.
Wonder what ever became of Krist. I don't think Grohl is a mystery.
He's played in a few projects here & there, and dabbled a little in Washington state politics.
They did actually have a song called "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die," it was on the compilation album The Beavis and Butthead Experience. Great song. This is the first I've ever heard of the Lou Gramm rumor, but then I was about to turn 12 when he died, and at that point I was mostly listening to recent pop music so I had only heard Teen Spirit and Come as You Are. As young and immature as I was, Nirvana was the first band to teach me (around age 14, after he was gone and I was already listening to Foo Fighters) that good music is good music, even if it's not a brand new release, even if it's "old." And they were the first band that made me want to find everything they'd ever done so I could hear it all.
"Good music is good music" should be one of our mantras!
Indeed!
"We literally told musicians not to sell out, and they obliged, which somehow made them even more popular. That dissonance had to be maddening." Super insightful comment. The reverberation of "not selling out" continues to run through my way of seeing the world. I will never be able to escape its influence, even as I browse a stack of Nirvana shirts at my local Walmart (this is meant to speak to my own personal contradictions). Great read. Thanks for sharing.
Also, ...
Top Five, in no particular ranking, I know exactly where I was when:
1) Challenger Blowing up (school -- some students watched live)
2) Magic press conference on having HIV (dorm lounge -- entire track team stopped practice and crowded in)
3) Kurt Cobain's body being discovered (team van radio)
4) 9/11 -- teaching sophomore English
5) Michael Jackson dies (car radio -- wondering why so many stations are playing his songs, not knowing it is a tribute moment)
It still colors a lot of the way I see the world too, even now that I have the benefit of hindsight & (I hope) added wisdom. Old habits die hard, I guess.
And that Top 5! I can explicitly remember where I was for each of those as well. Working for an airline on 9/11 was...something you don't forget.
The word 'unique' gets abused in our discourse, but Kurt's songwriting was unique if anyone ever was. Who else ever wrote a song where you're thinking "hmmmm is that Nirvana?" You know immediately when its Nirvana.
Agreed. In this case, unique is a great descriptor. I'm also grateful (another incredibly overused term) to have been around when he was alive and the band was active.
Can’t believe Kurt’s passing was 30 years ago. I just wrote an article about it from a one-man band and mental health perspectives. I also recommend your article in it! If it’s okay, please check it out when you have the time:
https://mightyonemanband.substack.com/p/30-years-ago-kurt-cobain-died?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Right on! Thanks for the shoutout and for sharing your work here.
My pleasure. Thank you as well! 🙏🏼
This is very insightful, Kevin! I mean, I only found Nirvana after Kurt had already died... and even then, I felt like I knew him. Thank you for writing this!
Thank you for the kind words, Louise!
I'd never heard the Gramm thing, and now I won't be able to think about anything but that. Thanks for the fatal blow to my productivity.