| NIRVANA KICKS ASS | |||||||||||||||||
| NIRVANA HISTORY | Most of Nirvana Songs | ||||||||||||||||
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The history of Kurt and Nirvana Kurt Cobain never wanted to be the spokesman for a generation, though that doesn't mean much. It is not a role you campaign for. It is thrust upon you, and you live with it. Or you don't. Cobain was grown up in Aberdeen, a hard hit lumber town located midway up Washington's outer coast. He never liked his hometown, describing it essentially as a place of redneck biases and very low intelligence. Certainly there are some grim truths about the town that cannot be ignored. Aberdeen's average suicide rate is roughly twice as high as the national rate. Mix this news with high rates of alcohol and drug usage, as well as high incidence of unemployment and domestic violence and median household income of $23.000 and you emerge with the unsurprising conclusion that Aberdeen can be a very depressing town to call your home. It was here, no doubt, were Cobain first learned how to hate life. In 1975, when Kurt was 8, his parents divorced, and the bitter separation and it's aftermath were devastating to the child. In the years that followed, Cobain was passed between his mother's home in Aberdeen, his father's in nearby Montesano, and sometimes the homes of other relatives in the region. "After the divorce, he changed completely." his mother told Rolling Stone magazine in 1992. "I think he was ashamed. He became really shy. It just devastated him." In 1979, Cobain was faced with the suicide of a great-uncle. Five years later another uncle also committed suicide. There are rumors that other relatives also committed suicide - making for the legend that Courtney Love has referred to as the Cobain curse. Finally Kurt lived in the house of his mother, who had married again. On one occasion, after finding out that her husband had cheated on her, she pointed a gun at his head and threatened to kill him. Kurt watched as she attempted unsuccessfully to load the weapon. Finally, in frustration she marched into the night and threw all the firearms from the house into a river. The next day, after paying two kids to fish them out, Kurt sold the guns for pocket cash. He used the money to buy his first amplifier. Meanwhile punk rock was thriving and punk rock sounded like Cobain felt: desperate, angry, raw. He dropped out of high school, was booted from his mother's house and bounced from one friend's couch to the back seat of the next friend's car. He talked with his friend Krist Novoselic about forming a band: Nirvana was born. In the fall of 1987 Cobain moved to Olympia, Washington. While he had gone there to live with his girlfriend Tracy Marander, Cobain had also discovered - for the first time in his life - a community that welcomed and appreciated his talents. He fell under the spell of Calvin Johnson, leader of the band Beat Happening and the head of K-Records, the innocent low-fi independent label whose logo was soon tattooed on Cobain's forearm. He worked on collages and paintings and began writing and rehearsing with Nirvana in earnest. By 1988, Nirvana had recorded a batch of demo tapes and released their first single, "Love Buzz/Big Cheese"on Sub PopRecords, the label credited with capturing the Seattle sound. By 1989 the band recorded their debut album called "Bleach" for only $ 606.17 (!) and started touring. In Portland, Oregon Kurt first met Courtney Love when he sat down at her table and poured himself a beer. After touring the band replaced drummer Chad Channing with Dave Grohl and readied itself to record once again. And that's what happened. "Nevermind" was released in September of 1991 to little fanfare and even less expectation. Within months it reached the No. 1 spot, eventually selling 10 million copies worldwide. Nirvana were changing the face of music in the '90s, and no matter how much he attempted to curl into a corner somewhere out of the spotlight, Cobain was always at the eye of the hurricane. He developed a drug problem that would plague him until his final days. In an L.A. nightclub he met Courtney Love again, who had just founded her band "Hole". A short time later he introduced Courtney live on TV as "the best fuck in the world". In February 1992 the couple married in Hawaii and on August 18, Frances Bean, their daughter was born. In their August issue, Vanity Fair magazine reported that Courtney Love had used Heroin while pregnant with Francis Bean. As a result of subsequent media attention, the Cobains were not allowed to be alone with their newborn daughter for one month. After a long and taxing battle with children's services in L.A., where they were living, the couple regained custody of the girl. After releasing "Incesticide", a compilation of early singles and B sides, the band started working on "In Utero", the follow up to "Nevermind". "I just don't feel the same, emotionally, about our music anymore", Cobain told a friend after completing the record. "With this record, I'm just deadpan. My emotions just don't come out during it." On May 2, 1993, Cobain came home shaking, flushed and dazed. Love called the police. According to a police report, Cobain had taken Heroin. Love injected her husband with buprenorphine, an illegal drug that can be used to awaken someone after a Heroin overdose. She also gave Cobain a Valium, three Benadryls and four Tylenol tablets with codeine, which caused him to vomit. Love told the police this kind of thing happened before. A month later, on June 4, the police arrived at the Cobains' home again after being summoned by Love. She told the police tat she and Cobain had been arguing over guns in the house. Cobain was booked for domestic assault and three guns found at the house were confiscated. Seven weeks later, on the morning of July 23, Love heard a thud in the bathroom of the New York hotel where the couple was staying. She opened the door and found Cobain uncontious. He had overdosed again. Nevertheless, Nirvana, performed that night at the Roseland Ballroom. On Sept. 14, "In Utero" was released. The album debuted at the No. 1 position and the band hit the road for a long stetch of U.S. dates, including a brilliant performance on MTV Unplugged. According to sources, Cobain detoxed from heroin before the tour. After completing their U.S. tour, the group relaxed a few weeks before leaving Europe in February. They began their tour in Lisbon, Portugal on February 5. About 10 to 12 days into the tour, Cobain began to lose his voice. For a while, a throat spray purchased in Paris and administered before the shows helped ease his discomfort. On Mar. 1 Nirvana performed at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany. It would be their final show. Cobain lost his voice halfway through the performance and went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist the next day. Cobain was told to make two to four weeks rest. He was given spray and medicine for his lungs because he was diagnosted as having a severe laryngitis and bronchitis. The Band postponed the rest of their shows and took a rest. Cobain decided to stay in Europe. The plane trip and jet lag were too much to take in his condition. On March 3, he checked into Rome's five-star Excelsior Hotel where he met Courtney Love and Frances Bean the next afternoon. That evening, Cobain sent a bellboy out to fill a prescription for Rohypnol, a tranquilizer. He also ordered champagne from room service. At 6:30 the following morning, Love found Cobain uncountious. "I reached for him, and he had blood coming out of his nose", she told in a later interview, adding, "I have seen him get really fucked up before, but I have never seen him almost eat it." At the time, the incident was portraited as an accident. It has since been revealed that some 50 pills were found in Cobain's stomach. A suicide note was found at the scene. Cobain was rushed to the Rome's Umberto I Polyclinic Hospital for five hours of emergency treatment and then tranferred to the american hospital just outside the city. He awoke from his coma 20 hours later and immediately scribbled his first request on a notepad: "Get these fucking tubes out of my nose." Three days later, he was allowed to leave the hospital and returned to Seattle. On March 18, a domestic dispute escalated into a near disaster. After police officers arrived at the scene, summoned by Love, she told them that her husband had locked himself in a room with a .38-caliber revolver and said he was going to kill himself. The officers confiscated that gun and three others, along with a bottle of various unidentified pills. On March 25, roughly 10 friends - including his bandmates, love and a intervention councelor - gathered at Cobain's house. As part of the intervention Love threatened to leave Cobain and his bandmates said they would break up the band if Cobain didn't check into rehab. Love flew to L.A. on March 26 and checked into the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, where she began an outpatient program to detox from tranquilizers. Back in Seattle on March 30, Cobain purchased a six-pound Remington 20-gauge shotgun and a box of ammunition. He dropped the gun at his home and took a plane to Los Angeles to check into rehab. He checked into the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina del Rey, California, where he spent only 2 days. On April 1, he called Love, who was still at the Peninsula. "He said, 'Courtney, no matter what happens, I want you to know that you made a good record'", she later told a newspaper. "I said, 'Well, what do you mean?' And he said 'Just remember, no matter what, I love you.' (Hole were due to release their second album, "Live Through This", 11 days later) That was the last time Love spoke to her husband. At 7:25 pm, Cobain told the clinic staff he was stepping out onto the patio for a smoke and jumped over the fence. The next day, Love canceled Cobain's credit cards and hired private investigators to track him down. But he had already flown back to Seattle. On April 4, Cobain's mother filed a missing-person's report. She told the police that Cobain might be suicidal and suggested that they look for him at a particular three-story brick building, described as a location for narcotics in Seattle's Capitol Hill district. Neighbours say they spotted Cobain in a park near his house during this period, looking ill and wearing an incongruously jacket. Sometime on the afternoon of april 5, Cobain barricaded himself in the greenhouse above his garage by propping a stool against its french doors. He penned a one page note in red ink and tossed his wallet on the floor, open to his driver's license, which friends belive was to help the police identify him. He drew a chair up to a window, sat down, took some more drugs (most likely heroin), pressed the barrel of the 20-gauge shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. He left a wife, a nearly 2 year old daughter, who would never knew who her daddy was and millions of fans who won't forget him... |
1 About a Girl 2 Aero Zeppelin 3 All Apologies (Mary) 4 Aneurysm 5 Bambi Slaughter (FM) 6 Beans 7 Been A Son 8 Beeswax 9 Big Cheese 10 Big Long Now 11 Blandest 12 Blew 13 Born In A Junkyard * 14 Breed (Immodium) 15 Buffy's Pregnant (FM) 16 Come As You Are 17 Clean Up Before She Comes (KC) 18 Crisco 19 Curmudgeon 20 D - 7 {The Wipers} 21 Dive 22 Downer 23 Do You Love Me? {Kiss} 24 Dough, Ray and Me (KC) 25 Drain You 26 Drunk In Rio (KC) 27 Dumb 28 Endless, Nameless 29 Even In His Youth 30 Floyd The Barber 31 Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle 32 Frizzle (Frazzle) (KC) 33 Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through The Strip 34 Hairspray Queen 35 Heart-Shaped Box 36 Help me I'm hungry * 37 Here She Comes Now {Velvet Underground} 38 I Hate Myself And Want To Die 39 If You Must (Happy Hour) 40 In Bloom__ 41 In His Room (In His Hands)* 42 It's Closing Soon (KC) 43 Jesus Didn't Want Me For A Sunbeam {The Vaselines 44 Lake Of Fire {The Meat Puppets} 45 Laminated Effect (FM) 46 Lithium 47 Lounge Act 48 Love Buzz {Shocking Blue} 49 Man Who Sold The World {David Bowie} 50 Marigold 51 Mexican Seafood 52 Milk It 53 Molly's Lips {The Vaselines} 54 Money Will Roll Right In {Fang} 55 Montage of Heck 56 Mr. Moustache 57 Mv (Moise Vagina) 58 Negative Creep 59 Oh Me {The Meat Puppets} 60 Oh, The Guilt (It takes a time) 61 On A Plain 62 On The Mountain 63 Opinion (KC) 64 Paper Cuts 65 Pen Cap Chew 66 Pennyroyal Tea (Tired, Household Drugs) 67 Plateau {The Meat Puppets} 68 Polly 69 Radio Friendly Unit Shifter 70 Rape Me (Wreck Me) 71 Return Of The Rat {The Wipers} 72 Scentless Apprentice 73 School 74 Scoff 75 Serve The Servants 76 Sifting 77 Sliver 78 Smells Like Teen Spirit 79 Spank Thru (Make it Big, Freedom of Choise) 80 Spectre * 81 Something In The Way 82 Son of a Gun {The Vaselines} 83 Stain 84 Stay Away (Pay To Play) 85 Swap Meet 86 Talk To Me * 87 Territorial Pissings 88 Token Eastern Song 89 tourette's (The Eagle has Landed) 90 Turnaround {Devo} 91 Where Did You Sleep Last Night {Leadbelly} 92 Verse-Chorus-Verse (Another Rule, Everything and Nothing, Sappy) 93 Very Ape 94 You Got No Right (KC) | ||||||||||||||||
| Nirvana Performances | |||||||||||||||||
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Studio videos Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991) In Bloom [new version] (1993) Come as You Are (1992) Sliver (1993) Lithium (1992) Heart-Shaped Box (Oct 3 1993) In Bloom [original version] (1990) Notes: "In Bloom" original video came out in 1990, but nobody knew about it because MTV would not play it. It was later released on "Sub Pop Video Network One" (SPV01) in 1991. Live videos Lithium (MTV Music Video Awards 1993) School (from "1991: The Year Punk Broke") Notes: Nirvana was featured predominantly in "1991: The Year Punk Broke," and their performance of "School" has been shown on MTV as a "live" video. Other songs on "1991" include: Negative Creep / Endless, Nameless / Smells Like Teen Spirit / Polly Books "Nirvana," by Everett True, free with Melody Maker, Feb 15 1992 (16pp). "Nirvana," by Suzi Black, Omnibus Press (OP 47136, UK), 1992 (32pp + poster). "The Nirvana Book," an unauthorized biography, to be released early 1994? "Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana," by Michael Azerrad, Virgin Books (???), released Oct 21 1993 (??pp), pseudo-authorized. Magazines Spin, ??? 1991, pp??-??. New Musical Express, Nov 23 1991, pp??-??, "Nirvana: The Guns N' Roses It's Ok To Like." Rolling Stone, Apr 16 1992, pp??-??, cover article. Select, Apr 1992, pp??-??, cover article. Melody Maker, Jul 18 1992, pp??-??, "Nirvana: Kurt Cobain, The Boy'z in the Hood - Exclusive interview by Everett True." New Musical Express, Aug 29 1992, pp??-??, "The Hits and the Missus - Nirvana Fight For Their Life." Spin, Dec 1992, pp44-53, voted artist of the year. Melody Maker, Dec 19 1992, pp??-??, "Nirvana! At home with Kurt, Courtney, and Frances Bean." The Advocate, ??? 1993, pp35-43, "The Dark Side of Kurt Cobain," cover article. Circus, Mar 31 1993, pp29-32?, interview. Select, Jul 1993, pp78-85, "Never say 'Nevermind' Again...," cover article. Spin, Oct 1993, pp42-49, "Smashing Their Heads on the Punk Rock," cover article. Alternative Press, Oct 1993, pp48-56, "The Boys Are Back in Town," cover article. Musician, Oct 1993, pp52-69, "Territorial Pissings: The Battles Behind Nirvana's New Album," cover article. Details, Nov 1993, pp102-107, 174-175, "Heaven Can Wait," cover article. TV appearances Saturday Night Live (Jan 11 1992) [musical guest] Songs: Performed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Territorial Pissings." ABC's In Concert (Feb ??? 1992) [new band showcase] Songs: Videos to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are" and interviews. Saturday Night Live (Sep 25 1993 [musical guest] Songs: Performed "Heart-Shaped Box" and "Rape Me." MTV live & loud (New year's eve 1993/1994) Performed old and new songs live and anti-acoustic. MTV Unplugged (Feb'94 (Europe)) Performed: About A Girl, Man who sold the world, Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam, Polly, Dumb, Penny royaltea, All Apologies, Where did you sleep last night, Come As You Are, On A Plain, and together with the Meat Puppets : Lake of Fire + Plateau. | |||||||||||||||||
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