Well? Did Courtney Kill Kurt?

[Ulalume]

Andrew Wood.

I listened to Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden at the time, but Mother Love Bone was just a name I'd heard in connection. It's funny to thing that pre-Internet you had to patch together a mental band-biography from liner notes, magazine articles and knowledgeable friends. Having listened to their music in the years since, I like it a lot - like a stepping stone between 70s-revival rock and grunge. It's a shame about Wood as they musically swaggered, strutted and throbbed with life. Blind Melon were probably my favourite of the era - and we know how that story ended, too.

Ooh, I feel so old saying this, but back in those days, we swapped info through pen pal lists and sent cassette tapes through the mail!

As a youngster, I was a great purchaser of rock magazines, those really awful ones. They would usually have a list of people wanting pen pals and I had at least 100 at one point but a fringe benefit to this is that people would send information about bands in their area, and you could just write to the band and they'd send you a tape, often just for shipping and handling costs. Or, (since, I suppose, bands and small record companies were keeping lists, also) they would just send a tape out of the blue. I remember that's how I ended up with the Mother Love Bone EP and one of those early Sub-Pop compilations. Those would probably be worth something now, but sadly they must've been lost in a move, or my mother threw them out. I never thought they'd become especially valuable back then.

It's funny to think about now, how music genres have changed. Back then, I recall Alice in Chains (back when they were Alice 'n Chains (!)) and Soundgarden fit into the typical FM album rock format, but the first time I saw Nirvana's video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, I thought, well, it's great, but I don't know which radio station will play it! Little did I know that radio stations would rearrange their formats to fit it, not the other way around. In those days, that just didn't happen.

I think the whole "grunge" movement did change rock music for the better and helped to move indie and alternative music beyond college radio.

 

[ramonmercado]

Back in my days we swapped homing pigeons and taught them to chirp our favourite tunes, then set them loose.

 

[Cherrybomb]

Ooh, I feel so old saying this, but back in those days, we swapped info through pen pal lists and sent cassette tapes through the mail!

As a youngster, I was a great purchaser of rock magazines, those really awful ones. They would usually have a list of people wanting pen pals and I had at least 100 at one point but a fringe benefit to this is that people would send information about bands in their area, and you could just write to the band and they'd send you a tape, often just for shipping and handling costs. Or, (since, I suppose, bands and small record companies were keeping lists, also) they would just send a tape out of the blue..

Thats taken me right back to my misspent youth

 

[Ulalume]

Thats taken me right back to my misspent youth

Awesome! *high fives Cherrybomb*

 

[Graylien]

As a youngster, I was a great purchaser of rock magazines, those really awful ones.

Do you mean Sounds? For some reason that seemed to be greatly looked down on by those who read Melody Maker or the NME. Not sure why, as it covered pretty much the same bands.

I remember I once had a poem published in the letters section of the NME. All I can remember now is that it boasted the line:
Kylie Minogue
Is better than the Pogues.

Also I once wrote them a most indignant letter when they put Rod Stewart on the cover.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Do you mean Sounds? For some reason that seemed to be greatly looked down on by those who read Melody Maker or the NME. Not sure why, as it covered pretty much the same bands.

I remember I once had a poem published in the letters section of the NME. All I can remember now is that it boasted the line:
Kylie Minogue
Is better than the Pogues.

Also I once wrote them a most indignant letter when they put Rod Stewart on the cover.

Sounds historically was a Prog Rock magazine and a Heavy Metal magazine, that might have something to do with it. I thought in it's day it was much better than NME or MM.

 

[McAvennie]

Off topic but I discovered last time I was back in the UK that the NME is no more. It will continue from September as a music and listings mag freely distributed at train stations and universities but as an off the shelf paid for magazine it is done.

Suppose that only really leaves Kerrang!

 

[Cochise]

Nowt wrong with Rod Stewart, other than selling out somewhere round about Atlantic Crossing.

Anyone who can rhyme 'houses' with 'trousers' or can come up with a couplet like 'she was tall thin and tarty and drove a Maserati' deserves respect.

 

[Ulalume]

Do you mean Sounds? For some reason that seemed to be greatly looked down on by those who read Melody Maker or the NME. Not sure why, as it covered pretty much the same bands.

No, our local shops weren't up to carrying anything as erudite as that; instead we had Creem, Hit Parader and (gasp!) Metal Edge.

I read Rolling Stone, too, of course, but that was far less seedy.

I remember I once had a poem published in the letters section of the NME. All I can remember now is that it boasted the line:
Kylie Minogue
Is better than the Pogues.

God knows she had better teeth!

Also I once wrote them a most indignant letter when they put Rod Stewart on the cover.

After Rod's disco years, I can't think of many who would have disagreed with you.

 

[Swifty]

Nowt wrong with Rod Stewart, other than selling out somewhere round about Atlantic Crossing.

Anyone who can rhyme 'houses' with 'trousers' or can come up with a couplet like 'she was tall thin and tarty and drove a Maserati' deserves respect.

My ex boss was a total sociopath with an eighty percent staff turnover (that he laughed about) .... and he wore a G-String ... I saw him bend over one day and realised my co-worker wasn't just trying to make me laugh .... but more relevantly, he was a huge Rod Stewart fan and was demoted for throwing a sicky to go to a Rod gig with another manager ....... who then sold him out and grassed him up ... can't stand Rodney Stewart.

 

[Ulalume]

By the way, the grunge music documentary Hype! is on youtube.
(Beware - sweary language and screamy music)

It's somewhat dated, but still good. IMO, it may be of interest because it does a good job of showing how glum and depressing that part of the Pacific Northwest can be. It's no mystery why there would be so much despair and anger in the music (and the musicians) at the time.

Someone with time on their hands and an interest in US social history might want to compare it to Richard Linklater's film Slacker which was made in the early part of the same period covered in Hype!. The mood in both is strikingly similar (and something I recall very well from that period).

One could even throw in the Kids in The Dark article, over in the Non-Fortean films thread, to cover the mid-80's, and it's easy to see an undercurrent of a sort of ...I guess you could call it an "aimless anguish" developing among the youth that was quite grim.

Personally I think the Reagan years, yuppies and conspicuous greed had a lot to do with that. There was rebellion against those ideals. Of course, others will have other opinions, but that's how it seemed at the time. Anyway, whenever someone tells me the world is going to hell (which is every day, seems like) I think the jury is still out on that - things (tough as they are) feel much more hopeful now than they did back then.

 

[Cochise]

My ex boss was a total sociopath with an eighty percent staff turnover (that he laughed about) .... and he wore a G-String ... I saw him bend over one day and realised my co-worker wasn't just trying to make me laugh .... but more relevantly, he was a huge Rod Stewart fan and was demoted for throwing a sicky to go to a Rod gig with another manager ....... who then sold him out and grassed him up ... can't stand Rodney Stewart.

Fair enough! I can't bring myself to hate someone just because they decide to earn lots of money - after all we all 'just wanna be big rock stars' - but you clearly have extra (and by the sound of it entirely justified) reasons!

 

[Swifty]

Fair enough! I can't bring myself to hate someone just because they decide to earn lots of money - after all we all 'just wanna be big rock stars' - but you clearly have extra (and by the sound of it entirely justified) reasons!

Sorry if you're reading and you're not a twat Rod .. you just seem to attract them.

 

[mr_nic]

By the way, the grunge music documentary Hype! is on youtube.
(Beware - sweary language and screamy music)

How have I missed this? For some reason I've never heard of it... The documentary that I most associate with that time is 'The Year Punk Broke'. I think 1991 was a key year for Nirvana and while I'd loved Bleach, the release of the single Sliver was pointing towards bigger and better things. I saw them twice that year, first at Reading (pre-Nevermind) and was blown away by the 'new' songs they played - not having a clue how big they'd become. I went to see them again later that year at Sheffield Uni just as Teen Spirit had been released and you could see they were going to be huge. 91 was also the year that Kurt and Courtney 'officially' started dating.

Anyway, I found the full 91 Reading gig on youtube recently - it's still bloody great:

 

[McAvennie]

Maybe I'm not a 'true' grunge fan and am just a corporate rock whore, but I've been listening to old Nirvana recently and is it just me or are the majority of 'Bleach' and 'Incesticide' not actually very good? For me there is one good album between the two.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Incesticide isn't an album as such, it's a collection of b-sides, rarities and session tracks.... so that explains the patchiness of it. It's got about four different drummers!

As for Bleach - was that actually recorded as an album? Or is that a collection of early material?

 

[mr_nic]

I suppose you've got to put it in context for the time... Mudhoney, Tad, Dinosaur Jr etc were perceived as the 'better' bands around the time Bleach was released but Bleach had real raw energy and promise. Negative Creep is still one of the best thrash-out pieces of noise ever. Also depends what version you're listening to - I've got the original white vinyl plus a first pressing american import LP and they sound superb. I bought the CD a few years back and it sounds pants.

As for Incesticide - meh... As an (ex) self-certified music snob Nirvana had become far too popular by that point. Funnily enough I've never got round to buying or listening to it since.

 

[Swifty]

Mudhoney were a better band that got there first .. we interviewed them and they wouldn't stop wanking on about how great Gary Numan was .... they loved him for some reason and a small support band called Nirvana were chilling at the back of the room.

 

[McAvennie]

I'm aware of Incesticide's status as a non-studio album, but I still consider it in their timeline. I just don't like it that much. Although it does contain Aneurysm which is one of my favorite tracks of all Nirvana's work.

 

[Yithian]

I like it - poppy, full of hooks.

Not quite the same era or genre, but I love latter-day Husker Du for similar reasons - pop with passion and plenty of distortion.

 

[McAvennie]

I never liked Bleach and Incesticide in the 90s either. Remember trying a Mudhoney album (EGBDF) but I couldn't get into it. It was alright but there was just nothing to it that grabbed me. Plus the inlay card was made of weird smelling cardboard.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

At the time I was well into Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but my true musical love of the time was (and still is) Therapy?

Still going, just released album #14 and still brilliant.

 

[Ulalume]

How have I missed this? For some reason I've never heard of it... The documentary that I most associate with that time is 'The Year Punk Broke'. I think 1991 was a key year for Nirvana and while I'd loved Bleach, the release of the single Sliver was pointing towards bigger and better things. I saw them twice that year, first at Reading (pre-Nevermind) and was blown away by the 'new' songs they played - not having a clue how big they'd become. I went to see them again later that year at Sheffield Uni just as Teen Spirit had been released and you could see they were going to be huge. 91 was also the year that Kurt and Courtney 'officially' started dating.

Anyway, I found the full 91 Reading gig on youtube recently - it's still bloody great:

Amazing! You're so lucky to have seen that!
I love how they opened with "School" - that's one of my favorites.

 

[Yithian]

At the time I was well into Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but my true musical love of the time was (and still is) Therapy?

Still going, just released album #14 and still brilliant.

I bought Troublegum when it came out - liked it - and have heard nothing produced since. Am I missing out?

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

I bought Troublegum when it came out - liked it - and have heard nothing produced since. Am I missing out?

In my opinion....yes!

They've changed direction a number of times, but still unmistakably T? every time. Nothing else has been quite as immediate as 'Troublegum', they've gone a lot louder, darker and heavier at times.

They always rock though. And live - still amazing.

The lead single from this year's album 'Disquiet'.....

Anyway....not grunge.

Sorry for the hijack, but Therapy? deserve it.

 

[Cherrybomb]

Happy to see another Therapy? fan - for a while I thought I was the only one left :glee:

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

May as well have some more then....!

 

[Coastaljames]

...the full 91 Reading gig

I was there. And yes, it was great


Can't say I listen to much Nirvana now but loved them at the time. And I think that's the point. I'm a 38 year old man with a job and a mortgage now. That music isn't for me. In 91 I was 15. Dipping my proverbial toes in the muddy yet enticing waters of sex and drugs, so a band like Nirvana meant a whole lot to me.

Was Kurt talented? Yes, sure. He could write a cracking pop song. He was more akin to the Beatles than Black Sabbath. Take "Lithium". Incredibly well-crafted pop song. So, for me, he was a talented pop song writer. I also thought he was a more interesting guitarist than given credit for. Like Greg Ginn of Black Flag, the dissonance and "outsider" elements of his playing reminds me of free jazz. He wasn't technically efficient at all, but he could damn well translate how he felt into noise coming out of that instrument. Lastly, he was quite an amazing magpie. He could take all the bits he liked from Mudhoney, Pixies, Wipers, Husker Du, Melvins...and somehow craft something of his own out of them. Extraordinary.

Did Courtney kill him? No idea. Was he ever destined to lead a long and happy life, regardless of artistic success, I really don't think so. A very unhappy and troubled young man. Sad. But these things happen.