Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20 1967 – c. April 5 1994), was an American musician who served as lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.

Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with Krist Novoselic. Within two years, the band became a fixture of the burgeoning Seattle grunge scene. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song "anthem-of-a-generation" status, and, with it, Cobain was labeled a "spokesman" for Generation X.

During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife, Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. In ensuing years, the circumstances of his death became a topic of fascination and debate.

Life and career

Early life

Kurt Cobain cummed on his moms ass and then he wanted to be a rockstar after that moment.

Musical influences

Cobain was a devoted champion of early alternative rock acts. His interest in the underground started when Buzz Osborne of the Melvins let him borrow a tape with songs by punk bands such as Black Flag, Flipper, and Millions of Dead Cops. He would often make reference to his favorite bands in interviews, often placing a greater importance on the bands that influenced him than on his own music. Interviews with Cobain were often littered with references to obscure performers like The Vaselines, The Melvins, Daniel Johnston, The Meat Puppets, Young Marble Giants, The Wipers, Flipper, and The Raincoats. Cobain was eventually able to convince record companies to reissue albums by The Raincoats (Geffen) and The Vaselines (Sub Pop). Cobain also noted the influence of the Pixies, and commented that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" bore some similarities to their sound. Cobain told Melody Maker in 1992 that hearing Surfer Rosa for the first time convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the "Iggy Pop / Aerosmith" type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind.

The Beatles were an early and important musical influence on Cobain. Cobain expressed a particular fondness for John Lennon, whom he called his "idol" in his journals. Cobain once related that he wrote "About a Girl" after spending three hours listening to Meet the Beatles!. He was heavily influenced by punk rock and hardcore punk, and often credited bands such as Black Flag and the Sex Pistols for his artistic style and attitude.

Even with all of Cobain's indie influences, Nirvana's early style was influenced by the major rock bands of the '70s, including Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Kiss, and Neil Young. In its early days, Nirvana made a habit of regularly playing cover songs by those bands, including Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", "Dazed and Confused", "Heartbreaker", and made a studio recording of Kiss' "Do You Love Me?". Cobain also talked about the influence of bands like The Knack, Boston, and The Bay City Rollers.

There were also earlier influences: Nirvana's MTV Unplugged concert ended with a version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night", a song popularized by blues artist Lead Belly, whom Cobain called one of his favorite performers. Critic Greil Marcus suggested that Cobain's "Polly" was a descendant of "Pretty Polly", a murder ballad that might have been a century old when Dock Boggs recorded it in 1927.

Cobain also made efforts to include his favorite performers in his musical endeavors. At the 1991 Reading Festival, Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines joined Nirvana onstage for a duet of "Molly's Lips", which Cobain would later proclaim to be one of the greatest moments of his life. In 1993, when he decided that he wanted a second guitarist to help him on stage, he recruited Pat Smear of the legendary L.A. punk band The Germs. When rehearsals of three Meat Puppets covers for Nirvana's 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged went awry, Cobain placed a call to the two lead members of the band, Curt and Cris Kirkwood, who ended up joining the band on stage to perform the songs. Cobain also contributed backing guitar for a spoken word William S. Burroughs recording entitled "the "Priest" they called him".

Where Sonic Youth had served to help Nirvana gain wider success, Nirvana attempted to help other indie acts attain success. The band submitted the song "Oh, the Guilt" to a split single with Chicago's The Jesus Lizard, helping Nirvana's indie credibility while opening The Jesus Lizard to a wider audience.

Legacy

The bench in Viretta Park has become a de facto memorial to Cobain

In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington that reads "Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are" as a tribute to Cobain.

In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington that read "Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are" as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May 2004 to honor Cobain. The Committee also planned to create a Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen.

As Cobain has no gravesite, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain's former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory. In the years following his death, Cobain is now often remembered as one of the most iconic rock musicians in the history of alternative music.

Gus Van Sant based his 2005 movie Last Days on what might have happened in the final hours of Cobain's life. In January 2007, Courtney Love began to shop the biography Heavier Than Heaven to various movie studios in Hollywood to turn the book into an A-list feature film about Cobain and Nirvana.

Books and films on Cobain

Prior to Cobain's death, writer Michael Azerrad published Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, a book that chronicled Nirvana's career from its beginning, as well as the personal histories of the band members. The book explored Cobain's drug addiction, as well as the countless controversies surrounding the band. After Cobain's death, Azerrad re-published the book to include a final chapter discussing the last year of Cobain's life. The book is notable for its involvement of the band members themselves, who gave interviews and personal information to Azerrad specifically for the book. In 2006, Azerrad's taped conversations with Cobain were transformed into a documentary about Cobain, titled Kurt Cobain About a Son.

In the 1998 documentary Kurt & Courtney, filmmaker Nick Broomfield investigated Tom Grant's claim that Cobain was actually murdered, and took a film crew to visit a number of people associated with Cobain and Love, including Love's father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couple's former nannies. Broomfield also spoke to Mentors bandleader Eldon "El Duce" Hoke, who claimed that Love had offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. Though Hoke claimed that he knew who killed Cobain, he failed to mention a name, and offered no evidence to support his assertion. Broomfield inadvertently captured Hoke's last interview, as he died days later, reportedly hit by a train while drunk. In the end, however, Broomfield felt he hadn't uncovered enough evidence to conclude the existence of a conspiracy. In a 1998 interview, Broomfield summed it up by saying, "I think that he committed suicide. I don't think that there's a smoking gun. And I think there's only one way you can explain a lot of things around his death. Not that he was murdered, but that there was just a lack of caring for him. I just think that Courtney had moved on, and he was expendable."

Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a similar path and attempted to investigate the conspiracy for themselves. Their initial work, the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? argued that, while there wasn't enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand that the case be reopened. A notable element of the book included their discussions with Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation that he had undertaken while he was in Love's employ. Over the next several years, Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain.

In 2001, writer Charles R. Cross published a biography of Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven. For the book, Cross conducted over 400 interviews, and was given access by Courtney Love to Cobain's journals, lyrics, and diaries. In 2002, a sampling of Cobain's writings was published as Journals. The book is 280 pages with a simple black cover; the pages are arranged somewhat chronologically (although Cross generally did not date them). The journal pages are reproduced in color, and there is a section added at the back that has explanations and transcripts of some of the less legible pages. The writings begin in the late 1980s, around the time the band started, and end in 1994. A paperback version of the book, released in 2003, included a handful of writings that were not offered in the initial release. In the journals, Cobain talked about the ups and downs of life on the road, made lists of what music he was enjoying, and often scribbled down lyric ideas for future reference. Upon its release, reviewers and fans were conflicted about the collection. Many were elated to be able to learn more about Cobain and read his inner thoughts in his own words, but were disturbed by what was viewed as an invasion of his privacy.

In 2008, writer Robin Shannon published Cemeteries of Seattle which feature Kurt Cobain's memorial benches as well as a tribute from Noveselic.

References

• Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday, 1994. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
• Cross, Charles. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0-7868-8402-9.
• Summers, Kim. "Kurt Cobain". All Music Guide. Accessed on May 9, 2005.
• Kitts, Jeff, et al. Guitar World Presents Nirvana and the Grunge Revolution. Hal Leonard, 1998. ISBN 0-79-35900-6X.

External links

• Kurt Cobain at IMDb
• Kurt Cobain at the All Music Guide
• The Kurt Cobain Equipment FAQ - Detailed information on Cobain's guitars, amplifiers, and effects.
• Official police reports into Cobain's death at The Smoking Gun.

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