Musical Ability IS in the DNA: Darn…

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21606259-musical-ability-dna-practice-may-not-make-perfect

A side bar topic really, research indicating that there is a genetic component involved in whether someone is able to master a musical instrument or not. In the tales of Kurt Cobain’s upbringing there’s much emphasis placed on the presence of musical relatives and his acquisition of instruments and ultimately on his meeting with the Melvins and other local punk fans which all leads him toward developing a particular style and approach as well as solidifying his musical direction. Actually, none of that emphasis is invalidated by saying that some of his abilities are innate and nothing to do with the environment in which he found himself. An inbuilt ability is nothing if there’s never an opportunity to exercise it (yes, that’s why the socio-economic divide in education matters; some kids would be just as good as the privileged few but are never given that chance – what a waste), likewise a gift for something will come to naught if not pursued and encouraged. Cobain’s family members encourage him to practice which means he gets better, his new friends point him toward a particular sound, his own self-motivation and satisfaction keep him putting in the hours that ensure his instrumental and vocal abilities are sufficient to get him noticed.

Where the genetic element makes a difference to his tale is simply in allowing him to be more responsive to practice and to musical stimulus. One of Cobain’s greatest traits was that he seems to be able to listen to other facets of the underground music scene and very rapidly cherrypick those styles to incorporate them into his own idiom. The Fecal Matter demo covers most of his nascent influences, the January 23, 1988 session is an entire new world of alternatives and options, he takes less than a year to create something tailored to Sub Pop’s specific sound, then between January and September leaves it behind and lets his power pop influences show for the Blew EP bonus tracks, by April 1990 only Lithium has the Pixies-ish dynamic going but by the end of the year he’s perfected it…His talent for hearing things and knowing how to use them within his own vision is what puts him above a lot of players who perhaps had a more singular sound throughout their career (perhaps altered only by changing the cast of collaborators) but couldn’t match Cobain’s very good ear for what made things new and different.

Just placed this one here because it intrigued me. Essentially the modern age in which money goes to technology firms not to publishers, agents or – god forbid – the majority of writers has its plus side (i.e., yes, the majority of people can now create and upload art, photography, music and writing in a form accessible by others) at the same time as it’s hugely reduced the opportunity for anyone to actually practice a creative skill as a full-time occupation outside of the designated corporate business outlets and career paths. An occasional one-off will rise to the top but basically, as those running technology firms and financial institutions can’t comprehend things that aren’t processes of manufacture with a pre-defined and near-guaranteed outcome, there’s an ongoing effort to convert it into something they do comprehend; delivery mechanisms that systematically undermine the power of any individual creator and derive profit from the agglomeration of a large number of micro-payments from which they take their cut with the majority seeing little fruit from their work…Until they re-enter the standard and approved path.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/authors-incomes-collapse-alcs-survey

Oh, and this one is just a glorious example of the wealth of random connections the world possesses – intricate ol’ place isn’t it?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2014/07/02/the-crazy-history-of-the-3-3-million-ferrari-tied-to-a-du-pont-heir-and-kurt-cobain/

Why Commemorate Kurt Cobain at All?

“…that part of town ( 2nd street ) has looked like that since i can remember and i’m old. also, why make cobain out to be such a ‘son.’ You talk of the positive effect his music has had or something like that, what about the negative effect that idolizing him has had. It has glamorzed drug addiction and and made it seem hip to do nothing but cling to someone who did not value his life. And I’m no angel. All the ugly signs and memorials should be taken down and laid to rest. One more thing, they have memorialized the location that he got loaded at …really?”

I’ve said it before, I like receiving contrary views because even if I disagree at least it makes me hold up for a second and think before barrelling on down my own lil’ path of self-righteousness. The other day the comment above was placed with one of the posts regarding my visit to Aberdeen, WA last September (gosh, is it coming up to nine months gone already?!) I admit I rather like it! There’s a lot going on in there so I’m hoping (fingers crossed) to both respectfully agree with some of it and respectfully disagree with some other bits of it. Let’s see how I do shall we?

There are a number of angles here; to clear up one of the easy ones post-haste, I’d suggest that there’s nothing in the story of Kurt Cobain that glamorizes drug addiction. The majority of onlookers see heroin addiction as the most crucial factor in his demise, the majority of fans feel they’d have seen far more glories, far more music, from him if heroin hadn’t hastened his demise. As a 14 year old at the time my main reaction was to immediately take on a pretty solid mantra of “injecting untrustworthy cocktails of heavily cut chemical byproducts is a really bad idea.” I can’t imagine many people watched the wasting away visible in 1992 photos of Cobain, the massive reduction in his writing and creativity (more than three quarters of his songs are written prior to the Nevermind album’s release), his disappearance from the public eye, the stories (untrue) of junky babies, the intervention and observation by social services (I’d say quite rightly until the situation was clearer despite the parental protestations of innocence), the general spiral…And coming away thinking that his drug addiction was in anyway positive. Cobain was a great antidote to the Eighties’ rock vibe in which one’s drug consumption was a sign of your superhuman endurance, of your masculine wildness and also to the yuppie drug takers either focused on the glamour of drugs or on the ‘mind expansion’ and ‘experimentation’ nonsense – Cobain made it look really unsexy, unglamorous and unwelcome.

It also showed the music industry doing its best to cover and conceal everything to try to keep that sexy druggy vibe alive – the PR teams were OK to admit his drug-taking to score ‘bad boy’ points but didn’t want to full squalor to be visible. Cobain did truth a big favour by his constant statements regarding how unwelcome an experience drug addiction was. It’s so saddening that he clearly didn’t enjoy what was occuring – at least five spells in rehab trying to clear the situation and unable to ‘win’. The degree of self-hatred welling up from his feeling of weakness, again, makes it look so unattractive – he wasn’t a man who revelled in his excesses or celebrated hedonism.

The point about Cobain as Aberdeen’s “son” is a really good one. It’s so understandable why there’s an ambivalence in the posthumous commemoration of Cobain – he was pretty overt about his distain for the town, he even protests too much to be honest, I think there’s a sense in which he overeggs how much he dislikes it in order to emphasise the “I had it tough” aspect of his youth (no, Kurt did not sleep rough under the bridge, no, Kurt was not beaten up by homophobes, no, Kurt did not spray ‘Homo Sex Rules’ on a building, no, Kurt did not do anything more under the bridge than hangout drink beers and maybe smoke pot, no, Kurt wasn’t anyone of real interest in Aberdeen.) I imagine he’d be more than happy to go un-memorialised.

Alas, on the other hand, why does anyone know or care that Aberdeen, WA exists? Kurt Cobain is the only figure from the town to achieve truly globe-spanning fame – he’s one of a bare handful of cultural figures who can occupy that Elvis, Michael Jackson, John Lennon realm (as a sidebar, each one an individual with personal flaws and chemical flaws, but also ALL amazing artists of global significance) – that’s an amazing achievement and it’s certainly a significant impact on Aberdeen. I would perhaps think of the activities done in his name in Aberdeen less as celebrations and more as commemorations – yesterday, June 28th 2014, commemorations were held for the moment when the Serbian revolutionary executed a representative of the Austro-Hungarian empire (and his wife) and set off the First World War. It isn’t a celebration, it’s a memorial, a chance to remember both the good that came – the heroism, the comradeship, the bravery – as well as the all-too-apparent awfulness. Remembrance is a valuable thing and Kurt Cobain is, without a shadow of a doubt, a significant part of the past of Aberdeen and one worth commemorating.

Having said that, I would definitely say that when commemoration becomes an application for sainthood I start feeling a bit sick. Kurt Cobain wasn’t a saint, he wasn’t just an unambiguous cardboard cutout of wholesomeness. He was an incredible artist, he was a man who worked extremely hard at his art, he was a man who inspired and comforted and excited and entertained millions the world over…But a memorial speech that didn’t recognise the sadness and the harsh side of his tale would make me uncomfortable – it would be a lie. An awful lot of Cobain’s art came from his pains and discomforts and his failings. The appropriation of his image to recognise the town’s past, acknowledge the town’s most famous son, encourage a warm welcome to the many people who will someday take a pilgrimage to the town, to bring a benefit to the town in terms of its image and potential dollars to support livelihoods and lives in the region – this is all good. I’d just be hoping it wasn’t one-dimensional praise because that wouldn’t be honest. Cobain deserves his status in the pantheon of music…And he was still a man destroyed by drugs and demons. What’s that cliche? ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’? I’d go with that.

Tapping away on this blog has been a privilege – why? Because I’ve been introduced by person after person to their creative endeavours – inspired by Kurt Cobain. The effect of his death, of people’s admiration for him, has not been a fixation on doom – it’s been a desire to build and make things. I’ve heard from people who used his music at wedding celebrations, from people making music interpreting Cobain’s material or who started bands that are now completely unique but started just covering his songs, I’ve caught up with artists who created work built around Cobain as a source of inspiration, I’ve met other people as inclined to write as I am partially because Cobain led them in certain directions. I’ve heard from people living in every continent on this planet, all doing positive things with their lives and celebrating their lives AND all acknowledging that Kurt Cobain was a part of that. The sorrow of losing an idol, the thrill of hearing music that inspired them – it didn’t give them a death wish or a worthless shrine-building cult-forming death drive, it took them to new places.

I’m not sure that admiration for Kurt Cobain has had many negatives though I’m very sure some lazy ignorant kid somewhere did indeed skim-read Cobain’s life and take the message “die young, leave a good looking corpse” or “drugs are good, mmm-kay.” Unfortunately there’s no controlling the acts of the ignorant – one could wrap the world in cotton wool and some people would still find ways to hurt themselves and others. Does Kurt Cobain deserve the blame for that? You’re right, he can’t control who takes what inspiration from him or whether people choose him as a role model or idol, but the people venerating him certainly can receive a degree of blame…Except no one responsible for public celebrations of Kurt Cobain seems to have been celebrating drug usage, or self-destruction, or death. So, again, those who take that trinity of elements as the main messages of Cobain’s life and as elements to be emulated…Hmm. Worrisome. I don’t have an answer to the desire of some people to destroy themselves not because of great pain but simply because, nor an answer to the desire of some people to destroy others not because of great threat or need but simply because. But in a world of motivating factors I’m pretty sure Kurt Cobain is an extremely minor factor.

So…To head back to the title question, why commemorate Kurt Cobain? Firstly, he’s historically significant globally and more precisely a part of the history of Aberdeen, WA. Erasing things one doesn’t like from history heads into the realms of Stalin or of North Korea. Secondly, his status really is deserved – he’s the creator of a persistently admired bedrock of music and music did undergo a sea-change for which he was the figurehead as well as a core catalyst (though an unwitting one.) Thirdly, he’s one of a tiny number of musicians to die while still within reach of the peak of their career and to therefore leave this sense of incomplete work and a longing for more – most commentary on Kurt Cobain carries that silent “what if…?” within it which helps create and sustain the fascination and the curiosity. Fourthly, unwillingly, he’s become a modern morality tale and it’s worth speaking honestly of his life to recognise that he was a man trying to do good and with many admirable qualities who was brought low by his flaws – that isn’t a condemnation nor a hagiography, it’s just a shame. Fifth, he put Aberdeen on the map and has contributed economically through the publicity he brings to the area as well as the direct contributions made by visitors – there’s the potential for his name to do many lifetimes of good to the region and that’s worth shooting for. Sixth, he’s inspired people to create and to make something of their lives on a scale and with a breadth most people will never achieve – that’s a truly exceptional achievement.

Incesticide: Not Kurt Cobain’s Invention

r-498784-1192830150

My favourite record shop really came through this week when I found a copy of an item that’s been of interest to me for quite a few years now; the Mesomorph Enduros compilation from 1992. Why of such interest? Well, take a look at this shot of the back cover of my copy – spot it?

Back Cover

Yep, that’s right, industrial star JG Thirwell – A.K.A. Foetus – uses the made-up word Incesticide for a song on this release. It certainly intrigued me a couple years back when I was preparing the Dark Slivers book – I actually seem to recall someone who read the first edition of the book (Brett perchance? Edit: Brett Renaud! For it was indeed he!) raised the question with me sending me scurrying off to investigate before adding a new footnote to the second edition. I actually spoke with JG Thirwell over email and he confirmed that he had made-up the word independently of Cobain and applied it to the song on this record. His view was that it was perfectly imaginable that he and Cobain had, independently, arrived at this invented word – it’s certainly one possibility and there’s definitely no clear statement from Cobain claiming to have appropriated the title from another source.

To eliminate the alternative, it’s at least certain that the Foetus use of the word came prior to Kurt’s usage. With Incesticide not released until mid-December 1992, with the names “Filler” or “Throwaways” being released to the press as late as mid-November, with JG Thirwell positive that the compilation was out in mid-1992 it would be highly unlikely (even impossible given the compilation is out in 1992 which would have meant less than a month of the year in which Foetus could switch the title and the record could still be printed and issued) that Cobain’s was the first use of Incesticide as a title. Here’s the song by the way with its prominent use of “Incesticide” as a chorus line:

The actual physical record gave another lead also as shown in the picture below:

Inlay

The inlay included the intriguing tease that the song had been previously included in a give-away release from Reflex magazine – that opened up the possibility (for me at least a brand new avenue I was unaware of until Sunday) that Cobain had an even earlier opportunity to observe the song title prior to mid-1992. Unfortunately, alas, it’s a dead chain; it turns out that the song did indeed appear on a September 1990 compilation…

…But only under a different name – Somnambulumdrum (http://foetus.org/content/discography/releases/foetus-inc-somnambulumdrum) – therefore there is only the one opportunity for Cobain to observe the title “Incesticide” unless there’s yet another completely unknown source from which both artists were drawing. As an aside, the songs on the compilation, where it’s possible to date them, were all from 1991 releases such as Tad’s Jack Pepsi single and earlier releases from Melvins, Jesus Lizard, etc. – again seeming to date this record earlier in 1992 than Nirvana’s release.

Is there a possibility that Kurt Cobain saw the title on this compilation or heard the song then adopted the song title for his leftovers’ compilation? Well, beyond the dating, beyond the fact that the Incesticide title seems to suddenly jump up out of nowhere and onto the front cover of a Nirvana album in very very late 1992, there’s the various links between the artists on the compilation and Cobain. Nirvana had shared the Dallas, TX gig with Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 in late 1991, Tad were friends (of course), Cobain hadn’t physically met up with Jesus Lizard since a Denver show in 1991 but some contact was ongoing in 1992 in preparation for the planned split-single…Less significantly Nirvana had shared the stage with Barkmarket back in 1990 and with Cop Shoot Cop even further back in 1989 – still quite a range of casual or less casual connections between Nirvana and the bands present on this compilation but, of course, no solid proof that anyone gave a copy to Kurt Cobain sometime in mid-to-late 1992 much though I like the idea of an artist going through a fixation on baby-related medical imagery taking a song title by a performer called “Foetus.” Another excellent little tease from a guy who does seem to like jokes and word games and playing in this way.

Reinterpretation of Nirvana’s Aneurysm

This piece came to me via a gentleman called Shane Tutmarc – great-grandson of a gentleman who is both a significant part of music history AND of Seattle music history simultaneously, Paul Tutmarc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tutmarc). It’s a quite dramatic reworking of Aneurysm on which he plays all the instruments. I think it’s a brilliant move the way the song commences with what sounds like an old school blues rhythm, the kinda thing Jessica Rabbit might croon over only to open it up rapidly to a far tenser and uncomfortable build made up first of just an omninous bass, then the minor key strings before eventually roaring into the Aneurysm chorus which, despite the lighter tone of the backing, is impossible to detach from the surrounding creepy elements. Stabbing piano keys and the rising strings give that sense that a climax is being reached, it’s the point where the axe might come through the door or the shadow is traced on the shower curtain.

The treated vocals continue this uncanniness. I wondered at first if it was a remix of Cobain’s own vocals but recognise now it isn’t. The uncanny, a core horror concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny) is centred on the idea of things that are simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar which is why the subtle deviation from the original vocals is such an effective touch.

Aneurysm was built on rock and roll cliches (“come on over and do the twist,” “love you so much,” etc.) but the cleverest touch was the way it then warped each one (“…overdo it and have a fit,” “…it makes me sick…”) turning it into a joke, a refusal, a sardonic parody. The song’s other great strength (I think it’s one of Cobain’s finest lyrical efforts) is the way it turns every emotional statement into a physical symptom – whether love meaning he brings up his guts, keeps his heart pumping – and each act into a biological concept – dancing leads to a epileptic episode, even the use of the cliche “shoot the shit” looks deliberate given it ends with the human physical output – shit. For such a short, mantra like and repetitious song, it was clogged with cleverness. As has been pointed out a million times, yes, the ‘she’ of the song and an awful lot of the phrasing could be considered as heroin references. This kinda multi-layered composition, conducted in a song with really only six different lines to it, is a great case for Cobain was an astronomically good writer.

This revision of the song is remarkably true to the original in these respects. Stripping it even further to a smaller cluster of repetitions is effective. Altering the voice remains true to the sense of human physicality derailed. Also, while Cobain’s lyrics walked a careful line between rock n’ roll cliche and impassioned believer statements – this song does it musically. The musical choices shift between night club tunes and modern ecstasy while soundtracking an uncomfortable tale of heroin, physical collapse, love and discomfort. The video is crucial here, this isn’t just a film soundtrack, but the film and the interpretation are so well integrated – the film brings the physical concept to the fore, it brings the ‘horror’ element to the fore, it has a physicality that a cartoon or modern CGI effort couldn’t match – the jerky quality of this work benefits the overall unsettled emotion and bodies.

I think musically it’s managed the impressive feat of taking the song in an apparently fundamentally different direction while remaining surprisingly true to the original warping of potentially traditional themes; visually it’s hammered in the crucial kinetic element of the original; and Shane’s managed – overall – to combine the elements present in a remarkably strong way where each reinforces and is mutually dependent on the others to create the overall effect. Impressive.

Anyways, enough of my prattling. Shane kindly gave me some time to describe a little more of his work and what was done here so I’ll let him speak for himself:

“I come from a very musical family going back to my great-grandfather, Paul Tutmarc, who has been credited with inventing the electric guitar. His son, my grandfather Bud Tutmarc, was a well-known Hawaiian Steel Guitar player, and both my parents played music around the house growing up. My favorite movie in kindergarten was Amadeus, so music was always a big part of my life. I remember singing melodies to my mom around that age to have her notate on sheet music so she could play it back to me. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t making some sort of music. After discovering Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, I immediately started a band. There was something about Kurt’s music and attitude that made me feel I could do it too. Looking back, I feel so lucky that I was able to grow up in Seattle during that pivotal time in music.

I’ve explored so many different avenues over the years, and each release becomes the “highlight” of each era. From 2001 – 2005, I released five experimental pop records under the moniker Dolour. After a short sabbatical from music, I dug into American roots, country and blues, with Shane Tutmarc & the Traveling Mercies, releasing two albums back-to-back. I went even further down that path with my first solo album, Shouting At A Silent Sky in 2009. Since moving to Nashville in 2010 I’ve worked on a number of projects, including last year’s trio of covers, which includes Aneurysm. I wanted to choose a song that was slightly off the beaten path. I’ve always loved the tongue-in-cheek humor in the lyrics, “Come on over and do the twist,” and the very-Cobain line, “I love you so much it makes me sick.” I started messing around with the arrangement using only midi sounds. There are no real instruments on the recording. The intro has a very Twin Peaks vibe. I was re-watching the show at the time, and the soundtrack definitely crept into the arrangement. And I went with a sort of Michael Jackson Thriller groove on the verses. I made the connection with the background vocals being “beat it, beat it.” Growing up in Seattle, people rarely covered Nirvana songs, it felt too sacred, or it carried too much baggage. But with this cover, it was a joy to take the song completely out of its original context, and reintroduce it in a fresh way.

I don’t remember how I first saw the short film, I used to work at a record store and was always taking home weird art DVDs, and that’s probably where I first came across it. In any case, I remembered it once I had the song finished, and I tracked it down again, and it was a perfect fit. It reminded me a lot of Kurt’s style of art, like the Incestiside album cover.

I sent the video to my brother, with extensive notes of where to make the cuts, and I’m really happy with what we ended up with. My brother Brandon and I have always collaborated. He’s been involved with my web and design projects since my early days with Dolour. He did the artwork for Dolour’s 3rd album, New Old Friends, and has had a hand in every project I’ve done since then. He’s just so fast and easy to work with. I’m sure it helps that we know each other so well, and know the same references. You can see more of his work at his website:

http://www.brandontutmarc.com

Living in such an active music city as Nashville, I’ve been able to get involved in so many different areas of music – from playing shows, co-writing, producing other artists, playing with other artists, etc. Currently I’m finishing up producing a record for Tanya Montana Coe, which should be released later this year. And I plan to start recording a new album of my own in the next month.
To keep up with me, check:

http://www.facebook.com/ShaneTutmarc

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Exploiting Nirvana and Kurt Cobain: J’accuse…Moi.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/24/kurt-cobain-desperate-for-fame-says-courtney-love

I thought of this title a long while back when someone raised the point that they felt I was morally compromised because I had written a book about Nirvana and sold it rather than releasing my ideas for free. J’accuse was the title of a letter by Emile Zola – it’s become a fun cliche, note the release J’accuse Ted Hughes by Sonic Youth – it simply means, “I accuse.” Today’s piece is about the topic of compromise which, I feel, has always been a part of the Nirvana story.

Dealing first, in brief, with my opinion on Kurt Cobain; did he compromise for commercial reasons? Answer; of course he did. The issue is that people tend to read backward from the consequences to the initial decision as if he could foresee the future – the millionaire status, the trophy wife, the media attention, the $200K pay cheque for a single date in Buenos Aires, the ability to pick and choose video collaborators for short and long form efforts, the record label kowtowing to his demands, the ability to promote his friends and get them on MTV…

It’s unreasonable, it’s projecting clairvoyance onto an individual who couldn’t possibly foresee what was to come. One could add up Kurt Cobain’s decisions and claim he was always doing whatever was required to make money; copying the Melvins – the only local success he knew, changing the sound of Nirvana between the January 1988 effort and the more straight-forward grunge songs he wrote once Sub Pop were involved because that’s what Sub Pop had an audience for and would promote, letting Sub Pop choose the running order of the band’s first album, asking Steve Fisk for a “top 40” drum sound in the April 1990 recording session, writing verse-chorus-verse pop punk songs from mid-1990 onward with a strong debt owed to the Pixies who had recently achieved indie success, barely swearing on the Nevermind album, permitting an MTV-friendly corporate rock video to support his big hit, mellowing out a couple moments of In Utero, accepting MTV invitations left-right-and-centre…

…But, then again, you could also say that he stayed true to punk rock’s sound which in the mid-Eighties through the early Nineties was still an underground phenomenon in America with no commercial prospects at all, that Nirvana made almost no money from playing music until at least late 1989, that featuring a song on Sub Pop 200 made them no cash, that Love Buzz/Big Cheese being a limited edition meant the band received little money, that as late as early 1991 Cobain sat at a gig in Canada autographing lighters and sold them for a dollar each because he was so poor, that he was living in a car in mid/late 1991, that whether he ate or not on a day was a matter of chance, that he dumpster-dived for clothing…That it wasn’t a case of needless profit, it was just about surviving.

That context is vital because decisions that, in retrospect, enabled Nirvana to become a multi-million selling phenomenon were made by a guy with next to no money, no imaginable chance of becoming a star, making a type of music that had never hit it big even if it had gained notoriety. He did want to live off his music, he made decisions accordingly, but what he was hoping for wasn’t a ‘mansion in the hills’ and infinite fame, it was more like escaping “this piss-stained mattress I’ve been sleeping on.”

The desire for elevation, in a capitalist society, does tend to come down to money – it’s the chosen medium of exchange permitting the acquisition and access to most experiences and human requirements. Everyone is required to make a compromise with money – to earn a living. This doesn’t mean everyone is automatically innocent though. There is still the question of whether one’s monetary gains are being made at the expense of other human beings and through moral corruption – if so, sorry, yep, it does make you a bad person. It also raises the more pertinent question of intention – was a decision made for the primary reason of profit and is that profit motivation clear in the end result?

Nevermind remains the crux of the topic; it was a commercial sounding record, they wanted to sell and for it to sell well – the end product is clearly motivated by acquiescence to the profit-related desires of record company and band. Saying that the band only expected to sell tens of thousands or maybe a couple hundred thousand doesn’t void the nature of the decision being taken – it doesn’t make it innocent nor does it make it a non-profit driven decision even if the scale of the profit imagined was the merest fraction of what ended up occuring. This is inspite of acknowledging that Cobain wanted to indulge his pop-orientated instincts, the hard rock side of his tastes – it wasn’t just a personal artistic statement, it was a deliberate product. The kicker though is that it was a decision clearly about surviving not about making egregious profit for the sake of it – it wasn’t Dr Dre sitting on his millions then making yet more millions from a team up with Apple, it was a poor starving boy hoping for some small recognition and good reviews and a continued chance to play and record on a label that could afford to pay its artists. Sub Pop’s finances were a disaster area.

That’s why I don’t worry too much when I see these articles about Cobain’s commercial instincts; someone in lowly straits taking sensible decisions when opportunity was offered – I don’t expect utter purity, I’m too old to believe in it. The only uncompromised music is that which stays in the bottom drawer of a desk at home, never played for an audience, never placed in anyone’s hands – as a music consumer I’m clearly content to make the deal that someone’s work is worth my money. Complicit, yep – compromised, yep.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/04/ebooks-discounts-98-publishers-closure

This brings me to my own compromise. I’ll keep it brief. In essence, it was suggested that by writing and selling a book about Nirvana I was exploiting Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. Actually, it’s not an insult, it’s a perfectly valid hypothesis – pretty reasonable to suggest it or to believe it, it’s on an individual to define their terms and where they draw the lines, I can only explain and explore my own reasons for feeling that I’ve done no such thing.

Firstly, I did choose to write a book about Nirvana through any commercial motivation – I wrote a book about Nirvana because I love Nirvana, I’m a fan first, a writer second. I chose to write a book because writing is my only real talent or ability on the creative front – I’m not much of a musician, I’m no artist. So the decision to express my enjoyment of Nirvana in book form was similarly not a commercial choice.

Second, ah…But I did place a price on the book and sell it rather than giving it away for free or simply placing my thoughts on free fan forums – this is a far more solid criticism, for sure! The fact that I’ve placed 400,000 words, 350 articles here, a couple hundred graphics all on here for fans and for free doesn’t void or even mitigate the compromise. Just because someone does something good doesn’t impact on how bad the bad things they do are. Similarly, I work a full day job at a corporate organisation, I do 12-16 hours work and commute per day…And THEN, since February 2012, I’ve also done 4-5 hours of Nirvana writing, Nirvana spreadsheet work, Nirvana analysis night after night for a total of 20-30 hours a week for around 125+ weeks now. Still, all that work does not entitle me to be re-paid nor does it mitigate the fact I decided to make a commercial product. Both these points, hopefully, show my commitment to the subject, show that I’m certainly not “exploiting Nirvana for gain” as much as I am “showing my love for Nirvana and desire to share that love” – but it doesn’t remove the question mark, that I am indeed taking payment for a Nirvana-related product.

So, this leads to the next question, is it legitimate for anyone to do something that has the name of Nirvana on it and that someone might pay for? Well, on this point, if you believe the answer is “only Kurt Cobain plus the members of the band” – fair enough but it means defining all paid commentary, all biographies, all music criticism by journalists or writers as illegitimate. I’m not sure about you but I hate the idea of a world where self-serving PR pieces from musicians and their management were the only ways in which one understood or explored them – seems to be enough of that already. I’m happy with the idea that public topics can be explored publically by individuals observing but not participating in the subject of the discussion – someone else can make a different choice. What makes the difference, I feel, would be the difference between (a) putting the name Nirvana on something to make it sell more, versus (b) putting the name Nirvana on something because that’s the topic under discussion and the discussion is taking place for a non-commercial reason. I did not place the name Nirvana on the book, undertake the writing of the book, for any profit-related motive and I did not make the book about Nirvana because of any commercial reason – I did it because I love Nirvana.

But still…Compromised. So…I put a price on the book – I paid the production costs and hoped to re-coup them. I printed a first 100 copies and gave away twenty-five to various helpers and supporters. The maximum revenue was £750. The cost of production was £400 – thus a profit of around £350 was the maximum expectation. Did I expect to sell all the books? I had no idea. So was I doing it for profit? No, I wanted to write the book and did so anyway independent of what might then happen to it. Could I have given it away for free? Actually yes, I could have shouldered the £400 cost and it would have hurt but…Yes. I chose not to. This is where personal pride comes in – not profit, but pride.

I feel that free work is not regarded with the same respect as stuff one pays for – in a capitalist society, despite lipservice to the innate value of things, a price is deemed to be a mark of quality. I didn’t think twice about deciding that I felt my analysis of Nirvana in Dark Slivers was worth paying ten pounds for – my feeling was that if someone loved the topic of Nirvana but didn’t think my work was worth paying even £10 for…Then that was their choice but I felt that it was a good deal. I didn’t say to myself “I will charge a rate to recoup the hours spent on the book,” impossible – I spent far more time on the book than I could possibly make back. My feeling is that someone bought the book not just because it was about Nirvana but because of an interest in my thoughts and ideas and the work I had conducted. I did want to cover the production costs of a physical book – I wanted to hold a book in my hands, entirely selfishly I wanted to have a physical book as a result of my labours, not just some e-book whatever.

Those were my drives; to write a book, to write about something I loved, to hold the result in my hands and to feel darn good about it. I did!! And it was a bloody honour that a few hundred people felt the result was worth paying something for. Compromised? Yes. And it’s up to you, the reader, the viewer, to decide if the book was worth it or if you felt it wasn’t either (a) a valid discussion of Nirvana (b) decent writing and analysis. Worth ten pounds to find out? Definitely a choice I leave to you! 🙂

The topic came up when I criticised the “Who Killed Kurt Cobain?” / “Love and Death” authors for being motivated by profit. Actually, I should retract that criticism. As journalists they were motivated by a good story – a story worth exploring and it definitely was a good topic. Do I feel they did it for love of Kurt Cobain or a desire to “tell the truth”? Nope. Do I feel they did it because it was a good subject for a book? Yep. Do I think they knew in advance that they could get a book deal from the controversy? Yeah. The compromise doesn’t make them unworthy reads or bad books but I don’t think they were books written in support of Nirvana or Cobain.

I don’t believe in the nihilistic idea that everyone is guilty so it doesn’t matter what one does. I believe that everyone is compromised and it does matter what one does – one chooses the compromises; confess, own them, be honest about them. I’m compromised and I’m delighted that the end result was a work I was and am proud of! Yay!

Kurt Cobain’s Contributions to Melvins’ Houdini Album

Gosh, has it really been a month since I was working on this? Darn…Sorry…Sorry…

A diversion today though, wanted to look at Melvins’ Houdini record. I’d always noticed that commentary on Cobain’s involvement with the album is focused on his role/non-role on the production side with barely a mention made of the part he played as a musician on the release. I couldn’t help but want to satisfy my curiosity by grabbing a copy of the album and finding out why…

…Oh dear…It’s pretty obvious. The real story of Houdini, the real fun and drama, come from discussing the record company’s cynical behaviour – their determination to have the name ‘Kurt Cobain’ written on the record by any means necessary and to see if Melvins’ association with Nirvana could be turned, at the peak of Nirvana’s fame, into success for their own artist. I’d have to admit though that a lot of albums never make money I can understand a label executive wanting to exploit the very clear and visible connection between their ‘token grunge band’ and the world’s biggest group – it’s logical, it’s sensible, it’s helpful. Melvins’ status at the time is also fascinating, this was a pretty drug-addled time and examining the album, it’s not bad but there’s definite filler compared to their most glorious excursions. Thing is, for Cobain’s name to be exploited in this way he had to agree to it – his instinct to support his friends, coupled with the fact that it’s fair to say that in the early days he’d made use of his Melvins’ connections and owed them to some extent for early breaks, meant he was happy to involve himself despite there being no apparent evidence of him being interested before in the mechanics of recording beyond asking for a particular sound and a producer fulfilling the desire as best they could. Similarly the mood is visible in the way the relationship between Melvins and the production staff broke down a touch, you can see it in the way that Jonathan Burnside – an experienced producer who’d worked on several other Melvins’ albums and releases – was relegated to ‘engineer’ in the credits when it’s become very obvious that Cobain certainly was not producing in any active sense. Melvins also had to join in with the urge to use Cobain’s presence for commercial purposes. Buzz Osbourne has stated he wanted Cobain there for inspirational purposes and so forth – yeah? Let’s just check, Kurt Cobain had been a presence in the life of Melvins for some ten years by that point but suddenly he was wanted as a collaborator? Alas, hate to say it, but I think it’s more likely that just as Melvins’ arrival on a major label was tied directly to Nevermind’s explosion, the arrival of Cobain in an amorphous and vague role on Melvins’ first major label record was simply a knowing desire to try to keep the label happy and gain some commercial glitter. Nothing wrong with that, useful to have a rock star friend.

Did I say filler earlier? That’s where the Cobain contributions come in; Cobain is given a credit for playing on two songs – Spread Eagle Beagle and Sky Pup. What that involvement amounts to is participation in Melvins’ very own Moby Dick (a la Led Zeppelin.) Spread Eagle Beagle is a lengthy percussion piece that doesn’t feel the desire to go anywhere in a hurry. Lulls at about five minutes and ten minutes – where the drums give way to the light rumbling of what sounds like a steel sheet then the patter of drum sticks being rubbed – almost count as moments of tension simply because so little happens. I’m a fanatic for unusual noise records, for a certain quantity of extremity, but this doesn’t have the same momentum Melvins lent to something like their collaboration with Lustmord – it’s just ten minutes of relatively static thudding, little intricacy or drama. On live bootlegs of Nirvana sometimes you’ll hear for a few seconds the drummer warming up, clattering a few drums before the start of an actual song, just setting the beat and waiting for his comrades to join in…This feels like Melvins playing those few seconds ad infinitum, over and over, while everyone else is too busy nodding out to join in. It could be a joke – that they’ve tagged this nothingness onto the end of a real record in which case it’s a bit sad because Melvins have always managed to be whimsical, experimental, out for just trying things and seeing what might happen – without creating ‘nothing.’

There are several sources within the song. First, a drum kit keeping up a solid heavy thump in the middle, a consistent zing of bent metal that echoes accentuates or follows certain moments in the main rhythm, a separate and far lighter set of accents is being added by a separate drum kit occasionally echoing the main rhythm while a further piece of equipment producing something like the sound of a light switch or thin stick being hit on the edge of a drum – a whip sound – sometimes intervenes. The rhythm is fairly unvarying – the pauses give me the impression of active improvisors pausing to look one another in the eye before a change of direction…Except the direction doesn’t change. The ‘song’ pauses then simply proceeds in pretty much the same manner as it had been. There’s a change up at about six minutes in to a far denser drumming with each instrument gradually rising up for the next couple minutes and the pace picking up while still amounting to little more than a swifter clatter.

For evidence of Cobain’s continued collaborative or creative impulses in the 1993-1994 period Spread Eagle Beagle isn’t the place to go. It’s impossible to tell what contribution he made, there’s no way of teasing out a signature sound or anything identifiably Cobain-esque. In a way that’s perhaps what makes me smile widest because, if I was being generous and clever-clever, I’d suggest that the anonymity of Cobain’s presence is precisely the point. The album’s own merits were being overshadowed by the mere presence of an (unwilling) global superstar. Whatever Melvins did on the album, the label were far more concerned with just plastering Cobain’s name on it. Cobain himself undoubtedly knew that he was helping friends but simultaneously that he was being exploited due to his fame and that it wasn’t just ‘helping friends’, it was also supporting the label people suggesting and coaxing them into it…These are musicians, while most people simply say what they feel is wrong/right, musicians can comment via music, via performance. What Melvins create at the end of the album, was a graffitti track stating “yes, Kurt woz ‘ere” at the same time as it makes him completely invisible, a cipher, a name, nothing more. They’d erased him from the track even as they satisfied their bosses that they’d included him. Great! Doesn’t mean I necessarily am going to listen to the track often even if it potentially says much about the circumstances of the album. Buzz Osbourne’s apparent resentment/irritation with Cobain’s posthumous status perhaps has roots in this kind of moment where Melvins’ own achievements are pushed to one side in favour of their friend’s commercial cachet. Understandably annoying.

So what of Sky Pup where Cobain was coaxed into handling a guitar? Hmm. Perhaps this feels disrespectful but in the songs four minute duration the usual heavyweight chug of Melvins at full pelt is stripped back to a pretty jazzy bass/drums duet which works neatly, but the guitar is missing in action. Oh, no wait! There it is. There’s a repeating sequence during the early minute or so of the song – I was aware that this was Cobain on a right-handed guitar with Buzz Osbourne manipulating the peddles but then it dissolves to a low-in-the-mix watery sounding diarrhea that eventually becomes nothing more than drain noises for the rest of the song matched against some vocal chokes and coughs and ad-libbed squarks. I was hoping to say more about it but there really isn’t anything there to comment on. Apparently Cobain handed the guitar back as rapidly as possible – there’s no indication that this was a live jam, it sounds like a recording of the guitar was mixed in later with the rest of the band playing over the top. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that introductory semi-riff was looped after the fact or if the same minute or two was reused throughout most of the song. There’s some kind of a solo from about 1.50 through around 2.30 then a skeletal 25 seconds in which the finger positions move back-and-forth a couple of times without achieving anything much. There’s a hint of Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol’s spindly moments at that point but it makes the latter Nirvana jam look like gold-dust by comparison (I really like Gallons I admit.)

The most crucial reason that the two Cobain contributions stand out is simply that everything else on the album actually sounds like a Melvins’ song. This is a cohesive and coherent album if one erases Sky Pup and deletes the ten minute marathon finale. That final track simply feels like a band low on inspiration needing to get the song up to some kinda contractually mandated run-time though, in tone, it at least feels consistent with the album as a whole. Sky Pup is a mid-album interlude adding neither a pause for breath nor an intriguing switch to leftfield – it doesn’t sound like it belongs on the same album as the other tracks. It’s a remarkable commentary really – to make the interloper stand out so prominently on the album that it’s clearly the thing that simply didn’t fit into what the Melvins were doing with the Houdini album prior to the intervention of major labels and the potential cash bonanza.

Anyways, a good album…If one deletes Sky Pup and Spread Eagle Beagle.

Smothered in Musical History, Jaded by Reissues and Reprisals Galore

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Lengthy absence acknowledged – sorry peoples, normal service to be resumed as soon as possible and I’m still itching to talk about a few things I’ve been up to on the Nirvana front. Soon…Soon…

Over here, is it me or has the reissue/retrospective/boxed set/deluxe edition industry kicked into overdrive recently? I’m currently whipping through the three CD edition of Oasis Definitely Maybe which reminds me precisely why I enjoyed these guys at age fifteen – singing out loud while working the day job has it’s appeal plus they had b-sides most bands would kill for.

Similarly, if the nation of Ireland had done nothing else other than come up with the Therapy? Troublegum album then i’d still count their entire history a success. As it is, they didn’t just come up with Troublegum, they did pretty well with Infernal Love too so I can only recommend that if you have a little spare cash both reissues are well-worthy (three CD Troublegum being the best, two CD Infernal Love still top notch.) A complete reminder of why these albums tore my head off all those years ago – Troublegum is musical perfection.

Thing is…I’m also looking at the three CD Young Marble Giants package on my shelf alongside then the four disc Heartbreakers LAMF Definitive Edition next to the Heartbreakers Down to Kill rarities collection; on the shelf above is the complete Beatles in Stereo next to Iggy and the Stooges three CD/1 DVD Raw Power deluxe edition and the Stooges Complete Funhouse Sessions eight CD box and the Dinosaur Jr Visitors 7″ vinyl Record Store Day boxset; in the middle just above me is the Nevermind Super-Deluxe plus the Singles box plus With the Lights Out bookended by the glorious Joy Division Heart and Soul boxset and the Sex Pistols four disc from 2001 or so; and I know over my shoulder if I spin this chair around I’ll see the two Unwound vinyl boxsets Kid is Gone and Rat Conspiracy nestled next to my Pennyroyal Tea Record Store Day 7″; to the left of me you can find the two Throbbing Gristle live boxs, plus the Rage Against the Machine Super Deluxe, plus the Arab Strap box, plus the Nirvana In Utero super-deluxe and the Bleach deluxe…Elsewhere there’s Weezer Pinkerton deluxe, Sonic Youth Goo/Dirty/Daydream Nation deluxe, the Throbbing Gristle album reissues, the Jimi Hendrix album reissues, Superfuzz Bigmuff deluxe, the Crass reissues, more Stooges, Azura Plane, the Slits, a Bob Marley retrospective, the Deathprod boxset… Get the picture?

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Essentially, I think it does say many things about me (not wishing to turn this into a personal reminiscences blog but what the heck…) that I’m totally the target audience for these kinds of releases – musically omnivorous, prone to obsessiveness, collecting bug on overdrive, not much money but even less sense…I’m a dream consumer for the music industry. There’s a certain internal revulsion too – do I really need…? No of course I don’t, there’s no belonging I possess that, in an existential sense I really ‘need’, it’s all about want and wish – which somehow feels so unnecessary but ultimately harmless, pleasurable, no worse than someone else’s desire for art, clothes, property – any physical display. But the actions of others doesn’t rob me of that nagging discomfort with myself nor of a right to feel disconcerted by my consumption of music.

There’s nothing sinister about the re-heating of old releases – it’s entirely overt behaviour by record companies, entirely welcomed by fans (if done well), definitely interesting for the musically inquisitive. Likewise, though books like Retromania make good points about the crowding of the culture industry with repetition and repeat, ultimately it was a foreseeable consequence of the accumulation of physical recording media – there was going to come an age where the glut of material available meant new releases from new bands were just a tiny pimplehead on a Jabba the Hutt style long and thick body. It has a positive too, the willingness to discover the past, to acknowledge past creation, past moments of inspiration – it doesn’t have to fall into maudlin nostalgic comfort though some would argue that’s all any of it consists of.

Anyways, though it’s nice to play it safe and re-purchase old favourites for those slightly battered, shambolic, tinny or hiss-consumed shades of the main release, though it’s fun to be reminded precisely how stunning certain albums were and always will be (usually more to those who experienced them first time around but often to those who never had that chance)…There’s still plenty going on out there, plenty to be explored so I don’t think it’s the death knell just yet. But I still need a break which is no bad thing.

January 16, 1993 — Cobain Quits on Stage

After all the rumours of sheer catastrophe, the latest additions to the audio/video record of Nirvana’s performance in São Paulo in January 1993 actually didn’t seem so bad…But. It took me some time to realize that it’s only just over thirty minutes into the performance before Cobain gives up on playing and more-or-less goes on strike. For his comrades on stage it must have seemed like no time at all before things fell apart.

Making it worse, this isn’t a situation where it’s NIRVANA as a unit wrecking things, Buenos Aires back in October is the obvious contrast where they’re all sabotaging the show in one form or another. This time around it’s Cobain, on his own, ignoring Novoselic and Grohl and doing precisely what he feels like doing with no consideration for them. Throughout the rest of the show there are moments where they both seem to be coaxing him along, encouraging him – when Grohl insists on them playing Rio it sounds so enthusiastic but simultaneously looks like a way of keeping Cobain playing something, anything. It’s a tragedy that the existing record doesn’t show the moment when Novoselic walked off or where Kurt started mashing a watermelon into his strings. It does make one wonder whether the performance was as bad as stated given the moment where Cobain sang “we will f*** you” during the Queen classic isn’t clearly present either.

This is the first time they’ve been on stage together since Nirvana had witnessed an audience tear Calamity Jane to shreds in Argentina so, though the noise is muted on the recording, the audience are unlikely to have been passive recipients of whatever was going on. Imagine tens of thousands of revved up locals staring down the band – is it any wonder no one is willing to call it quits and step off stage? If the legal/contractual threats that stopped Novoselic from quitting part way through weren’t sufficient then a relatively buoyant audience certainly must have helped keep the tension levels elevated.

I admit I marveled at how functional Cobain is while high. Later the same year he overdosed in New York and was still on stage later, even if it did create a poor performance he still staggered through it. Here in Brazil the reports from backstage emphasise that Cobain was visibly drugged up before he went on, heck, he’s certainly no zombie even if there are so many moments where it’s obvious something isn’t right – the foul-ups in Teen Spirit where he can’t even hit the two notes of the verses quite right are a fair example. His voice is certainly not at its best, he sounds strained and hoarse at numerous points – even more grainy than his regular approach and loses the note entirely at the end of Teen Spirit. Whinging about the lighting twice over inside the first fifteen minutes of the recording isn’t anything, stage lighting blinding musicians isn’t exactly uncommon, but this is a guy who barely has his eyes open and doesn’t interact with crowds a whole lot – what’s he planning on looking at?

Negative Creep has that same tentative vibe as Buenos Aires where the first minute or so of each song felt like he was trying to remember it, tuning, preparing at a time when the band had plenty of guitars all tuned and ready to go. His yelp of “is everyone having a good time tonight? Rock n’ Roll!” has the same feel of sarcasm his applause at the conclusion of Live and Loud does – that he knows it’s not amusing, that it’s not going well. “I could shave on stage and you’d eat it up,” within a very ad-libbed (enjoyably so) rendition of Something in the Way sums up his feeling that he feels he’s faking it and no one’s noticing – it’s followed by the line about Brett Michaels and Poison then a reference to Guns n’ Roses/Led Zeppelin, I usually take his references to hair metal bands as points where he’s feeling self-critical or conscious of reasonably made comparisons given his band has stepped over into that pop-rock sphere – in this context that interpretation, that it’s his inner issues on display, makes sense.

Of course, he’s been through these songs so many times that he can’t fuck up hugely, most of the set are tracks he’s played in concert right the way back to 1990 if not before – there are four tracks from Bleach, Polly/Breed/Dive/Been a Son/Molly’s Lips he’s been rocking since 1989 – yet he’s still not putting much into them. It isn’t, however, a disaster at first – just lacklustre. It emphasizes how deliberate a choice it is to go from pausing, tentative performance to simple destructiveness – that’s an aspect I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned before, that it isn’t just a bad performance, it’s a deliberate refusal to cooperate. The solo in Blew is just bizarre, there’s not even an attempt to work within the confines of the song.

And that’s it, off he spins. Krist and Dave do their best to set down some kinda base but Cobain just ignores them and crunches the most cackhanded chords and directionless note runs without any reference to attempting musical cooperation or performance. There are moments when the band try to lock in behind him and he just spirals off to wherever – I love noise records and the ten minutes or so from Blew onwards certainly qualify. Staging the kinda guitar-wrecking he normally saves for the finale at this early stage is a declaration that the show is over.

I’ve always wondered about the presence of TV cameras and their effect on Cobain; think back – Top of the Pops (takes the piss), Jonathan Ross show (plays a different song to the one intended), first MTV live appearance (finishes early), MTV VMAs (refuses to play Teen Spirit and annoys them with Rape Me), Live and Loud (eliminates Teen Spirit again and spends fifteen minutes making noise and harassing cameramen), MTV Unplugged (plays barely half a set of Nirvana originals and avoids any ‘hits’ – questions about the ability to play some of those hits acoustically to one side for a moment), Rio de Janeiro (‘mocksturbation’ to cameras of Brazil’s largest TV network)… TV seems a guarantee of non-cooperation from Cobain. Why? It’s certainly the clearest indication that he’s moved to a different level of fame, it’s definitely showing he’s been moved into the “TV musical light-entertainment” category which may have itched and it’s showing him that whatever he’s doing is now acceptable mainstream music. Did that worry him? No idea, but the chain of less than cooperative behaviour is telling.

I’ll leave you to work through the covers – he at least sounds like he’s having more fun, they’re pretty competent renditions. Apparently around the time of the Mia Zapata benefit Cobain was deeply into a drug spell – noticeable that, again, the show revolved more around covers and casual fun. Part of me thinks a rendition of the Stooges’ classic “No Fun” at this show would summarise the decision to just stop, give up, surrender and do something more enjoyable – playing sappy covers almost flaunting the unwillingness to please the audience even if the band weren’t willing to risk legal action and financial damage by finishing early.

Cobain Postcard from Death Scene Plus PDF Police Review of Evidence

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kurt-cobain-death-scene-note-mocks-vows-to-courtney-love/

It’s one way to commemorate an anniversary…The Seattle Police Department chose to mark the twentieth anniversary of Cobain’s death by reviewing the evidence they hold and releasing a report summarising their views. Their conclusion? Nothing contradicting the verdict of suicide. In terms of new information, there’s almost nothing; they uncovered that on Tuesday April 2, 1994 Cobain took a taxi into town to purchase the shotgun shells that he then used. There’s an interesting discussion of the movement of the gun at time of firing which concludes that Cobain’s death grip on the gun results in the final position of one shotgun casing and one misfired round. Oh, and in what should delight murder theorists, turns out the 1.52 milligrams per litre level of heroin in Cobain’s blood stream is entirely correct though the report also notes the presence of fresh needle tracks and puncture wounds indicating sustained use of heroin and more than one recent injection (wounds is a plural in the report – not just one indicating injection at time of death but several.)

They also released a postcard that was in Cobain’s wallet but unsent in which he scribbles down “Do you Kurt Cobain take Courtney Michelle Love to be your lawful shredded wife even when she’s a bitch with zits and siphoning all (your) money for doping and whoring…” Apparently there’s more not included in the photo released. Funnily enough, the stationery Cobain uses for the postcard above, that was found in his wallet, comes from a San Francisco hotel called the Phoenix – apparently popular with a rock clientele, perhaps partially due to its proximity to a neighbourhood known for drug dealing. As an aside, Cobain doesn’t visit San Francisco in March 1994 – however, Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for Faith No More and a friend of the Cobain couple flew in from San Francisco sometime after March 18 and left before 25 suggesting he might have left the postcard at the house and Cobain had later scooped it up and used it as scrap paper sometime among the smattering of days between Friday March 25 and Tuesday April 5. (Added Note: pointed out in comments, it’s likely the card was written by Courtney herself – sheesh, couples! They have the weirdest sense of humour. :-))

This is the Police Report incidentally:

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A thank you at this point to Jon for adding a YouTube link in the comments a week ago to Tom Grant’s response to Mike Ciesynski which, neatly, includes detective Ciesynski’s verbal comments on his review.

For once I’m going to give an inch to the murder theory – Cobain isn’t exactly a candidate for world’s tidiest human being as demonstrated by the photos last month of how he and Courtney Love left one apartment they shared and the numerous comments on his apartment in Olympia previous to that. The idea that he put the syringe back in his box and put the caps on is a bit weird…BUT. Suicide isn’t a normal act, it isn’t a normal time and this is a guy who has shown meticulous attention to the staging and positioning of art projects suggesting it isn’t that he’s constitutionally incapable of being tidy, orderly and precisely arranged. Having laid out items next to his body, putting away the syringes was just one more preparation…Or his supposed killer takes the time to it which is pretty unconvincing too. I’m sure the Seattle police are pretty aware that by this stage people will just believe what they believe.

The postcard’s main fascination comes from the way in which it’s such a common behaviour on Cobain’s part; the Journals are riddled with unsent letters, vicious missives to all and sundry explaining their sins and crimes. My perspective was always that it was his way of discharging his more negative views and I’ve always doubted that any of the letters were meant to be sent because I think Cobain knew fine well that what he was writing was usually extremely slanted and didn’t even capture the totality of his own feelings. Instead it was more akin to the sentiment put out in his lyrics about politeness (“if you wouldn’t mind/if you wouldn’t care…”, Come as You Are, All Apologies) that he often felt he couldn’t say things, or just as likely knew he’d be talking sh** if he did. Really I put the postcard in with that, a semi-nonsensical scree aimed at his wife who has just threatened to take his child away and to divorce him. I mean, those couple of lines are pretty silly.

Writings on the Twentieth Anniversary of Cobain’s Demise

I was too busy that week of the anniversary (April 5-8, wherever you want to draw the line) to really dedicate some time to doing something so rather than dashing something off I thought it was better just to say nothing if I had nowt to say well.

It didn’t mean I didn’t find time for quite a significant amount of reading though. Now. I try to make a real point of avoiding sweeping generalisations except in error, but here’s one; the Cobain anniversary really brought out the worst kinda space-filling, low quality pop culture criticism I’ve witnessed circulating around any event this side of a British royal wedding – a vast array of dashed off click-fodder.

If you feel like playing bullshit bingo sometime, go to Google news, tap in Kurt Cobain and scan through a few – you’re looking for the following; James Dean/rebel references, references to the power of Cobain’s voice or ‘voice of generation’ hyperbole, inability to name one song other than Teen Spirit and endless quoting from same song, repeated summarization of the Nirvana life story cribbed from existing biographies, point of article confined to a paragraph or two at most surrounded by repetition of tragic/flawed eulogies cut/paste from a thousand other articles.

Sadly, in amidst it, there were a few interesting thoughts but usually without the knowledge of the topic to advance or develop the idea. Here are a few examples:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/10751850/Kurt-Cobain-had-nowhere-to-go-musically-when-he-died.html

Of six paragraphs, only the fourth and the fifth aren’t autopilot recitations designed for people who neither know about nor are interested in Nirvana/Cobain. There simply isn’t the depth to answer the question set – it argues Cobain may have struggled to articulate anything fresh as he aged without offering any evidence supporting the proposition. This is a shame because it’s a worthwhile line of inquiry. The fifth paragraph deviates entirely to discuss the changing landscape of music post-Cobain – again, it’s not a bad topic (though spit-roasted to the consistency of leather by this point in time) and could have carried a full article.

Pop Matters made a far better show of asking the question raised in the fifth paragraph of the Telegraph articleeven if, again, the depth into which the average music journalist can go is simply to make surface-skimming points about modern guitar music compared to Nirvana:

http://www.popmatters.com/post/180441-the-legacy-of-kurt-cobain/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26776170

This is how to do it (God bless the BBC!) A very brief article but an original story about a specific point in time and Youri Lenquette is a top notch individual. Similarly, here’s NME doing a quick burst about plans to record. The issue would be that these are news bulletins rather than criticism or proper thought-pieces but, again, I’m ok with the idea that one says as little as possible if one has nothing fresh to say.

http://www.nme.com/news/nirvana/76574

Again, in the Oregon Live piece below, the idea of discussing the topic of how Cobain changed anything at all is a topic worth exploring…Thing is, Charles Cross has already done it for this anniversary (I scanned the rather light, rather small, hardback of his new book in a store today and somehow couldn’t stomach the £14.99 asking price – I’ll wait for the paperback) so what’s left are nine barely related factoids with no central thesis and no link to the title. It’s mainly an ad for the Cross book. A tragic waste of a good angle that could have worked well in this media format.

http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2014/04/kurt_cobain_9_ways_his_life_an.html

CNN disgrace themselves by pegging a space-filling slideshow under the title “Kurt Cobain: His Death and the 1990s” – I mean, I almost like the 90s-palooza thing but even that could have been more stylish; Nostalgiapalooza perhaps? I mean, what’s next? “The Manson Murders: Fun and Frolicsome Memories of the 1960s”? Tagging this photobook of amusing “d’ya remember when…?” pieces to a death feels pretty wrong even beyond the depthless ‘commemoration’ aspect.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/04/showbiz/kurt-cobain-death-anniversary/

At least one of the local Seattle papers did a better job by making a few light comparisons between Seattle c1990s versus modern Seattle – there’s surely a lot more to be added on this one but let’s not quibble given its a concise and distracting enough job well done on an original angle. I mean, heck, it’s a different city now entirely:

http://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/music/article/Kurt-Cobain-and-Seattle-in-the-90s-Then-and-now-5375275.php

MTV do some truly uninteresting merging of personal bio and Cobain text that could be sold in a box as a word game – construct your own posthumous Cobain article:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1725695/kurt-cobain-man-who-changed-world.jhtml

And the other week I mentioned not being particularly impressed by Everett True’s “I knew him, you didn’t” (I summarise tragically fairly accurately) piece in the Guardian – the guy has done so much better before. I enjoyed the reprint of Jonathan Freedland’s original 1994 report for the intriguing reportage on Seattle at that moment in time, local reaction and questions regarding the depth or otherwise of Cobain’s representation of a generation.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/from-the-archive-blog/2014/apr/05/kurt-cobain-an-icon-of-alienation

What’s lacking is commentary that has an argumentative depth, an original angle, a willingness to assume sufficient knowledge on the part of the audience that the rehashing can be abandoned, a degree of depth on the part of the critic allowing them to roam more widely through the Cobain tale and greater effort having been put into finding primary sources to speak on specific questions or debating points – I’m presuming the North West was flooded with dashed off journalistic inquiries along generic lines no more evolved or intelligent than “so…tell me…What was he LIKE?” or “what’s your biggest memory of him?”

Essentially pop culture media seems to have been stripped down to nothing more than the simple relaying of soundbite and imagery courtesy of PR agencies on behalf of their clients with any attempt at depth confined to full-scale books – there have been some impressive ones in recent years. I may not enjoy hagiography and applications for Cobain’s sainthood but he genuinely is one of those few standout figures in the musical world that would seem to demand that a commentator know a bit more about than is on evidence in the above pieces – it’s like someone writing a piece on Shakespeare based on reading the back cover of a biography plus a sonnet or two.

Just for balance though, here’s an article I genuinely did appreciate (in part) for its willingness to marry the subject of Cobain to a wider question, to a new angle, to evidence I hadn’t heard or considered before:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/32fd8cf0-b42c-11e3-a102-00144feabdc0.html#slide0

I saw it in the FT in which it was a four column full-page piece and for sure, it does suffer from some of the sins of pieces described earlier. The first column strings together a set of non-sequiturs and clichés taking in the recent statue in Aberdeen, quick references to Cobain’s art, two brief quotations from his lyrics (simultaneously marking the beginning/end of Kurt Cobain’s existence to a majority of people – Smells Like Teen Spirit he begins, You Know You’re Right he ends) then finally states that the article has a point. The first two paragraphs, really, are a document describing how the writer failed to find any information out from a primary source so had to rely on quoting another media site to fill some space; the third column in the newspaper returned once more to a retelling of the Nirvana tale at least pepped up with some quotes from Bruce Pavitt related to the article’s main topic.

The redemptive components of the article are the second column – everything from the mention of Scott Sandage to the next … break – plus the final three paragraphs (column four.) The dissertation regarding the evolving model of what failure has meant over time is a welcome one – giving a historical context to the entire ‘loser/slacker’ topic is a really rich theme to run with and certainly sparks thought about where Cobain/grunge belong in the overall narrative of American social/political/economic history.

In fact, it’s a good angle despite the fact I disagree with the author’s point fundamentally. He simply asserts that ‘Generation X’ was the slacker generation and that it was self-evident that a wave of young people were embracing a form of nihilism at the time – untrue. The generation coming of age alongside and around Cobain was just as likely to be employed, more likely to be entrepreneurially active, more likely to have pursued getting an education as a potential advantage in the jobs market (I hate to rely on a Wikipedia article but what the hey, it’s a decent summary and raises the wider point about the different forms of ‘Generation X’ worldwide – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X), has a higher level of involvement in social causes…Need I go on? The flipside was that it was the generation that had to deal with a new economic/political complex that no longer believed the point of the government was to aim for 100% employment for citizens; in other words, no matter what anyone/everyone did, there would always be more jobs than people and no way for some people to find a job. The tales of over-qualified individuals taking service industry positions wasn’t the tale of a lack of ambition it was the tale of an economic realignment toward a service-orientated economy with more part-time jobs, more unskilled jobs, fewer opportunities overall.

The author has conjoined two separate arguments here; one is about the overall nature of the post-baby boom generation, the other is about the professional respect to be offered to artists and musicians. He essentially – and oddly for a ‘pop critic’ – is claiming those who pursue income via the creative arts are the same thing as slackers. This is a really tangled arena; are only those musicians who aim to be multi-millionaires from the outset worthy of being deemed professionals and accorded the respect that any entrepreneur should receive? Are musicians who are content developing steady but predominantly local audiences unambitious or just establishing a secure and realistic measure of success as opposed to the fantasists who see visions of cheering throngs in their heads even while touring the toilet circuit? Is it only Cobain’s ability to sell millions that makes his art worthy of note despite the fact all the songs on Nevermind originated long prior to his band being anything more than another underground band with reasonable respect? The question of why precisely the author deems Cobain to be a failure, or whether he’s reserving that epithet for the bands around Cobain who didn’t miraculously go through the roof, is the piece he doesn’t answer – again, like the assumption that Generation X were the slacker generation, he assumes it’s self-evident that Cobain was a loser simply because that’s the casual association made regardless of whether it has substance behind it.

I’m not specifically answering that question here (might have a go another time though!) but what I’m saying is that article raises an intriguing intellectual argument that made me think a lot more than most of the pieces published these past weeks – it just doesn’t particular answer or pursue its own subject matter to a finale.

Similarly, there’s a disjointedness within the article’s wider point given Generation X itself has been the biggest purveyor of the ugly blend of new age self-help philosophies coupled with hard-nosed Social Darwinian economics that is manifested via latter-day mainstream hip hop and via the economic politics of a majority of voters. The broad brush tarring doesn’t explain that ‘Generation X’ wasn’t a single phenomenon and therefore was, on the one hand, the ‘me generation’ of the Eighties (recently toasted and semi-celebrated in The Wolf of Wall Street) and the ‘stocks only go up’ cash-in crowd of the Dot-com bust and the same crew recently found corruptly manipulating financial markets, selling financial products that created systemic risks and cashing out million pound bonuses, as well as, on the other hand, being the generation that has pushed for ever more ethical decisions by corporates, is more involved in green causes, anti-corruption campaigns, anti-war movements, local grassroots social activities and so forth than ever. The mythical drop-outs the article is taking aim at don’t have too much in common with Kurt Cobain, nor with the majority of their own generation.

The final three paragraphs are a separate article really pointing out that Jay Z’s appropriation of a Nirvana sample for a recent song was simply a way of contrasting the failure of others to rise within a certain paradigm with his own claim to self-made success. That’s a really neat and sour point and at least a strong conclusion. Unfortunately, having failed to identify why exactly Cobain should be deemed a loser or a slacker, these final paragraphs barely connect to the main thesis.

There was potentially a far more coherent angle for the article. The second column explained that success/failure were concepts that changed over time according to specific circumstances, needs, opinions and therefore are not intrinsic physical realities that can be scientifically defined – that the current definition is NOT the absolute, eternal way it was or should be. The article could have either taken aim at the lazy reporting of Generation X clichés (that really had more to do with typical “older generation dismissing younger generation” thinking) as fact – or debated why Cobain is held up as an icon of failure when by many measures he’s one of society’s one percent of high-achievers. At least, however, it was an article with a bit more substance to it. If there was anything to be taken from a couple of weeks of magazines, newspapers and online media sources deciding to fill a few quick pages with Cobain-talk it’s that an ‘icon of depression’ twenty years dead managed to achieve more, inspire more, pump more thought and effort into his works and make a far less shoddy job of what he did than a vast number of media commentators (who I’m presuming all self-define as relative successes) manage here in the enlightened future.