Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain (Aberdeen, Washington, USA; February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana. Known for his abrasive and often disturbing songwriting as well as his distinctive vocal style, Cobain is often cited among the most influential musicians of his time.

Cobain formed Nirvana in 1986 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 became the "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. His death was ruled a suicide by self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

Biography

Early life

Cobain was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain on February 20, 1967 in the Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington and spent his first six months living in Hoquiam, Washington before the family moved to Aberdeen. He began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, "He was singing from the time he was two. He would sing Beatles songs like 'Hey Jude.' He had a lot of charisma from a very young age."

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Young Kurt Cobain, seen here in a yearbook picture. This picture was handed out at his memorial service.

Cobain's life changed at the age of seven when his parents divorced in 1975, an event which he later cited as having a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Cobain becoming more withdrawn. In a 1993 interview, Cobain said, "I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn't face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that." After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming and he found himself being shuffled between friends and family.

At school, Cobain took little interest in sports. At his father's insistence, Cobain joined the junior high wrestling team. While he was good at it, he despised it. Later, his father signed him up for a local baseball league, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid having to play. Instead, Cobain focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with fetuses and the human anatomy. Cobain was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying at the hands of homophobic students. That friendship led some to believe that he himself was gay. In one of his personal journals, Cobain wrote the phrase "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes". In a February 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he used to spray paint "God is Gay" on pickup trucks around Aberdeen. Cobain also claimed he was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting "HOMO SEX RULES" on a bank. However, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase for which he was arrested was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit." with every "t" written four times larger than the other letters. As a teenager with a chaotic home life growing up in small-town Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Cobain formed a lifelong friendship with fellow Montesano musicians The Melvins, whose music later heavily influenced Nirvana's sound.

In the middle of tenth grade, Cobain moved back to live with his mother in Aberdeen. Two weeks before his graduation, Cobain dropped out of high school after realizing that he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him an ultimatum: either get a job or leave. After a week or so, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Forced out of his mother's home, Cobain often stayed at friends' houses and sneaked into his mother's basement occasionally. Cobain worked various odd jobs in the Aberdeen community and earned enough to rent an apartment with a friend in June 1985; Cobain had to move out a few months later when he couldn't keep up with the rent. Cobain later claimed that when he could not find anywhere else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way". However in 2001 Krist Novoselic claimed that Cobain never really lived there, saying, "He hung out there, but you couldn't live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism."

In late 1986, Cobain moved into the first house he lived in alone and paid his rent by working at a coastal resort twenty miles from Aberdeen. At the same time, Cobain was traveling more frequently to Olympia, Washington to check out rock shows. During his visits to Olympia, Cobain started a relationship with Tracy Marander. After breaking up in 1990, he entered a relationship with Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail.

Nirvana

Main article: Nirvana (band)

At the age of 14, Cobain was given his first guitar by his uncle. (Cobain was offered the choice of a guitar or a bicycle as a birthday gift, and chose the guitar.) Cobain started by learning a few covers, including AC/DC's "Back in Black" and The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl". He soon began working on his own songs.

In high school, he often found himself without anyone to jam with, as none of his friends had any particular musical talent. Eventually, Cobain met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock, who lived across from the Young Street bridge. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon and they would practice on occasion in the upstairs room. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of prodding, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.

During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain found themselves host to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, leading the band to seek out a replacement, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.

Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the point of the band's message. One incident particularly distressing to Cobain involved two men who raped a woman while singing the Nirvana song "Polly". Cobain condemned the episode in the liner notes of the US release of the album Incesticide: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that's the way I feel."

Marriage

Courtney Love first saw Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; the pair talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him. According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7/Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991. In the weeks that followed, after learning from Grohl that she and Cobain shared mutual crushes, Love began pursuing Cobain. After a few weeks of on-again, off-again courtship in the fall of 1991, the two found themselves together on a regular basis, often bonding through drug use.

Around the time of Nirvana's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, Love discovered that she was pregnant with Cobain's child. A few days after the conclusion of Nirvana's Pacific Rim tour, on Monday, February 24, 1992, Cobain married Love on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. "In the last couple months I've gotten engaged and my attitude has changed drastically," Cobain described in the Sassy interview. "I can't believe how much happier I am. At times I even forget that I'm in a band, I'm so blinded by love. I know that sounds embarrassing, but it's true. I could give up the band right now. It doesn't matter, but I'm under contract." On August 18, the couple's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought she looked like a kidney bean on the first sonogram he saw of her. Her namesake is Frances McKee of The Vaselines and not Frances Farmer as is sometimes reported.

Love was somewhat unpopular with Nirvana fans; her harshest critics said she was merely using him as a vehicle to make herself famous. Critics who compared Cobain to John Lennon were also fond of comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist that Cobain wrote most of the songs on the breakthrough album Live Through This of Love's band Hole, partially fueled by the 1996 appearance of a rough mix of "Asking for It" with Cobain singing backing vocals. However, there is no specific evidence to support the assertion.

At the same time, one Hole song was co-written by Cobain but entirely credited to Hole. The song "Old Age" appeared as a B-side on the 1993 single for Beautiful Son, credited to Hole. Initially, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a Hole-penned song. However, in 1998, a boombox recording of the song performed by Nirvana (with significantly different lyrics) was surfaced by Seattle newspaper The Stranger. In the article that accompanied the clip, Novoselic confirmed that the recording was made in 1991 and that "Old Age" was a Nirvana song, leading to more speculation about Cobain's involvement in Hole's catalog. Nirvana had even attempted to record "Old Age" during the sessions for Nevermind, but it was left incomplete as Cobain had yet to finish the lyrics and the band had run out of studio time. (The incomplete recording appeared on the 2004 compilation With the Lights Out, credited to Cobain.) As for Hole's version, guitarist Eric Erlandson noted that he believed Cobain wrote the music for the song, but that Love had written the lyrics for their version.

In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair, Love admitted to using heroin while (unknowingly) pregnant. Love claimed that Vanity Fair had misquoted her, but her admission created controversy for the couple. While Cobain and Love's romance had always been something of a media attraction, the couple found themselves hounded by tabloid reporters after the article was published, many wanting to know if Frances was addicted to drugs at birth. The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple's drug usage made them unfit parents. Two-week-old Frances Bean Cobain was ordered by the judge to be taken from their custody and placed with Courtney's sister Jamie for several weeks, after which the couple obtained custody, but had to submit to urine tests and a regular visit from a social worker. After months of legal wrangling, the couple were eventually granted full custody of their daughter.

Drug addiction

Throughout most of his life, Cobain battled depression, chronic bronchitis, and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition. This last condition was especially debilitating to his emotional welfare, and he spent years trying to find its source. However, none of the doctors he consulted were able to pinpoint the specific cause, guessing that it was either a result of Cobain's childhood scoliosis or related to the stresses of performing. Because of these conditions, Cobain self medicated with heroin.

Cobain had his first taste of heroin sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer, who had previously been supplying him with Percodan. Cobain used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use had developed into a full-fledged addiction. A year later, his use began affecting the band's support of Nevermind, with Cobain passing out during photo shoots. One memorable example came the day of the band's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, where Nirvana had a shoot with photographer Michael Levine. Having shot up beforehand, Cobain nodded off several times during the shoot. Regarding the shoot, Cobain related to biographer Michael Azerrad, "I mean, what are they supposed to do? They're not going to be able to tell me to stop. So I really didn't care. Obviously to them it was like practicing witchcraft or something. They didn't know anything about it so they thought that any second, I was going to die." Cobain also overdosed on the same night, after performing on Saturday Night Live.

Cobain's heroin addiction worsened as the years progressed. Cobain made his first attempt at rehab in early 1992, not long after he and Love discovered they were going to become parents. Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing pale and gaunt while suffering through withdrawal. Not long after returning home, Cobain's heroin use resurfaced.

Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with illegally acquired Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Cobain proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.

Cobain's final weeks and death

Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome). Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. Love later insisted publicly that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.

On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love admitted that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.

Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain's drug use that took place on March 25. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg described Cobain as being "extremely reluctant" and that he "denied that he was doing anything self-destructive." However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to the airport and flew back to Seattle. Over the next several days, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. The next day, Cobain's mother filed a missing person report. The report claimed that Cobain was suicidal and had purchased a shotgun.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was discovered in the spare room above the garage (referred to as "the greenhouse") at his Lake Washington home by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house that morning to install security lighting and saw him lying inside. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found at Cobain's side. An autopsy report later concluded Cobain's death was a result of a "self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head." The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.

In the alleged suicide note, ostensibly written to Cobain's imaginary childhood friend "Boddah", Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)": "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Cobain's use of the lyric had a profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of his 1994 album Sleeps with Angels in Cobain's memory. On April 10, a public vigil was held for Cobain at a park at Seattle Center which drew approximately seven thousand mourners. Prerecorded messages by Krist Novoselic and Courtney Love were played at the memorial. Love read portions of Cobain's suicide note to the crowd and broke down, crying and chastising Cobain. Near the end of the vigil Love arrived at the park and distributed some of Cobain's clothing to those who still remained. Cobain's body was cremated.

Suicide dispute

Kurt Cobain is legally recognized to have committed suicide; however, several theories have surfaced suggesting that the frontman of Nirvana was murdered.

The main proponent of the existence of a conspiracy surrounding Cobain's death is Tom Grant, the private investigator employed by Love after Cobain's disappearance from rehab. Grant was still under Love's employ when Cobain's body was found. Grant believes that Cobain's death was a homicide.

This section covers the main points in Grant's theory, as well as the rebuttals to those points by various sources:

• The heroin level in Cobain's body at the time of his death

Grant cites a figure published in an April 14, 1994, article by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, purportedly from the official toxicology report, which claimed, "the level of heroin in Cobain's bloodstream was 1.52 milligrams per liter." Grant argues that Cobain could not have injected himself with such a dose and still have been able to pull the trigger.

However, several different studies on heroin use have noted the difficulty in pinpointing the level of heroin that an addict can tolerate. In a 2004 story, Dateline NBC questioned five medical examiners about the figure from the toxicology report. Two of them noted the possibility that Cobain could have built up enough of a tolerance through repeated usage to have been able to pull the trigger himself, while the three others held that the information was inconclusive.

Grant does not believe that Cobain was killed by the heroin dose. He suggests that the heroin was used to incapacitate Cobain before the fatal shotgun blast was administered by the perpetrator.

• The suicide note

While working for Love, Grant was given access to Cobain's suicide note, and used her fax machine to make a photocopy, which has since been widely distributed. After studying the note, Grant believes that it was actually a letter written by Cobain announcing his intent to leave Courtney Love, Seattle, and the music business. Grant believes that the few lines at the very bottom of the note, separate from the rest of it, are the only parts that sound like a suicide note. He believes that those lines are written in a style that varies from the rest of the letter, suggesting that they were written by someone other than Cobain. While the official report on Cobain's death concluded that Cobain wrote the note, Grant claims that the official report does not distinguish the questionable lines from the rest of the note, and simply draws the conclusion across the entire note.

Grant claims to have consulted with handwriting experts who support his assertion. Other experts disagree, however. When Dateline NBC sent a copy of the note to four different handwriting experts, one concluded that the entire note was in Cobain's hand, while the other three said the sample was inconclusive. One expert contacted by the television series Unsolved Mysteries noted the difficulty in drawing a conclusion, given that the note being studied was a photocopy, not the original.

• The length of the shotgun

Grant suggests that if the shotgun that Cobain used was positioned to match the findings of the autopsy report, his arm would have been too short for him to reach the trigger. Grant claims that Cobain would have had to fire the weapon with his toe, yet he was found with both shoes still in place.

• The police report

Grant also cites circumstantial evidence from the official report. For example, the report claimed that the doors of the greenhouse could not have been locked from the outside, meaning that Cobain would have had to have locked them himself. Grant claims that when he saw the doors for himself, he found that the doors could be locked and pulled shut. Grant also questions the lack of fingerprint evidence connecting Cobain to the key evidence, including the shotgun. Several experts have noted that it is not unheard of for fingerprints to be absent from the weapon used in a suicide. However, Grant notes that the official report claims that Cobain's fingerprints were also absent from the suicide note and the pen that had been poked through it, and yet Cobain was found without gloves on his hands. None of the circumstantial evidence directly points to murder, but Grant believes it supports the larger case.

• The Rome incident

After Cobain's death, Love insisted that Cobain's overdose in Rome was a suicide attempt. Grant believes that such an assertion was not made until after Cobain's death, and that people close to Cobain, including Nirvana's management Gold Mountain, specifically denied the characterization prior to Cobain's death. Grant believes that if Rome had truly been a suicide attempt, Cobain's friends and family would have been told so that they could have watched out for him.

Others have asserted that the claims by Gold Mountain and others were simply efforts to mask what was happening behind the scenes. Lee Ranaldo, guitarist for Sonic Youth, told Rolling Stone, "Rome was only the latest installment of [those around Cobain] keeping a semblance of normalcy for the outside world."

• Rosemary Carroll

Grant claims to have spoken to Cobain's attorney, Rosemary Carroll, at her office on April 13, 1994. He says that she pressed him to investigate Cobain's death, and claimed that Cobain was not suicidal. She also told Grant that Cobain had asked her to draw up a will excluding Love because he was planning to file for divorce. Grant claims that this was the motive for Cobain's death. Carroll has not commented publicly on the matter.

Critics dismiss Grant's assertions, noting that the bulk of his evidence is circumstantial in nature and does not specifically confirm that Cobain was murdered. Critics also see Grant as an opportunist, pointing out that he sells "kits" about the alleged conspiracy (called "Case Study Manuals") via his website. Grant counters that any profit made from the kits goes to offset some of the costs of his investigation. As Grant related, "I wrestled with that ... but if I go broke, I'll have to give up my pursuit and Courtney wins."

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Cobain's cause of death is the subject of Nick Broomfield's documentary, Kurt & Courtney.

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield decided to investigate the story for himself, 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, and passed a polygraph administered by polygraph expert Edward Gelb. 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. Broomfield titled the finished documentary Kurt & Courtney, and it was released in 1998. 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. In particular, Halperin and Wallace insisted that Grant play them the tapes of his conversations with Carroll so that they could confirm his story. 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.

For their books, Halperin and Wallace attempted to contact many of the people involved in the events surrounding Cobain's death. In studying the Rome incident, the pair contacted Dr. Osvaldo Galletta, who treated Cobain after the incident. Galletta contested the claim that the Rome overdose was a suicide attempt, telling Halperin and Wallace, "We can usually tell a suicide attempt. This didn't look like one to me." Galletta also specifically denied Love's claim that fifty Rohypnol pills were removed from Cobain's stomach.

Halperin and Wallace also spoke to several people involved in the investigation of Cobain's death who refute the conspiracy. The Seattle medical examiner who examined Cobain's body, Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne, insisted that all of the evidence pointed to a suicide. Sergeant Donald Cameron, one of the homicide detectives, specifically dismissed Grant's theory, claiming, "[Grant] hasn't shown us a shred of proof that this was anything other than suicide." Cobain's best friend, Dylan Carlson, told Halperin and Wallace that he also did not believe that the theory was legitimate.

Several of Cobain's friends have accepted that he committed suicide, but noted being surprised when it happened. Mark Lanegan, a long-time friend of Cobain's, told Rolling Stone, "I never knew [Cobain] to be suicidal. I just knew he was going through a tough time." In the same article, Dylan Carlson noted that he wished Cobain or someone close to him had told him that Rome was a suicide attempt. Many of Cobain's friends and associates, including Grohl and Novoselic, have declined to comment on the matter.

However, at least one of Cobain's friends believes that he was murdered. In August 2005, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon was asked about Cobain's death in an interview for UNCUT magazine. When asked what she thought to be Cobain's motive in committing suicide, Gordon replied, "I don't even know that he killed himself. There are people close to him who don't think that he did...". When asked if she thought someone else had killed him, Gordon answered, "I do, yes."

Advocates of the official verdict (death by self-inflicted gunshot wound) cite Cobain's persistent drug addiction, clinical depression, and handwritten suicide note as conclusive proof. Members of Cobain's family have also noted patterns of depression in Cobain and instability before he achieved fame. Cobain himself mentioned that his stomach pains during Nirvana's 1991 European tour were so severe he became suicidal and that taking heroin was "my choice. I said, 'This is the only thing that's saving me from blowing my head off right now.'"

Books 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 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. However, neither Dave Grohl nor Cobain's mother contributed to the book.

While the book was widely praised for its depth of research, many criticized Cross for what they saw as his indiscriminate inclusion of information, including some factual inaccuracies. For example, Cross cited "On the Mountain" conclusively as the first working title for "You Know You're Right". In reality, "On the Mountain" was the result of an effort by fans in 1995 to decipher Grohl's introduction to the song on a 1993 live recording. When a clearer version of the recording surfaced some months later, it became clear that Grohl introduced the song as "All Apologies", since "You Know You're Right" was not on the written setlist that night. Cross was also widely criticized for casting Love in a universally positive light, particularly given the controversial nature of her and Cobain's relationship, and that he often did not scrutinize her assertions. He wrote, for example, that Love contributed lyrics and music to Nirvana's "Pennyroyal Tea". However, the song was first performed in April of 1991, weeks before she and Cobain began dating, and the song did not significantly change prior to its recording for In Utero.

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, and even admitted that the song "About a Girl" was essentially his attempt at writing a Beatles song. 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 a studio recording of Kiss' "Do You Love Me?". He 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.

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

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.

The mythic nature of Cobain's life even captured the eyes of filmmakers. 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.

Cobain's own words were used to narrate a documentary on his life, titled Kurt Cobain About a Son. Journalist Michael Azerrad interviewed the band extensively for his 1993 book Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, and recorded twenty-five hours of tape with Cobain. Filmmaker AJ Schnack collaborated with Azerrad to use the tapes to tell the story. The film debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

Years after his death, Cobain continues to intrigue and inspire fans. A full eight years after his death, Nirvana's final studio recording, "You Know You're Right", became a hit, bringing a new generation of Nirvana fans. "Nevermind" remains a watershed in alternative music, and consistently ranks in "best album" lists throughout the world.

References

• Summers, Kim. "Kurt Cobain". All Music Guide. Accessed on May 9, 2005.
• Johnson, Chad. "The Best of Nirvana". Hal Leonard, 2002. ISBN 0-634-01472-2
• Cross, Charles. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-8402-9.

External links

• Kurt Cobain at IMDb
• Kurt Cobain at the All Music Guide
• Sleeps With Angels - Neil Young's Tribute to Kurt Cobain.
• 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.
• Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation - A site by Private Investigator Tom Grant.
• Justice For Kurt - Was Kurt Cobain Murdered? - Documented information about Kurt Cobain's death.