In Aberdeen, 100 miles from Seattle, Kurt Cobain and Krist met up. They were both sick of the metal music that was ruling the waves and the charts. Their love for groups like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin got them closer together. Cobain dropped out of high school with the bassist Krist. Kurt began playing drums for bands like Fecal Matter and Stiff Woodies. After the addition of drummer Chad Channing and Cobain’s move from drums to vocals and guitar, Nirvana was born.

They began on the Seattle club scene and slowly began to reveal their confused Metal/Punk parentage. Habitual instrument trashing
accompanied their shows and they began to develop a following.

In 1988, their collaboration with Sub Pop resulted in the EP ‘Love Buzz’. But it wasn’t till the 1989 release of ‘Bleach’, their debut
album, that they made their mark. The album sold 35,000 copies. After the success of their debut drummer, Dave Grohl replaced Channing. The final piece fell into place when Nirvana linked up with DGC (an offshoot of ‘Geffen’). Alternative, for the first time, was literally ‘gonna kick the pants off metal’.

Nevermind (1991) toppled records and usurped top spot from none other than Michael Jackson on the charts. It featured a disdainful epic stolen from Boston’s ‘More Than A Feeling’. The song was called ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and rocked the metal-saturated audience right down to their roots. The writing was on the wall... ‘alternative’ was in and ‘metal’ out. Overnight, bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains thundered the charts and the 80s glam gods (Poison, Winger, Warrant, Motley Crue) bit the dust.

Nevermind went triple-platinum (i.e. sold 3 million). But something interesting was beginning to happen now. The very targets that Kurt sang against in ‘In Bloom’ were now buying ‘Nirvana’ albums. Kurt found this confusing, as would any good musician whose message is completely misunderstood. To add to his psychological problems, his body began to give way, crumbling under a typical ‘rock ‘n roll’ life style. He suffered from a dilapidating lethargy that caused as loss of sleep. Also, a gnawing stomach compliant surfaced from time to time. To relieve the pain he sank deeper into substance abuse.

By the time he and Courtney Love got married in 1992, they had become the John and Yoko of Grunge. They were both drug addicts but before the birth of her daughter, Love kicked the habit. Their daughter Frances Bean Cobain was born in August 1992…a healthy baby. US magazine reported that Love was using drugs when pregnant and this forced the LA welfare authorities to take custody of Frances, claiming that the parents were incapable. The whole matter was sorted soon enough when Kurt emerged sober, out of rehab.

Nirvanas thrashed their way into the 1992 MTV awards and soon were bogged down with controversy involving the song ‘Rape Me’.

They went as far as to print on the sleeve jacket of ‘Insecticide’ – “Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records”. In 1993 Nirvana recorded their third album ‘I Hate Myself And I Want To Die’. DGC hated the album and the tracks were sent for re-mastering. Cobain returned to heroin and Love called the police on one incident when Cobain threatened to commit suicide.

‘In Utero’ (1993) had the tight sound of a band in chaos. It was a UK and US #1 hit. A performance of the David Bowie original ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ was the high point of their ‘Unplugged’ album. After the end of the tour in 1994, the band had all but split. Cobain’s mental health deteriorated and he made several more threats to commit suicide. In April 1994, he persuaded a friend Dylan Carlson to buy a shotgun (since he was banned from buying weapons after his suicide attempts).

On April 8, 1994, he used the weapon… on himself. A visiting electrician found his body after three days. Kurt had blown his head all over. The next day thousands of moaning fans gathered at a candlelit vigil in the centre of Seattle. A tape of Love’s recorded voice played, reading Kurt’s suicide note. It included a line from Neil Young’s ‘Hey Hey My My!’ that went “it’s better to burn out than fade away”.

Nirvana albums hit the charts once more. In 1996, despite Grunge slipping into cliché, ‘From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah’ topped the US charts. Nirvana had burned out like a streaking star…. lighting everything in it’s wake. But the price had to be paid. And paid it was…by Kurt. Even today, the response that ‘Smell Like …’ evokes at Rock Shows is an indication to the magic ‘Nirvana’ had.
Rock will always remember ‘Nirvana’.

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