Posts Tagged ‘kurt cobain

11
Sep
13

“In Utero” 20th Anniversary Reissue Looks Amazing

Nirvana-In-Utero-box-set-detailsAwhile back I took the brave step of admitting that, over 20 years later I’m still pretty obsessed with Kurt Cobain when I posted a series of rare pics of the man that have recently surfaced.

When you think about it, Nirvana were a pretty phenomenal band considering they were only around for about seven years (‘87 – ‘94) and only really exploded onto the scene with Nevermind in ‘91.

They released three studio albums in total, the third of which, In Utero, is about to be re-released in celebration of it’s 20th anniversary. Can you believe it’s been 20 goddamn years since it was originally released?! Christ we’re getting old.

The Super Deluxe Edition box set is a monster. According to www.nirvana.com, it…

Features more than 70 remastered, remixed, rare and unreleased recordings, including B-sides, compilation tracks, never-before-heard demos and live material featuring the final touring lineup of Cobain, Novoselic, Grohl, and Pat Smear. This box set also includes a DVD of the complete "Live and Loud" show from Seattle’s Pier 48 on December 13, 1993 plus never-before-released bonus material.

The full box set sells for $149.98 (so roughly R1 500 at today’s exchange rate) which means it’s totally out of Papa Slick’s price bracket right now and probably will be forever. Any kind souls out there reading this, my birthday is on the 3rd November and it’s the big three-oh… just sayin’…

 

 

You can hit this link for a full run down of all the material that’s in the box set.

But the real reason I wanted to write this is because NPR did a 40 minute interview with the surviving members of the band (Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic) which I read last night and really enjoyed.

You can stream the interview here, or read the transcription of it which follows below the streaming link. It’s well worth it if you’re a Nirvana fan.

My favourite part though is when Krist is talking about Kurt Cobain as a person and an artist:

Novoselic: In Utero is a testament to the artistic vision of Kurt Cobain. It’s kind of a weird record, and it’s strangely beautiful at the same time. And if you look at Kurt’s paintings and his drawings — he even did a sculpture for me — it’s a rising, tortured-spirit person. It’s kind of weird. It’s done well, but it’s like what Dave was saying about having your own sound. Kurt was a great songwriter. He knew he had a good ear for a hook [and was] a great singer, great guitar player, and In Utero is a good representation of what he liked in art and how he expressed himself.

A statement like that carries added weight if you know anything about the dynamic between Krist and Kurt. They were basically the founding members of the band and were really good friends who knew each other from highschool.

 

 

In all the interviews I’ve heard or read with Krist since ‘94, whenever the topic of Kurt comes up, I get this strong sense of how much Krist respected and loved Kurt, despite Kurt’s darker, more self-destructive side.

In one interview in particular Krist is asked what it was like after Kurt’s death and he admitted that, years later, whenever he passed a guitar shop and saw an awesome-looking left-handed guitar, he would automatically think, “I should buy that for Kurt”.

I never got the same feeling from Dave. He moved on to achieve great things in his music career whereas Krist played for a few lesser-known bands and decided to get quite heavily involved with politics through a group he formed called JAMPAC (Joint Artists and Musicians Political Action Committee).

Nirvana was probably the highlight of his music career and life, but you can tell from the interviews he gives that it’s not that that he misses.

It’s his friend. Simple as that. I think he’d trade in all the fame, all the fortune just to have Kurt back.

But then again, I could just be reading into things.

I do that sometimes Winking smile

-ST

05
Apr
12

Golden Fruit Forgotten

4136597496_5abe2fb47dBack in high-school we had this badass English teacher who was like a walking encyclopaedia of life-changing quotes.

She used to print them out and tack them to the walls in her classroom. I’ve forgotten most of them over time and the ones I remember I only half remember.

One of them was about golden fruit, it was a metaphor for greatness. It went something like “Heavy hang the boughs that bear golden fruit.”

I thought of it today because I got to thinking about Layne Stayley, a man who you’ve probably never heard of, but who was one of the greatest vocalists who ever lived.

 

 

Like a lot of artists that were part of the grunge scene in the early 90s, Layne got strung out on heroine and on April 5th 2002, the exact same day that Kurt Cobain had eaten a shotgun eight years earlier, Layne overdosed in his flat where he’d been living as a recluse for a number of years.

That was exactly 10 years ago today.

He was the singer and frontman of grunge / metal band Alice In Chains, who recorded the last great album of the grunge era, the self-titled album they released in 1995.

 

 

I don’t know why, but one of the lines he wrote was floating in my head yesterday so I started digging up some old articles about him and what I found was pretty heart-wrenching.

His dad was a junkie who left him, his mom and his sisters when Layne was eight. It was a heavy blow growing up without his father and at one point he even got a phone call telling him his father had died, which was a lie to protect Layne from his old man.

Layne said he felt like he always had the talent and creativity to be a rock star and was motivated by the thought that if he became a celebrity his dad might return.

 

 

Sure enough, once Alice In Chains started gaining momentum when Layne was in his early 20s, his dad saw a picture of Layne in a magazine and suddenly wanted to be a part of his son’s life again.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite the reunion Layne had imagined growing up. I found this on the MTV site, it’s part of the last interview that Layne ever gave:

 

"He said he’d been clean of drugs for six years," Staley related. "So, why in the hell didn’t he come back before? I was very cautious at first. Then the relationship changed. My father started using drugs again. We did drugs together and I found myself in a miserable situation. He started visiting me all day to get high and do drugs with me. He came up to me just to get some shit, and that’s all. I was trying to kick this habit out of my life and here comes this man asking for money to buy some smack."

Layne’s father finally kicked his heroine habit, but Layne’s dependence on the drug only worsened over time.

Alice in Chains only ever recorded three studio albums, three EPs and one live album. Layne’s heroine use got so bad that they band didn’t finish touring to support their second album and didn’t tour following the release of their last album at all.

By 1996 the band was dead in the water. In the same year, Layne’s ex-fiancé Demri Lara Parrott died from complications caused by drug use, which sent Layne sliding deeper and deeper into drug use and depression.

 

 

Layne did vocals for another two Alice In Chains songs for their boxset, which was released in 1998, but from 1999 until his death in 2002, he lived as a total recluse.

Drummer Sean Kinney was interviewed about Layne’s final years:

 

"I kept trying to make contact…Three times a week, like clockwork, I’d call him, but he’d never answer. Every time I was in the area, I was up in front of his place yelling for him…Even if you could get in his building, he wasn’t going to open the door. You’d phone and he wouldn’t answer. You couldn’t just kick the door in and grab him, though there were so many times I thought about doing that. But if someone won’t help themselves, what, really, can anyone else do?"

More tragic than that was bassist Mike Starr’s last recollection of Layne when he saw him on April 4th 2002. Starr tried to get Layne to call 911 and get himself checked into hospital because his drug use had gotten so bad that he was completely emaciated, had lost a number of teeth and was wracked by pain and nausea.

Layne threatened to end their friendship if Starr called 911. The two fought and Starr stormed out of Layne’s apartment. Starr later said that Layne called out, “Not like this, don’t leave like this” to Starr as he left Layne’s condo.

 

 

On April 19th 2002, his accountants phoned his mother and told her that no money had been drawn from Layne’s bank account in two weeks.

The police kicked in the door to his home and found his remains lit by the flickering light from the television he died watching when he overdosed on a lethal combination of cocaine and heroine.

His mother was there when they found him. She asked the police if she could move some things off the couch so she could speak with her son one last time.

After an autopsy was performed it was revealed that Layne had died on the 5th of April, making Starr the last person to ever see him alive.

Starr blamed himself for his bandmate and close friend’s death for most of the remainder of his life, which ended tragically last year in March after he OD’ed on methadone and prescription medication.

Alice In Chains reformed in 2009 with a new vocalist and bassist to release Black Gives Way To Blue, but it just felt like a cardboard cut-out of a band that, for all the incredible music they recorded, has largely been forgotten.

 

 

Growing up, I promised myself I’d never become one of those sad, sorry fuckers who clings onto the “good old days” and reminisces endlessly about how much better things used to be, but when I think about the great musicians and bands that were around in the early nineties, it’s hard not to.

So many great minds, weighed down by the burden of the golden fruit they bore.

Great men, the ones that become legends of their time, endure untold suffering to bring some kind of truth, some kind of light into this world that is just as quickly extinguished and forgotten.

Let us not forget our brother Layne Stayley who lived his life with heaven beside him and hell within.

 

 

-ST

21
Mar
12

Treefiddy Review: Mark Lanegan – Blues Funeral

Layout 1The Down Lizzo:

Over the course of his 27 year career, Mark Lanegan has played with everyone from Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley (Alice In Chains) to PJ Harvey and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age).

He cut his teeth in The Screaming Trees in the late 80s and 90s and then went on to start an on-again, off-again solo career as The Mark Lanegan Band.

Seven solo albums later, the self professed “shadow king” is back with Blues Funeral – a potent mix of 80s synth-laden robot rock and growling whisky-soaked blues laced with a funeral dirge sentiment that haunts and enthrals at every turn.

Sick Tracks:

Blues Funeral swings between rumbling, psychedelic anthems like the pile-driving opener “The Gravedigger’s Song”, the relentless, Zepplinesque “Riot In My House” (on which Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme shreds throughout) and my personal favourite, the stoner rock classic “Quiver Syndrome” to quieter, more introspective tracks like “Bleeding Muddy Water” and “Deep Black Vanishing Train”.

The battle-weary resignation of a life spent plunging the shadows of the human experience only to emerge with a handful of shaky half-truths smoulders in the gravel-pit tone of Lanegan’s most powerful asset, his sand-paper baritone.

 

 

Without it, Blues Funeral is an interesting melting pot of a number of different influences and genres, but nothing that would warrant a second or third listen.

With it, and the bold synth-pop experimentation Lanegan indulges on tracks like “Gray Goes Black” and “Ode To Sad Disco”, there is more than enough to keep you coming back for more.

Should You Give A Shit:

Look, the album’s called Blues Funeral so don’t go anywhere near it expecting an easy-listening, foot-tapping, head-bopping album of accessible radio-friendly rock tunes.

But come with an open mind and a taste for the darker things and I can almost guarantee Blues Funeral will give you something to sink your fangs into.

Give “Quiver Syndrome” a listen and see how it grabs you:

 

 

Final Verdict: 7/10

-ST

16
Feb
11

Something For The Mid-Week Grind

Two posts in one day?! Has the Tiger lost his flippin’ MIND?!

No. Calm the fuck down. Two posts in one day is going to happen from time to time so I want you guys to be ready for it and to definitely come back TWICE everyday just, you know, in case I’ve put something amazing up Winking smile

Here’s a little track that perfectly sums up how I feel today. It’s a rare one from Nirvana that Civilian sent after my post on Friday entitled “What If Kurt Cobain Was Still Alive?”

 

 

The song’s called “Curmudgeon”, enjoy!

 

 

-ST

11
Feb
11

What If Kurt Cobain Was Still Alive?

I was a good kid until I was 11 years old. I did what I was told and didn’t give my parents too much shit, I worked hard at school, played sports (badly), climbed trees and kept myself out of trouble.

But even from an early age, there was something else about me, the hint of something darker. I loved reading and burned through a lot of books as a kid which meant I quickly got bored of the standard Enid Blighton / Roald Dahl fair.

When that happened I went straight for the jugular and started reading Stephen King and Dean R Koontz and a whole host of other very, very twisted literature that children probably shouldn’t go anywhere near and those words took root in my brain and sprouted a thick, dense jungle of thoughts and ideas that is expanding exponentially as I get older.

 

 

I grew up an only child and as is the case with all only children, I spent a lot of time hanging out with grown ups. My life in many ways was an endless procession of well-mannered dinner affairs with my parents and their friends where I was told to sit up straight, finish my food and behave, which I did.

Fast forward to Christmas in 1994 – my parents and I are staying at a place called Highlands Run, a trout farm near Dullstroom, it’s about 6 in the morning and I’m tearing through my Christmas presents like only an 11 year old kid can.

A friend at school had said to me that his older brother was listening to this band and it was the best album of all time which piqued my curiosity and prompted me to ask my mom for the album for Christmas.

At the time I was big into really, really crap music like 2Unlimited, Midi, Maxi and Efti, Haddaway, 12 Inches Of Snow, that kind of shit, so you can only imagine what happened when I opened my Christmas present, put the cassette tape into my walkman, put my headphones on and pressed play.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” tore like machine-gun fire through my mind and I loved every second of it. Here was this guy screaming his fucking head off, banging out these loud, angry three and four chord riffs that hooked me instantly and to this day, have not let go.

 

 

Everything changed after that day. The flood gates were opened and in poured an ocean of noise which quickly became the soundtrack to many a wasted night and day spent getting fucked up with my friends when I was way too young to have any idea what I was doing to myself.

Anyway, the point of all this is Kurt Cobain changed a lot of people’s lives the way he changed mine. He was the sole reason my entire generation started playing guitar and dressing like they’d stolen their clothes from a Salvation Army donation bin (they probably had).

I’ve heard so many people over the years say he was murdered by Courtney Love and spent countless hours arguing with those people because I refuse to believe that. The man was a mess! The drugs, the fame, the overwhelming commercial success of his music, the legions of screaming fans, he couldn’t handle it, it made him miserable as sin because he’d all of a sudden become the poster-boy for an entire generation, some kind of over-inflated grunge hero and he hated the pressure and the pretence of it all.

 

 

He’d lost his will to play and with it, his will to live. The same way he exploded onto the scene, he exploded off it, and I know it’s not really the popular opinion, but I think eating a shotgun is a seriously badass way of offing yourself because it sends a very clear message that what you did sure as hell wasn’t a cry for help.

A lot of people have speculated what it would be like if he hadn’t painted the ceiling with his brains, some saying he would have eventually come right and possibly gone on to write material that would be even better than his previous stuff and become an even more influential force in rock music, but I’m sceptical.

This piece that Chuck Klosterman wrote for Spin Magazine is probably the best prediction of what would have happened if Kurt Cobain were still alive http://www.spin.com/articles/what-if-kurt-cobain-didnt-die.

 

 

It’s a pretty hilarious read because in Chuck’s version of events, Cobain fizzles into obscurity and despite his half-hearted efforts, never quite manages to top the successes of his early career.

The universe has this funny way of working out sometimes. Can you imagine a 44 year-old Kurt Cobain? Some doddering, irrelevant middle-aged junkie, stinking up awards ceremonies and becoming the butt of the Justin Bieber-era entertainment industry’s jokes?

To be quite frank, I’m glad Cobain isn’t around to see what became of the industry because it’s the fucking Mickey Mouse club out there!

There are things in this life that are worse than death and Cobain still being alive to see how ridiculously over-commercial, overly-sexed and painfully shallow mainstream music has become over the last twenty years would definitely be one of them.

-ST