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| From | "bob" <segarini@sympatico.ca> |
| Subject | Re: Kurt Cobain |
| Date | Tue, 6 Apr 2004 04:58:20 -0400 |
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I was sitting at the bar in Lee's Palace, a great watering hole and live
music venue on Bloor Street in Toronto when the TV's over the bar broke the
news.
Now, I'm no fan of grunge/alt/seattle/nirvana/etc...as I'm sure you all
know. but I do understand, (and appreciate), the impact of Mr. Courtney
Love's music, and tragic, self absorbed persona, on pop culture. The
bartender, (a fine guitarist named Gideon), asked me what I thought of the
news, and I said, "What do John Lennon and Kurt Cobain have in common?", and
Gid said, "I dunno...what?". and I said, "They were both shot by idiots". We
laughed and laughed...but while we were laughing, I felt kinda bad about
what I had said...not because it wasn't accurate, but because it was such a
senseless, selfish, idiotic thing to do...kill yourself because of the
stress and pressure of success.
Where I come from, the only thing dumber than that would be to break up with
the world's most beautiful woman because you can't understand why on Earth
she wants to be your girlfriend.
So here is this talented, (marginally, in my book, but genius level in
other's), "rock musician", who has everything anybody that gets into the
business wants, and what does he do? He kills himself...an act that
basically screws his wife, his kid, his family, his friends, and his fans,
and turns his tiny, but fiesty catalogue into a legendary treasure trove by
which a generation was defined.
Most generations up to that point were defined by heroes and rebels...Kurt's
contribution to defining his generation made an icon out of being a
self-absorbed, insecure, selfish, slacker...a template that existed until it
was run over by the current generation's icons that consist of barely
not-gay boy singing groups, half saint, half whore, school girls, and,
lately, Brad Pitt couiffed posers that write songs consisting of soft-part,
loud-parts, or slow-part, fast-parts, instead of verses, chorus's, and hooky
middle eights. I swear to God, if Chad Kroeger ends up being even remembered
for being in a band at all, I will be amazed.
One of the reasons the Major Labels and Terrestrial Music Radio stations are
slowly dying out, is because Kurt and his merry band of anti-music whiners
dumbed down the music, caught the ear of a disenfranchised generation, and
started the begining of the end of music as a career, and made it possible
for underdeveloped Artists to prematurely become successful, with no hope of
ever sustaining that success...no dues, no experience, no connection to the
music...just a connection to the culture...and baby, the culture changes
every 15 minutes. Anyway, I mourn the death of this poor, tragic, child. I
shudder every time his ex-wife shows her face on a screen, TV or movie, and
when she "sings", I wish Kurt would have turned the gun on her instead of
himself.
When I hear Fountains Of Wayne, Tiny Volcanos, Norah Jones, and others who
have embraced the roots and promise of contemporary music's past...and
brought something of their own to the table, I thank God the distorted
guitars and self aware period of deconstructing rock has passed into
history, and new players are once again redefining those 12 notes we have to
work with in the Western musical scale. In his own way, I suppose Cobain is
somewhat responsible for the demise of dum-rock, just as much as he was
responsible for it's rise. The further Puddle Of Limp Nickel Creed fall from
the center of the culture, the more hope I see for the future. Rest in peace
Kurt...you will be remembered.
Four days after I made that wise crack to Gideon about what Lennon and
Cobain had in common, a 20 something kid told it to me on the street while I
was trying to hail a cab. That Cobain was revered so soon, so solidly to
share the punchline of a bad joke with John Lennon...well...you don't get
more famous in this business than that.
bob
----- Original Message -----
From: <Pamalu2@aol.com>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 1:40 AM
Subject: Re: Kurt Cobain
> In a message dated 4/6/2004 1:00:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
>
> > For whatever reason, Nirvana's music spoke to people,
> > and they made a difference, and they'll be remembered
> > with strong emotion (as proven in this post, I hope).
> > And in a pretty disposable age, that's saying
> > something.
> >
> > R.I.P. Kurt Cobain. I miss you.
> >
> > --Shawn
>
> Yeah. While there are as many popsters on this board who will claim that
Nirvana had nothing to offer as there are those who LOVED them (I'm among
the latter), there's no denying that Kurt Cobain and his crew were certainly
what commercial radio needed in the early 90s - a swift jumpstart amidst the
sea of mediocrity that was then dominating the airwaves. In my mind I tend
to compare them with the Beatles, although in actuality can ANYONE ever
begin to come close to the creative viability the Beatles possessed in their
heyday? Nirvana wasn't around long enough to begin to rival the Beatles'
output, and their sound was too raw to really be considered in the same
league. Yet that is exactly why I liked them.
>
> I was as devastated as anyone when Kurt Cobain died. Even though I wasn't
a Generation X-er, I could identify with his music. But I agree: let's not
deify the man. I still enjoy Nirvana's music more than just about anything
else that came out of that time period, but I don't consider Cobain a god or
saint or anything else. It's just sad that someone who supposedly had so
much to offer would end it all that way. Sad...and pointless.
>
> pamalu2@aol.com
>
>
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