April 5, 2004
All Apologies
Kurt Cobain died ten years ago, and a decade gives people enough time (and evidence) to consider his legacy and think that Courtney Love really killed him. There's a Dateline segment transcript of authors Max Wallace and Ian Halperin contending Courtney Love had more to do with Cobain's death, with an excerpt of their new book, "Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain." The excerpt os of a private investigator who Love hired to find Kurt during his final days:
“In retrospect,” he says, “I realized that Courtney was trying to plant a trail of clues that the couple had some sort of suicide pact. You’ll see later that many writers reported this pact, based on things that Courtney told the public after Kurt’s death. In this discussion the first day I met her, she actually admits to me that her planted story was designed to falsely convince people that she had attempted suicide while Kurt was missing. I think it was a calculated effort to gain sympathy with Kurt’s followers to help them make the seamless transition from Nirvana fan to Hole fan.”Yeah, planting stories about suicide pacts never work out that well. Yes, Kurt was disturbed and Courtney is loony (real or fake, we don't know, but does it matter?), but everyone can safely agree that they hope Frances Bean Cobain gets to live a life not negatively burdened by her parents.
For more about Kurt Cobain and the ten year anniversary of his death, check out LA Weekly's 13 Ways of Looking at Nirvana. MSN also has a pretty extensive feature on Kurt Cobain, Black Table has thoughts from notable writers about the death/legacy of Cobain, and there's an L.A. Times article (via Newsday) written by Cobain biographer Charles Cross, who wrote Heavier than Heaven. Plus more links via Coolfer. And On This Day in History.
Amazon links: Kurt Cobain's Journals Nirvana's music, and Come As You Are, a 1993 book about the band.
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Goodness, has it really been 10 years? I suddenly feel very old.
Yeah, the other 10 anniversary death (well, it was last year) that gets me is River Phoenix on October 31, 1993. He would be 33 today. It's so odd to thing that I've outlived Kurt Cobain (who died at 27) and River Phoenix, because back then, at 17, I felt so young and to be in my 20s was a vastly different world I couldn't imagine.
Even if Love was not directly involved it is my assertion that the experience alone of being married to her is enough to make any man, even the most sound of mind and body shoot himself.
Rumors circulated briefly that she (Love) had offered Il Duce (of the Mentors) 10,000 to shoot Kurt. He was unable to close the deal however, because he passed out on the train tracks, and well got hit by a train and died. That's all hear-say but if you look at Courtney's track record, anything's believable.
River Phoenix death was nothing short of a tragedy.
One read of Love&Death and you come away thinking Courtney Love is a serial killer (Sadly, I read it this weekend).
The Courtney death threats are the river that runs through it ...but then, who doesn't talk a little smack when they're dosed on so much hill billy heorin?
Here's the Oscar strategy to beat right here: w/i 5 years one of the Olsen twins (directed by a nameless first-time woman director who never works again) goes on to play Courtney in a tragic biopic -- strip clubs at 14, brutal rape scene at 15, 3 tummy tucks by 33 -- and suddenly you've got yourself an Olsen twin with an Oscar.
The only question is who will play Kurt, Billy Corrigan, Kristen Pfaff, Dave Grohl, Kathleen Hannah, etc.?
courtney was at the Distillers/Icarus Line show last night, screaming and dancing on the balcony. she didn't look too broken up on the anniversary...
When Kurt Cobain killed himself, a feeling of relief came over me like a warm blanket because I knew there would be no more new Nirvana music. Of course, I probably would have dealt with a new Nirvana album better than I dealt with the media calling him a "musical genius" after he killed himself.
Nirvana was a band that popped up in the right place at the right time, but a musical genius, Kurt was NOT. Just my humble opinion...
I am in Cali and i remember that Tom Leykis broke the story here. It was all speculative at the beginning, journalists wondering if the body was indeed Kurt, and then the jolting news.
Of course his problems with heroin were already in the pop culture and so this incredibly sad tragic death was not so surprising. What an incredible waste. I loved his songwriting sensibility and the whole power trio thing done up alternatively. And god, that sweet voice that was so raspily powerful but at the same time pure that would border on the verge of a kind of punk yodel or country twang.
I remember seeing him on Mtv and remarking on the Beatles incredible growth form Meet the Beatles to Sargent Pepper and how he wanted to have that happen to his musical outlook, and i think he would of and maybe in that discovery he may of even been able to beat back the heroin demons.
His death has created an industry that is fueled by conspiracy theories and it is a shame that his 10 year anniversary has stirred up more of the same. If you ask my humble opinion, the Charles Cross book, Heavier than Heaven is the definative book on Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love and Nirvana but mostly Kurt. I highly recommend it. It stuck with me so much after I read it that I even wrote a dark song about Kurt's "love affair" with heroin. It starts.....
black reflection
in my azure day
heart collapses
like paper mache'
and you fill me up
take away the shakes
and you love me like a hooker, like a mother, like a fiend
in the fringe, syringe
I have real mixed emotions as to why he killed himself and of course, no one will ultimately know why. Part of me really thinks that him trying to get off of heroin may of pushed him off that cliff, that maybe he was one of those who needed to be a semi functioning addict on various heroin like chemicals. Or maybe, it was a deep sadness and he was destined to take his life.... he certainly had thought about it since he was a child. And maybe, according to him, his life had run it's course, maybe he just felt he had to go for some reason. I do not buy the conspiracy theories having to do with Courtney Love. And, I can thoroughly see how others see her as the gasoline that was thrown on Kurt's fire. As much as she strikes me as being a starfucker back in those early days... I think they were destined to be together. Afterall, they both had crawled over their own fields of glass and understood each other. I think he did kill himself but people will argue forever why.
Whatever the reason, I know that his artistry will surely be missed, I will always wonder what songs may of been.
Uh, Sonny, you're relieved someone died because you didn't like the music they made?
Il Duce did not die on some train tracks- he was interviewed in the seminal hack documentary, KURT AND COURTNEY, he was very drunk and really didn't offer any explaination why he didn't do the deed.
Courtney is a great soap opera, but a murderess? Nah.
I feel very old as well.
joe s, I said I was relieved that there would be no more new Nirvana music. I didn't say that I was relieved that he died. The band breaking up would have achieved the same feeling in me.
Although, I tend not to feel sorry for wealthy rock stars that kill themselves, whether its intentionally (Kurt Cobain) or not unintentionally (Shannon Hoon).
Thanx so much for this information,about Kurt Cobain,it is very important to keep him in our hearts,and always remember himand never fade away!..=X tahnx!...>
Thanx so much for this information,about Kurt Cobain,it is very important to keep him in our hearts,and always remember him and never fade away!..=X tahnx!...>
Thanx so much for this information,about Kurt Cobain,it is very important to keep him in our hearts,and always remember him and never fade away!..=X thanx!...>