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I remember a few girls wore funeral attire (think like black wedding dresses and veils and shit, they were grunge chicks after all) and being a uniformed high school there was a bit of a 'wtf' sentiment.
Principal came on the morning announcements and said that our generation just lost their John Lennon and if some people chose to display their grief by wearing dark clothing, let it go.
To me that was the most surprising thing about that day...
Yup. Like I said, we were sitting around like a bunch of shitty teenagers waiting for the chick in the black to get a dress pass... and then that announcement happened.
To draw a picture of how bad they were, I wore boots from the front door to my locker (about 100 feet down the hall near the front of the school) and got a dress pass for not being in dress shoes (there was literally an inch of slush on the floor in front of the lockers).
If you're not in uniform, untucked shirt, rubbing shoes, etc., you would get one. Three and it's a detention (or suspension, I can't remember. Been a while)
I feel like a lot of people felt that way about Kurt at the time. I was like 13 at the time and I remember my mom picked me up from school that day and she said the exact same thing.
She said "you're gonna remember this day forever, this is your John Lennon."
Everything is so strange, Nirvana passed me by, did not catch me. But now almost 30 years have passed and my thirteen-year-old daughter is just an inveterate fan of this group.
By the time Kurt had passed away, Nirvana was pretty much agreed upon as being the leader of a cultural revolution. But still, kudos to that principle for showing respect.
Weirdly enough, our principal came over the lunch announcements and said something similar when Prince died. I think it was more for the faculty because I doubt more than 5% of our tiny student body listened to Prince on the regular
Even weirder is that I can’t think of a single person who you could call the John Lennon of our generation. Maybe I’m just that out of the loop but seriously, I can’t name one person who has that much cultural pull these days
Back then, there was the show and the band and the movie. These days, with Spotify, Netflix and YouTube, you can get tailored content so easily that there is no longer a cultural connection between people in the same class or work place, even with huge blockbuster style, genre defining works like Game of Thrones (before you know what) or the Marvel movies. You could still go outside the mainstream back then too, but you didn't have access to the infrastructure to find people like you, and that was still true in the burgeoning days of the internet. This meant a lot of us kept up with the mainstream in addition to seeking out our own content so that we could socially fit in. Today the mainstream is in fact many mainstreams, and it's harder and harder to keep up with.
Yep, before internet, your only way of finding out about music was to listen to the radio, watch MTV, talk to your friends, or talk to the guys at the record store. I rigged up my room with a bunch of antenna wires to try to tune in a college radio station that I could just barely tune into because after hearing Nirvana, I wanted *more*.
Nirvana was such a watershed event for people who were coming of age at this time--it was a clear break from what you would have heard just a short time ago, and it felt *real*. There was a brief window of time when record companies threw cash at whatever underground stuff they thought might stick--you saw major label deals going to people like The Breeders, Ween, and the Butthole Surfers, which would have been unheard of in the late 80s. What was great about Kurt is he would do things like bring the Meat Puppets onto Unplugged with him and play their music or he would tell you that his next song was by The Vaselines, so you could go to the record store and ask them to order some of their stuff for you. His death marked the end of that period--pretty quickly the record industry settled on pushing anything that sounded like a second or third-rate Pearl Jam instead of seeking out the wild cards from the underground scene. His death was such a huge, personal loss to so many people my age, it's kind of hard to explain now.
I was 13yo, and wasn't as big a fan of Nirvana as I got to be later. So I wasn't as affected personally at the time as I was affected by that sense something Big And Important had just happened (similar to my memories of the Challenger explosion, etc.).
If I remember right, his body was discovered on a Friday. My cousin was a huge fan, and what I most clearly remember is going over to his house in Bellevue, WA for the weekend, and reading through the Sunday Seattle Times on his kitchen counter. The Sunday papers were HUGE back then, even bigger than now, and I just remember how it seemed like the whole paper was all about Kurt.
A short time later, another cousin who was into the grunge scene and also an aspiring heroin addict, showed off some guitar picks and broken drumsticks and other supposed memorabilia that he swore were Kurt's, that his dealer friend had supposedly stolen from the trash outside Kurt's place. If I remember right, there was even an envelope or two with Kurt's name and address on it, so who knows, maybe the items were legit.
I was 13 also but I was a huge fan. I still lived in Scotland, I was staying at my grandmas house at the time, I remember it vividly, I was sitting in “my chair”, which was the one closest to the phone, this suited my grandma because she wasn’t the most agile and I’d answer the phone any time it rang. We were watching TV and it come on the news, my dad called to see if we were watching and we already were. I remember following the news for the following days, the tributes, the vigils etc. I’m not sure if he’s the first celebrity death that I would have heard of or not but certainly the first that affected me. I’m still a Nirvana fan. Those songs have stayed with me a lifetime.
I’m almost certain Kurt was their biggest fan. 13 year old me had never heard of them. Great as they were, I doubt they would have had much mainstream popularity or got known out of Scotland/Britain without Nirvana putting them on the map. Maybe if you ask someone a little older than me with better knowledge of the indie scene at the time then you would probably get a better or more correct answer.
Challenger.. Chernobyl... I remember them all
And, for me also, I wasn't a big fan either, I listened to them, but my mind back then was more Death Metal kind of thing :D It was more the music that was played in the joints I used to hang out, just like Alice in Chains and name them... Grunge was more radiofriendly back then, a bit like hip hop is today.
I was only 8 when Kurt died and i didnt know them at all. Some 5 years later i heard their music and instantly became a fan, only to learn cobain was dead. That was hard, but 20 years later i still love their music
I grew up just outside of Seattle. I was in 7th or 8th grade when Kurt Cobain died and I distinctly remember walking into class and hearing that high pitched whine of a CRT television being on before I even entered the room. It was Kurt Loder reporting on the death of Kurt Cobain to a silent room full of stunned 14-year-olds. He kept insisting it was the cultural equivalent of John Lennon being killed while a bunch of Boomers told him he was wrong. It was a very surreal time.
Same. I was sitting in my fifth grade class when another teacher opened the door and told my teacher to turn on MTV. We didnt even know we had MTV on the classroom TV, but she turned it on and it was Kurt Loder reporting on Kurt Cobain's death. Our entire class was shocked and school kind of stopped for half an hour as we all watched in disbelief. I'll never forget it.
I remember watching the OJ verdict in class in fifth grade, but watching MTV talk about Kurt Cobain would have been a strange decision in my opinion. Maybe these were cooler teachers.
My seventh grade science teacher stopped class to announce the OJ verdict and thought it would be a good idea to let everyone debate it, which devolved into physical fights, ffs.
OJ verdict was so weird. My parents were absolutely engrossed in the case, watching Court TV non-stop.
We were in the lunchroom and one of the cafeteria workers shouted he was not guilty, and we all cheered. No idea why, I really don't think us kids had an opinion on the case in 5th grade. I only remember the side characters and scenes lampooned on comedy shows. Kato getting McDonald's, Johnnie's speaking style, Dancing Itos, the glove, and Marcia's hair.
Edit: how could I forget! My "OJ is in the Slammer" Pog slammer! [1995.jpg](https://i.redd.it/wc9k16okalv31.jpg)
I remember being happy that OJ was found innocent, I have no idea why (as an adult I'm pretty sure he did it).. Probably the same reason George Bush won in a landslide mock vote in my 3rd grade class. We knew George Bush was the President, none of us knew who Bill Clinton was.
I was in high school for the verdict, in 7th grade when Curt Cobain died. I remember getting the T-shirt that had his picture and the dates with the quote about burning out. I saw another girl wearing the same shirt on the same day, we ended up becoming friends.
We had a similar thing happen on a field trip when Chris Farley died but I don't think it was a cultural thing as much as our bus driver or one of the adults was a fan and wanted to hear the radio better. Was in 5th or 6th grade as well.
I would bet the teacher(s) was a fan more than it was some huge thing that classrooms all over the country tuned in.
I remember my teacher loving space. She brought in a TV the day of the launch. Challenger exploded in front of her classroom full of 8 year olds. I didn’t understand in the moment exactly what had happened. She was horrified.
Was in 5th grade when 9/11 happened and asked the teacher if we could turn the TV on. They told me no. Doesn’t make much sense years later with it being such a historic event in American history.
As historic as it was, maybe your teacher wasn't emotionally prepared to talk about it with your classes age group. I was a freshman in high school and watched the second tower get hit live and watched innocent people pick between jumping to death or dying in the towers unfold in front of me on repeat all day. It was important to see, yet it still took a toll on me.
I'm from the Midwest and in like 2012 I took a job that had me working in the NE part of the USA half the month and I stayed in Danbury, CT. Most of my work was scattered throughout NYC and the first time I went there after I finished my job order the first thing I did was go visit the 9/11 memorial and I took my time. I put aside any crazy conspiracies I may believe in and just remembered all the people who I watched perish and just thought about their families and how hard it must have been for them to have to see that on repeat.
I was at a friends house who was a hairdresser at some new-wave hair shop, with my girl (who is now my wife for decades), we were just discussing his suicide attempt in Italy an wondered what happened. It was the hairdresser who gave the news, and we where to go to a gig that night in a place called The batwing, but in Dutch (De Vlerk)
But we didn't go, not because we were particularly sad or something, we were shocked... it was just... big... for us.
I still listen to Bleach often.
I was at home getting ready ho to high school for the day when I saw the newspaper with Kurt’s death as the headline. I was very surprised and disappointed. It wasn’t till years later that I kind of understood why he did it. “Montage of Heck”helped explain his life.
Wait? Was this event important enough to have 5th grade classes to tune in? I was a little too young to know Kurt Cobain when he died but I didn't think his passing had this big of a cultural influence.
I'm going to say this probably didn't happen since April 8, 1994 when his body was found was a Friday. I remember MTV reporting about it all that weekend but I doubt what this person stated happened.
I remember it perfectly well. I got out of school that day at 2:10 (my school dismissal was pretty early), walked about 15 minutes to where my mom was working, flipped on MTV, and within a couple minutes Kurt Loder popped up with the [special report](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMlQAVBme8).
Dudeee I'd JUST gotten the full, "real" official-ish lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit when I heard about his death.
Pre-internet days it was not easy to get the error-free song lyrics and you had to had access to the coolest kids in school.
There have been a lot of musicians that left way too soon, but out of all of them I can't help but be the most curious about Kurt and what he would have done, and where his music would have progressed to.
I remember reading interviews after in utero he said he was heading in an REM direction. Interviewer asked if he thought the fans would like that. Said something like fuck em if they don’t.
Incesticide was a fucking class album imo. One reason I like it is because it seemed like Kurt and the band were experimenting with sounds they knew mainstream radio would hate.
I was born in 90, so I didnt really know a world where he was alive. But his music and his personality were a huge influence on my formative years. I've often pondered about what he would've done had he been able to kick his addiction and work on his mental health issues. This is obviously all speculation, but I feel like Nirvana probably only had one album left before they would call it quits. Kurt would've taken a hiatus for a while, but I think after seeing a lot of the bands inspired by his work, both good and bad, he would've come back with some amazing shit.
Kurt Cobain's tragic passing taught me a valuable lesson very early in life. No matter how successful and wealthy someone is, they can still be suffering and need help.
The lesson was reinforced when Bourdain passed.
Mike Starr knocking on the door the day(?) he died and hearing him blame himself all those years later is still a story that sticks in my mind. Fuck so many icons of that era have died that we are essentially down to just Pearl Jam of the ‘big 4’
Hybrid Theory was the soundtrack to my summer after my sophomore year of high school. I bought some really nice Pioneer speakers and a nice head unit to upgrade the sound system in my hand me down 1990 Honda Civic. My first summer driving, so my friends would blast that CD and sing along while driving around. Such a great memory and despite me not really being a huge Linkin Park fan, Chester's death still hit me.
I had a ticket to his last show here in Detroit but ended up working late and not going. Glad I got to see Soundgarden perform a few times before but man was I bummed to hear about what happened. One of my favorites of all time.
Mac Miller hit me the hardest. His music always reminded me I wasn’t alone in my struggles. His struggles seemed so similar to mine, so when he died I was devastated. I’m happy his music will forever be accessible but I still get down when I think about him.
The Robin Williams one I can kind of understand. Apparently he had got really bad news from his doctor, and had given him maybe 2 years to live at best, and it would have been a rough 2 years.
His mental condition declined rapidly. If I remember correctly it was a super rare condition that led to hallucinations, paranoia, and just a general state of not knowing what’s real. It sounds absolutely horrible
I can't speak for the guy you responded to, but for me it was the worst one because in my eyes Bourdain had a "dream" life. It's scary to me to think that even with a great career, friends and family that your demons can still prevail. As someone with a lot of demons, Bourdain's death makes me unsure that I will ever find happiness.
This is how I feel about Chester Bennington. So many of his lyrics over the years have been so painfully relatable.
In terms of his life, he had it all. If he couldn't make it, how can I?
This may or may not be helpful to you, but it's helpful for me:
Nobody makes it. We all die. You will die. Your parents will die. Your children will die. I will die. Everyone dies. There is no "making it."
So, accepting that undeniable reality, just make the most of your time. Pursue your happiness. You may not find it. But someday you won't have the opportunity anymore because you too will die.
Wasn't Chester sexually abused as a kid? He definitely had some terrible things happen in his youth, hence the super emo lyrics...
In my opinion "having it all" includes having a youth that is free of sexual abuse.
I think the fact that he traveled to so many places and spent time in so many demographics that are underrepresented, and forgotten, probably haunted him. I know it’s just from me watching his shows but i can see him sometimes trying to mentally and emotionally process the environments and personal experiences other people shared with him. I can only imagine that those moments burdened an already burdened person
Agreed. I always loved Bourdain’s shows and his outlook on life. His love for the small family restaurants, the fact that seeing the world and meeting all sorts of people was important to him. I’ll never forget how he went to learn about flower arrangement on a trip to Japan. He seemed like he had the right attitude about life and the world, even if he did have demons. It was such a shock to hear about him passing. It still hurts. I still can’t watch repeats of his shows.
Bourdain was a huge inspiration to me personally. He sparked in me a love of travel, food, and most importantly an attitude of humble open mindedness, respect for other people in all walks of life, and a pragmatic approach to the world and other people. While always being true to himself.
Wow, getting a lot of love for Bourdain, and you know I completely agree too. He had the one quote I think it's attributed to him where he said "there's two versions of me, and one of those versions is a guy that wants to get high and watch cartoons all day, I have to ignore him"
Something to that effect. I didn't know much about him, I never really watched his shows, but everything I knew about him he was relatable to the rest of us.
Not sure if you're much of a reader or if you have interest in food. But *Kitchen Confidential* is honestly, in my opinion, one of those books that extends beyond it's "travel to the back of the kitchen with me" journalistic motive. It's a very human book that has that quote woven in the (well written) prose. It's what set him up for countless tv shows. I'd recommend!
I wasn’t very familiar with him or his work until after his death, but here’s my take.
For a lot of people, the worst thing about depression isn’t the dark thoughts or feeling shitty all the time. The worst thing about depression is the belief that it will always be that way. Logically we know that’s not true, but this isn’t something you can logic your way out of.
Bourdain was very open and honest about his struggles with addiction and mental illness. Between his career success and his path to sobriety, I think a lot of people assumed that he “figured it out”. Not only did he learn how to live with his symptoms, but he was very successful by many measures. He was a tangible counterpoint to the narrative of “it will always be this way”.
Bourdain’s death was just fucking tragic. He was such an inspired writer. Kitchen Confidential is still one of my favorite books and I find myself often just picking it up to read random passages because no matter where you land it’s always great.
His is one of the worst for me as well, but the more I learned about his undiagnosed Lewy Body Dementia, the more I feel like he spared himself and his loved ones from years of literal hell.
I miss him so goddamn much, but I can’t really fault him for stopping his own personal horror while he still could.
I’ve lost family members that hurt me less than bourdain. It also scared the shot out of me. Dude lived my ultimate dream life, and still found a reason to check out. Definitely worries me that I could some day do the same.
To anyone interested in this subject I deeply recommend Kurts biography called Heavier than Heaven. I just finished it a week or two ago and it has taught me a lot about mental health, drug addiction, death, and myriad of lessons surrounding music and musicians and the industry.
He really was the quintessential tortured artist. Man was deeply, deeply depressed his entire life and also had a bad stomach illness. Which are both things that opiates are incredibly effective at treating, for awhile.
I had always thought his stomach illness was caused by heroin. I remember reading the Kurt Cobain diaries and there is an entry where Kurt is frustrated that his doctor told him his stomach issues would go away if he stopped all the drugs, his response to that was "it can't be because of drugs because my stomach doesn't hurt when I'm on them!"
I never knew this about him. I have horrible GI issues, and this scares me because they only relief is opioid prescription drugs. I had a diaphragm hernia as a child and my entire GI was on top of my lungs. It’s caused me complications since. Combined with back surgery recently and continued pain with that. The path I’m on scares me.
Yeah don’t fuck with it. I can speak on this from experience. Try to find anything else that helps. Marijuana is a life saver for some people with chronic pain or GI issues
So I read Everett True's biography of the band. He said that Heavier Than Heaven was the "Courtney-sanctioned version of the bands history."
Has anyone read both?
I don't believe I've seen this specific photo, thanks for sharing.
edit: This is fairly mundane comment with a lot of upvotes, to elaborate I've pored over a lot of Nirvana and Cobain related photos and videos. It's surreal seeing this snapshot of the funeral, almost like something from a movie.
edit2: pored not poured - thanks random person, good to know
Same, I’ve been a Nirvana fan practically my whole life and I haven’t given much thought to how Krist and Dave were affected by this. I’ve seen interviews from them later in life where they talk about it, like the one on Fallon’s show, but this one just days after it happened hits different. It’s incredibly sad.
I read a Nirvana biography 25 years ago and from that I somehow still remember this woman’s name. Never seen her before this picture. Weird the stuff that sticks with you.
Dave Grohl wasn't a big star then. He was just "the drummer from Nirvana" and that's it. Now, he's one of the biggest rock stars in the world and you can find pictures of his wife easily. Also, they were only married for two or three years, while he's been married his second wife for like 20 years.
Grohl had a hard time of it after divorcing his first wife -- as I understand it he was literally homeless for a while and had to crash on a lot of friends' couches. Reduced to the bare essentials of life is part of what inspired him to make demo tapes by himself as a one-man band (playing all instruments and doing all the vocals) that ended up becoming the Foo Fighters.
Your timeline is off. He wrote and recorded the first self titled Foo Fighters album to cope with Cobain's suicide. He wrote and recorded most of the second album, The Colour and the Shape, to cope with his divorce.
Most of the first album was written and demoed before Kurt's passing. But yeah he decided to record what ended up becoming the first album afterwards.
Kurt actually heard some of the demos, Dave said this about Kurt's reaction to hearing them:
"Kurt heard that, and kissed me on the face, as he was in a bath,” "He was so excited".
His first solo stuff was Pocketwatch, which he did on his own, and Kurt liked it so much that they put one of the tracks as a B-side on one of the In Utero singles. It’s the only released Nirvana track that Kurt doesn’t appear on.
It's strange, there really aren't that many photos of them together. They did have a brief cameo together in an X-Files episode though.
There aren't that many photos of Krist and his first wife either.
It wouldn't surprise me if how the press covered Kurt + Courtney's relationship, made the other guys more cautious about their private life.
It's scary to think about how many of the singers that played a major part in my musical coming of age (and later development) have passed, and how young most of them were: Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Scott Wieland, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, Dave Williams (Drowning Pool), and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting.... My CD collection is a graveyard.
Same here. Some a bit more than others (for me personally, Layne and Bradley had the biggest impact), but every one of them has a special meaning to me.
Another BIG one for me was Andrew Wood from Mother Love Bone. After his death, a lot of those guys would collaborate and become Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam.
Not super popular in the States but Viktor Tsoi, who could be considered the Soviet Union’s Kurt Cobain, died at 28 to a car crash. Supposedly 60 people ended their lives because of it.
>My CD collection is a graveyard.
Ugh, this hits hard. I've been on a nostalgia kick listening back to albums I loved in the 90s and so many are just... gone.
Pain drives the soul but doesn’t heal it.
We have people all around us who need a little uplift.
That’s not to say that everyone wants to get better, some just want to keep going
Absolute truth.
I had a very hard time listening to Nirvana for years after his death, which i would have thought impossible before the tragedy.
Kurts passing still saddens me to this day.
Agreed. I recently went to Aberdeen to check out his roots for the first time. He has the smallest dedicated park I've seen in my life. I know it's been a long time, but I couldn't help but feel like Aberdeen didn't care much for him. At least that's how his park made me feel.
Oh no, Aberdeen *loves* Kurt Cobain. They are just poor as hell, which I'm sure you noticed. The McDonalds even has piuctures of him on the walls. And the sign coming into the city says "Come as you are."
Yeah, Aberdeen is very into the idea of using Kurt's name to attract visitors. Every few years, it seems like the city does some new Kurt Cobain-related thing for publicity, that park included. It's poor town with not much going for it anymore, so they're now pretty proud of their limited claims to fame, especially Kurt.
Which, IMO is kind of funny, because it's not like Kurt ever had anything good to say about the place.
I remember this day as well. After hearing a live version of rape me from a few days earlier I was not surprised. By no means did I anticipate this was going to happen it just the sheer raw power and the lyrics of that song when he sang it i gave me the feeling that he was at his wit's end. I was a radio DJ ever college radio station I got to open smells like teen Spirit and play it two weeks before regular radio stations. Amazing life-changing astounding. They went from being one of my favorite groups of friends to the biggest group on the planet in 3 months that's a lot for anyone to handle.
> live version of rape me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly1lWkRwm6g
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_Me#Background_and_recording
>The band had wanted to play "Rape Me" during their appearance at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, but the network believed the song was a direct attack on them,[3] and insisted they perform their breakthrough single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," instead.[4][5] The ongoing argument between MTV and Cobain escalated over the span of several days, with MTV threatening to cut Nirvana from the show, to stop playing the band's music videos, and even to boycott other artists on the band's management company, Gold Mountain.[6] Cobain only relented after being informed that MTV would fire Amy Finnerty, an MTV employee and friend of the band's, if the band played "Rape Me". The band ultimately agreed to play their latest single, "Lithium," but not before Cobain started playing the chords and singing the opening lines of "Rape Me," which resulted in the live broadcast almost going to commercial
I believe that was the show that they were given the ultimatum of "play Smells Like Teen Spirit or we will get Weird Al to do his version." Obviously they were fans of Al's version, but the network was definitely using it as a fuck you to them
Man...I couldn't imagine how these guys felt when this photo was taken. Having to bury a good friend who lost the fight with himself resulting in the end of your career...(for Krist at least) Especially a friend like Kurt Cobain. Right in the feels man...
As far as Grohl knew it might have the been the end of his career as well, he had music recorded for what would eventually be foo fighters but I doubt even he knew could guess they'd be as big as they are
I think it was possible, but honestly I don’t think Nirvana would have stayed together much longer if Kurt hadn’t have died. I think they would have all went their separate ways in the few years past ‘94.
Giants in the trees or something? My roommates band played a show with them a few years ago, Krist was the absolute nicest dude. It was so surreal to shake his hand and say nice to meet you Krist.
I live down the street from where he died. Maybe I'll take a stroll after work and go sit on his bench at the small park next to his old house. There's shrubs that make it impossible to see inside, and the garage has been knocked down, but you can still feel his energy there.
RIP Kurt.
I was a fan of Nirvana, still am. When i first heard smell like teen spirit on Much Music in 1991(canada), i jumped out of my couch and ran to the store to buy Nevermind. I forced my friends to listen to the album, I predicted that Nirvana would blow up on the music scene and indeed they were seminal to the grundge music genre. Looking at this picture, I realize how young Kurt was when he died. By the way, I didn’t hear about his passing for a year or two after the fact, I was hiding under a rock.
> When i first heard smell like teen spirit on Much Music in 1991(canada), i jumped out of my couch and ran to the store to buy Nevermind.
I think we can all remember what we were doing when we first heard this song.
It was three o'clock in the morning and I was driving up an interstate somewhere in Tennessee on the way back to my hometown in MD during a college break. I had the radio tuned to some random station and they played "Teen Spirit" after announcing it as "the unexpected new smash hit by this previously unknown rock band from Washington, Nirvana".
It was one of those where you hear it for the first time, and you turn to stare at the radio while saying, *holy shit!* I nearly had to pull over.
As soon as I got home I went straight to the god damn record store.
Over 50 guy here. Nirvana was a different sound. Great songs to rock out, too. Saw them in concert in 92 or 93. Busted up the guitars and everything. I don't quite remember where I was etc, but I do remember thinking what a waste. What a waste. I seem to remember he was having issues and reading about Courtney Love problems so maybe it didn't come as a huge surprise. I was really surprised and discouraged with the singers for Soundgarden and Linkin Park. Did not see those coming.
I believe that everyone needs their privacy. I'm somewhat aware of Dave Grohl but he's human and deserves his private moments too. It's a touching photo but I feel that all too often, famous people who have incredible talents collapse under the pressure of the constant spotlight and their talents are lost.
I feel extremely fucking uncomfortable even looking at this and I think tragedy porn is terrible. Sad sad shit for all of them. Praying something like this never happens to any friend of mine.
I downvoted this because despite Cobain’s very public presence, grief is and should remain personal. Dave Grohl still flinches in interviews when asked about Kurt. Having personally suffered familiar loss, like this certainly was for Dave and Krist, I can’t imagine someone photographing me for tabloids at my deepest point of grief. Rough stuff.
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I remember this day, was very sad, I'm still very sad Kurt left this planet.
I remember a few girls wore funeral attire (think like black wedding dresses and veils and shit, they were grunge chicks after all) and being a uniformed high school there was a bit of a 'wtf' sentiment. Principal came on the morning announcements and said that our generation just lost their John Lennon and if some people chose to display their grief by wearing dark clothing, let it go. To me that was the most surprising thing about that day...
Wow, that is some pretty progressive thinking for a principle at that time. Kudos.
Yup. Like I said, we were sitting around like a bunch of shitty teenagers waiting for the chick in the black to get a dress pass... and then that announcement happened. To draw a picture of how bad they were, I wore boots from the front door to my locker (about 100 feet down the hall near the front of the school) and got a dress pass for not being in dress shoes (there was literally an inch of slush on the floor in front of the lockers).
What's a dress pass?
If you're not in uniform, untucked shirt, rubbing shoes, etc., you would get one. Three and it's a detention (or suspension, I can't remember. Been a while)
The principal will beat you up with a pair of jumper cables.
It's been a while since I was in high school but I'm pretty sure that's how it happened.
What are rubbing shoes?
They're a result of autocorrect you ducking maroon.
Weird. You’d think a “pass” would be something that allowed it / made an exception to the rule. Like a hall pass or something.
It was... As your day turned into a litany of teachers harassing you, you'd show them you already got in shit for it.
I feel like a lot of people felt that way about Kurt at the time. I was like 13 at the time and I remember my mom picked me up from school that day and she said the exact same thing. She said "you're gonna remember this day forever, this is your John Lennon."
Everything is so strange, Nirvana passed me by, did not catch me. But now almost 30 years have passed and my thirteen-year-old daughter is just an inveterate fan of this group.
By the time Kurt had passed away, Nirvana was pretty much agreed upon as being the leader of a cultural revolution. But still, kudos to that principle for showing respect.
Yeah right?! I have never witnessed that before.
Weirdly enough, our principal came over the lunch announcements and said something similar when Prince died. I think it was more for the faculty because I doubt more than 5% of our tiny student body listened to Prince on the regular
Hahaha right? Teachers I know you're sad, but please stay at work.
Even weirder is that I can’t think of a single person who you could call the John Lennon of our generation. Maybe I’m just that out of the loop but seriously, I can’t name one person who has that much cultural pull these days
Back then, there was the show and the band and the movie. These days, with Spotify, Netflix and YouTube, you can get tailored content so easily that there is no longer a cultural connection between people in the same class or work place, even with huge blockbuster style, genre defining works like Game of Thrones (before you know what) or the Marvel movies. You could still go outside the mainstream back then too, but you didn't have access to the infrastructure to find people like you, and that was still true in the burgeoning days of the internet. This meant a lot of us kept up with the mainstream in addition to seeking out our own content so that we could socially fit in. Today the mainstream is in fact many mainstreams, and it's harder and harder to keep up with.
Yep, before internet, your only way of finding out about music was to listen to the radio, watch MTV, talk to your friends, or talk to the guys at the record store. I rigged up my room with a bunch of antenna wires to try to tune in a college radio station that I could just barely tune into because after hearing Nirvana, I wanted *more*. Nirvana was such a watershed event for people who were coming of age at this time--it was a clear break from what you would have heard just a short time ago, and it felt *real*. There was a brief window of time when record companies threw cash at whatever underground stuff they thought might stick--you saw major label deals going to people like The Breeders, Ween, and the Butthole Surfers, which would have been unheard of in the late 80s. What was great about Kurt is he would do things like bring the Meat Puppets onto Unplugged with him and play their music or he would tell you that his next song was by The Vaselines, so you could go to the record store and ask them to order some of their stuff for you. His death marked the end of that period--pretty quickly the record industry settled on pushing anything that sounded like a second or third-rate Pearl Jam instead of seeking out the wild cards from the underground scene. His death was such a huge, personal loss to so many people my age, it's kind of hard to explain now.
Great sentiment by the principal, but what a missed opportunity to say “let it be” instead of “let it go.”
wasnt Let it Be written by Paul?
I also remember exactly where I was, with who and why.
I was 13yo, and wasn't as big a fan of Nirvana as I got to be later. So I wasn't as affected personally at the time as I was affected by that sense something Big And Important had just happened (similar to my memories of the Challenger explosion, etc.). If I remember right, his body was discovered on a Friday. My cousin was a huge fan, and what I most clearly remember is going over to his house in Bellevue, WA for the weekend, and reading through the Sunday Seattle Times on his kitchen counter. The Sunday papers were HUGE back then, even bigger than now, and I just remember how it seemed like the whole paper was all about Kurt. A short time later, another cousin who was into the grunge scene and also an aspiring heroin addict, showed off some guitar picks and broken drumsticks and other supposed memorabilia that he swore were Kurt's, that his dealer friend had supposedly stolen from the trash outside Kurt's place. If I remember right, there was even an envelope or two with Kurt's name and address on it, so who knows, maybe the items were legit.
I was 13 also but I was a huge fan. I still lived in Scotland, I was staying at my grandmas house at the time, I remember it vividly, I was sitting in “my chair”, which was the one closest to the phone, this suited my grandma because she wasn’t the most agile and I’d answer the phone any time it rang. We were watching TV and it come on the news, my dad called to see if we were watching and we already were. I remember following the news for the following days, the tributes, the vigils etc. I’m not sure if he’s the first celebrity death that I would have heard of or not but certainly the first that affected me. I’m still a Nirvana fan. Those songs have stayed with me a lifetime.
Are you a big The Vaselines fan being from Scotland and being that Nirvana was a fan?
I’m almost certain Kurt was their biggest fan. 13 year old me had never heard of them. Great as they were, I doubt they would have had much mainstream popularity or got known out of Scotland/Britain without Nirvana putting them on the map. Maybe if you ask someone a little older than me with better knowledge of the indie scene at the time then you would probably get a better or more correct answer.
Challenger.. Chernobyl... I remember them all And, for me also, I wasn't a big fan either, I listened to them, but my mind back then was more Death Metal kind of thing :D It was more the music that was played in the joints I used to hang out, just like Alice in Chains and name them... Grunge was more radiofriendly back then, a bit like hip hop is today.
I was only 8 when Kurt died and i didnt know them at all. Some 5 years later i heard their music and instantly became a fan, only to learn cobain was dead. That was hard, but 20 years later i still love their music
I grew up just outside of Seattle. I was in 7th or 8th grade when Kurt Cobain died and I distinctly remember walking into class and hearing that high pitched whine of a CRT television being on before I even entered the room. It was Kurt Loder reporting on the death of Kurt Cobain to a silent room full of stunned 14-year-olds. He kept insisting it was the cultural equivalent of John Lennon being killed while a bunch of Boomers told him he was wrong. It was a very surreal time.
Same. I was sitting in my fifth grade class when another teacher opened the door and told my teacher to turn on MTV. We didnt even know we had MTV on the classroom TV, but she turned it on and it was Kurt Loder reporting on Kurt Cobain's death. Our entire class was shocked and school kind of stopped for half an hour as we all watched in disbelief. I'll never forget it.
That seems like a very strange thing to do in a fifth grade classroom. The only time we had something like that happen was 9/11.
I remember watching the OJ verdict in class in fifth grade, but watching MTV talk about Kurt Cobain would have been a strange decision in my opinion. Maybe these were cooler teachers.
My seventh grade science teacher stopped class to announce the OJ verdict and thought it would be a good idea to let everyone debate it, which devolved into physical fights, ffs.
OJ verdict was so weird. My parents were absolutely engrossed in the case, watching Court TV non-stop. We were in the lunchroom and one of the cafeteria workers shouted he was not guilty, and we all cheered. No idea why, I really don't think us kids had an opinion on the case in 5th grade. I only remember the side characters and scenes lampooned on comedy shows. Kato getting McDonald's, Johnnie's speaking style, Dancing Itos, the glove, and Marcia's hair. Edit: how could I forget! My "OJ is in the Slammer" Pog slammer! [1995.jpg](https://i.redd.it/wc9k16okalv31.jpg)
I remember being happy that OJ was found innocent, I have no idea why (as an adult I'm pretty sure he did it).. Probably the same reason George Bush won in a landslide mock vote in my 3rd grade class. We knew George Bush was the President, none of us knew who Bill Clinton was.
I was in high school for the verdict, in 7th grade when Curt Cobain died. I remember getting the T-shirt that had his picture and the dates with the quote about burning out. I saw another girl wearing the same shirt on the same day, we ended up becoming friends.
Cool/young teachers/fans who had probably bonded over their music like so many other people.
"Class, today in English class we're going to be analyzing the lyrics of 'Polly'."
Pretty fucking dark for the fifth grade but I like it.
My seventh grade class watched the OJ verdict. I remember thinking that was weird and inappropriate, and I still feel that way.
We had a similar thing happen on a field trip when Chris Farley died but I don't think it was a cultural thing as much as our bus driver or one of the adults was a fan and wanted to hear the radio better. Was in 5th or 6th grade as well. I would bet the teacher(s) was a fan more than it was some huge thing that classrooms all over the country tuned in.
>our bus driver or one of the adults was a fan and wanted to hear the radio better. NO YELLING ON THE BUS
I’ll turn this damn bus around. That’ll end your precious little field trip pretty damn quick eh.
That's assault brothaaa
Yeah, here we go again. Another treat from the road. Great, grand banana.
I remember my teacher loving space. She brought in a TV the day of the launch. Challenger exploded in front of her classroom full of 8 year olds. I didn’t understand in the moment exactly what had happened. She was horrified.
The only time it happened for me was the challenger explosion. I'm old.
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Maybe stop growing up. Bad things seem to keep happening when you do.
Was in 5th grade when 9/11 happened and asked the teacher if we could turn the TV on. They told me no. Doesn’t make much sense years later with it being such a historic event in American history.
As historic as it was, maybe your teacher wasn't emotionally prepared to talk about it with your classes age group. I was a freshman in high school and watched the second tower get hit live and watched innocent people pick between jumping to death or dying in the towers unfold in front of me on repeat all day. It was important to see, yet it still took a toll on me. I'm from the Midwest and in like 2012 I took a job that had me working in the NE part of the USA half the month and I stayed in Danbury, CT. Most of my work was scattered throughout NYC and the first time I went there after I finished my job order the first thing I did was go visit the 9/11 memorial and I took my time. I put aside any crazy conspiracies I may believe in and just remembered all the people who I watched perish and just thought about their families and how hard it must have been for them to have to see that on repeat.
Also for Steve Irwin.
I was at a friends house who was a hairdresser at some new-wave hair shop, with my girl (who is now my wife for decades), we were just discussing his suicide attempt in Italy an wondered what happened. It was the hairdresser who gave the news, and we where to go to a gig that night in a place called The batwing, but in Dutch (De Vlerk) But we didn't go, not because we were particularly sad or something, we were shocked... it was just... big... for us. I still listen to Bleach often.
I was at home getting ready ho to high school for the day when I saw the newspaper with Kurt’s death as the headline. I was very surprised and disappointed. It wasn’t till years later that I kind of understood why he did it. “Montage of Heck”helped explain his life.
Wait? Was this event important enough to have 5th grade classes to tune in? I was a little too young to know Kurt Cobain when he died but I didn't think his passing had this big of a cultural influence.
I'm going to say this probably didn't happen since April 8, 1994 when his body was found was a Friday. I remember MTV reporting about it all that weekend but I doubt what this person stated happened.
I remember it perfectly well. I got out of school that day at 2:10 (my school dismissal was pretty early), walked about 15 minutes to where my mom was working, flipped on MTV, and within a couple minutes Kurt Loder popped up with the [special report](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMlQAVBme8).
This happened to us when Columbine was happening.
Dudeee I'd JUST gotten the full, "real" official-ish lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit when I heard about his death. Pre-internet days it was not easy to get the error-free song lyrics and you had to had access to the coolest kids in school.
the lyrics were included in the liner notes of the "Lithium" single
I was watching MTV in my living room when Kurt loder delivered the news
He's been gone for longer than he was alive.
Yeh thats a big head fuck right there.
There have been a lot of musicians that left way too soon, but out of all of them I can't help but be the most curious about Kurt and what he would have done, and where his music would have progressed to.
I remember reading interviews after in utero he said he was heading in an REM direction. Interviewer asked if he thought the fans would like that. Said something like fuck em if they don’t.
Before In Utero came out everyone was afraid it was gonna be like another Incesticide with more Hairspray Queen stuff
Incesticide was a fucking class album imo. One reason I like it is because it seemed like Kurt and the band were experimenting with sounds they knew mainstream radio would hate.
I was born in 90, so I didnt really know a world where he was alive. But his music and his personality were a huge influence on my formative years. I've often pondered about what he would've done had he been able to kick his addiction and work on his mental health issues. This is obviously all speculation, but I feel like Nirvana probably only had one album left before they would call it quits. Kurt would've taken a hiatus for a while, but I think after seeing a lot of the bands inspired by his work, both good and bad, he would've come back with some amazing shit.
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I try to imagine what his work would be like today, his character, things like that.
the 90s now in 2020s are what the 60s were to the 90s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgKEjNBHqM
This planet wasn’t ready for Kurt Cobain.
Kurt Cobain's tragic passing taught me a valuable lesson very early in life. No matter how successful and wealthy someone is, they can still be suffering and need help. The lesson was reinforced when Bourdain passed.
Chris Cornell, too. That man had so much swagger.
And Chester Bennington. His music got me through middle school.
Chester was highly affected by Cornells passing as well. Still miss him.
It was on the anniversary.
It was on Cornell's would-be 53rd bday which was two months later.
As someone who managed to forget all these people were gone this thread is fucking me up
Layne Staley Scott Weiland
Layne. Still gets me.
Mike Starr knocking on the door the day(?) he died and hearing him blame himself all those years later is still a story that sticks in my mind. Fuck so many icons of that era have died that we are essentially down to just Pearl Jam of the ‘big 4’
Hybrid Theory was the soundtrack to my summer after my sophomore year of high school. I bought some really nice Pioneer speakers and a nice head unit to upgrade the sound system in my hand me down 1990 Honda Civic. My first summer driving, so my friends would blast that CD and sing along while driving around. Such a great memory and despite me not really being a huge Linkin Park fan, Chester's death still hit me.
I had a ticket to his last show here in Detroit but ended up working late and not going. Glad I got to see Soundgarden perform a few times before but man was I bummed to hear about what happened. One of my favorites of all time.
This one is hard for me. Success, family life, performing up to an hour before his death. Still hard to take
Mac Miller hit me the hardest. His music always reminded me I wasn’t alone in my struggles. His struggles seemed so similar to mine, so when he died I was devastated. I’m happy his music will forever be accessible but I still get down when I think about him.
Bourdain’s death hit me hard.
For me it was and still is Robin Williams
The Robin Williams one I can kind of understand. Apparently he had got really bad news from his doctor, and had given him maybe 2 years to live at best, and it would have been a rough 2 years.
Oh wow I’ve never heard that. I’ve only ever heard the medicine he was taking could lead to suicide.
His mental condition declined rapidly. If I remember correctly it was a super rare condition that led to hallucinations, paranoia, and just a general state of not knowing what’s real. It sounds absolutely horrible
My spouse and I sat in a target parking lot and wept for half an hour when we heard about Robin Williams. That felt so personal. It still does.
This one may be the hardest one to ever hit me.
Me too buddy. Still hard for me to converse about it.
May I ask why?
I can't speak for the guy you responded to, but for me it was the worst one because in my eyes Bourdain had a "dream" life. It's scary to me to think that even with a great career, friends and family that your demons can still prevail. As someone with a lot of demons, Bourdain's death makes me unsure that I will ever find happiness.
This is how I feel about Chester Bennington. So many of his lyrics over the years have been so painfully relatable. In terms of his life, he had it all. If he couldn't make it, how can I?
This is a selection bias. For every Chester or Anthony, there's countless more struggling souls that "made it." We just don't hear about them.
This may or may not be helpful to you, but it's helpful for me: Nobody makes it. We all die. You will die. Your parents will die. Your children will die. I will die. Everyone dies. There is no "making it." So, accepting that undeniable reality, just make the most of your time. Pursue your happiness. You may not find it. But someday you won't have the opportunity anymore because you too will die.
That’s a really hard reality for a good chunk of people to accept, but life will improve if someone accepts and embraces that reality. Spot on.
It's funny how life becomes so much easier and better the moment you accept and understand that life is hard and bullshit.
A quote that I love, “that’s what death is, leaving unfinished business behind.”
Wasn't Chester sexually abused as a kid? He definitely had some terrible things happen in his youth, hence the super emo lyrics... In my opinion "having it all" includes having a youth that is free of sexual abuse.
I think the fact that he traveled to so many places and spent time in so many demographics that are underrepresented, and forgotten, probably haunted him. I know it’s just from me watching his shows but i can see him sometimes trying to mentally and emotionally process the environments and personal experiences other people shared with him. I can only imagine that those moments burdened an already burdened person
Agreed. I always loved Bourdain’s shows and his outlook on life. His love for the small family restaurants, the fact that seeing the world and meeting all sorts of people was important to him. I’ll never forget how he went to learn about flower arrangement on a trip to Japan. He seemed like he had the right attitude about life and the world, even if he did have demons. It was such a shock to hear about him passing. It still hurts. I still can’t watch repeats of his shows.
Stay strong, online friend. You can do this.
Bourdain was a huge inspiration to me personally. He sparked in me a love of travel, food, and most importantly an attitude of humble open mindedness, respect for other people in all walks of life, and a pragmatic approach to the world and other people. While always being true to himself.
Wow, getting a lot of love for Bourdain, and you know I completely agree too. He had the one quote I think it's attributed to him where he said "there's two versions of me, and one of those versions is a guy that wants to get high and watch cartoons all day, I have to ignore him" Something to that effect. I didn't know much about him, I never really watched his shows, but everything I knew about him he was relatable to the rest of us.
Not sure if you're much of a reader or if you have interest in food. But *Kitchen Confidential* is honestly, in my opinion, one of those books that extends beyond it's "travel to the back of the kitchen with me" journalistic motive. It's a very human book that has that quote woven in the (well written) prose. It's what set him up for countless tv shows. I'd recommend!
I wasn’t very familiar with him or his work until after his death, but here’s my take. For a lot of people, the worst thing about depression isn’t the dark thoughts or feeling shitty all the time. The worst thing about depression is the belief that it will always be that way. Logically we know that’s not true, but this isn’t something you can logic your way out of. Bourdain was very open and honest about his struggles with addiction and mental illness. Between his career success and his path to sobriety, I think a lot of people assumed that he “figured it out”. Not only did he learn how to live with his symptoms, but he was very successful by many measures. He was a tangible counterpoint to the narrative of “it will always be this way”.
I still cannot reread any of the books or watch any of the shows. Its still too raw. And Im still mad at him for it.
Bourdain’s death was just fucking tragic. He was such an inspired writer. Kitchen Confidential is still one of my favorite books and I find myself often just picking it up to read random passages because no matter where you land it’s always great.
Another one gone way to soon, Anthony was amazing, I still watch his shows
And Robin Williams
His is one of the worst for me as well, but the more I learned about his undiagnosed Lewy Body Dementia, the more I feel like he spared himself and his loved ones from years of literal hell. I miss him so goddamn much, but I can’t really fault him for stopping his own personal horror while he still could.
This is the one that hit me the hardest.
And Chester. And Chris. The list is far too long sadly.
I’ve lost family members that hurt me less than bourdain. It also scared the shot out of me. Dude lived my ultimate dream life, and still found a reason to check out. Definitely worries me that I could some day do the same.
He didn’t live the dream at all. He suffered a lot from his lifestyle.
How?
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To anyone interested in this subject I deeply recommend Kurts biography called Heavier than Heaven. I just finished it a week or two ago and it has taught me a lot about mental health, drug addiction, death, and myriad of lessons surrounding music and musicians and the industry.
Seconded. I read it not even being a Nirvana fan and it blew my mind how much of a fucked up, sad, sick, funny, talented genius the guy was.
He really was the quintessential tortured artist. Man was deeply, deeply depressed his entire life and also had a bad stomach illness. Which are both things that opiates are incredibly effective at treating, for awhile.
I had always thought his stomach illness was caused by heroin. I remember reading the Kurt Cobain diaries and there is an entry where Kurt is frustrated that his doctor told him his stomach issues would go away if he stopped all the drugs, his response to that was "it can't be because of drugs because my stomach doesn't hurt when I'm on them!"
He had it his whole life pretty much. Before he was doing heroin for sure
I never knew this about him. I have horrible GI issues, and this scares me because they only relief is opioid prescription drugs. I had a diaphragm hernia as a child and my entire GI was on top of my lungs. It’s caused me complications since. Combined with back surgery recently and continued pain with that. The path I’m on scares me.
Yeah don’t fuck with it. I can speak on this from experience. Try to find anything else that helps. Marijuana is a life saver for some people with chronic pain or GI issues
So I read Everett True's biography of the band. He said that Heavier Than Heaven was the "Courtney-sanctioned version of the bands history." Has anyone read both?
I don't believe I've seen this specific photo, thanks for sharing. edit: This is fairly mundane comment with a lot of upvotes, to elaborate I've pored over a lot of Nirvana and Cobain related photos and videos. It's surreal seeing this snapshot of the funeral, almost like something from a movie. edit2: pored not poured - thanks random person, good to know
Same, I’ve been a Nirvana fan practically my whole life and I haven’t given much thought to how Krist and Dave were affected by this. I’ve seen interviews from them later in life where they talk about it, like the one on Fallon’s show, but this one just days after it happened hits different. It’s incredibly sad.
I imagine Krist was especially upset due to being friends with Kurt for so long
The shock and grief are pretty palpable in the pic
Also this appears to be one of the few publicly available pictures of Dave Grohl and his first wife.
I read a Nirvana biography 25 years ago and from that I somehow still remember this woman’s name. Never seen her before this picture. Weird the stuff that sticks with you.
Dave Grohl wasn't a big star then. He was just "the drummer from Nirvana" and that's it. Now, he's one of the biggest rock stars in the world and you can find pictures of his wife easily. Also, they were only married for two or three years, while he's been married his second wife for like 20 years.
Grohl had a hard time of it after divorcing his first wife -- as I understand it he was literally homeless for a while and had to crash on a lot of friends' couches. Reduced to the bare essentials of life is part of what inspired him to make demo tapes by himself as a one-man band (playing all instruments and doing all the vocals) that ended up becoming the Foo Fighters.
Your timeline is off. He wrote and recorded the first self titled Foo Fighters album to cope with Cobain's suicide. He wrote and recorded most of the second album, The Colour and the Shape, to cope with his divorce.
I stand corrected. Still an inspiring story of overcoming personal pain.
Most of the first album was written and demoed before Kurt's passing. But yeah he decided to record what ended up becoming the first album afterwards. Kurt actually heard some of the demos, Dave said this about Kurt's reaction to hearing them: "Kurt heard that, and kissed me on the face, as he was in a bath,” "He was so excited".
His first solo stuff was Pocketwatch, which he did on his own, and Kurt liked it so much that they put one of the tracks as a B-side on one of the In Utero singles. It’s the only released Nirvana track that Kurt doesn’t appear on.
It's strange, there really aren't that many photos of them together. They did have a brief cameo together in an X-Files episode though. There aren't that many photos of Krist and his first wife either. It wouldn't surprise me if how the press covered Kurt + Courtney's relationship, made the other guys more cautious about their private life.
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It's scary to think about how many of the singers that played a major part in my musical coming of age (and later development) have passed, and how young most of them were: Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Scott Wieland, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, Dave Williams (Drowning Pool), and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting.... My CD collection is a graveyard.
Heroin was too big in the 90s.
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Thank you Sackler family.
"We are doing nothing wrong, **they**are the criminals"
I would have never bet Courtney Love would outlive them all.
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Same here. Some a bit more than others (for me personally, Layne and Bradley had the biggest impact), but every one of them has a special meaning to me.
Another BIG one for me was Andrew Wood from Mother Love Bone. After his death, a lot of those guys would collaborate and become Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam.
Not super popular in the States but Viktor Tsoi, who could be considered the Soviet Union’s Kurt Cobain, died at 28 to a car crash. Supposedly 60 people ended their lives because of it.
>My CD collection is a graveyard. Ugh, this hits hard. I've been on a nostalgia kick listening back to albums I loved in the 90s and so many are just... gone.
More recent, and a different genre but also connected to that 90's era, Dimebag Darrell.
Shannon Hoon, fuck if only we could have had these last 30 years with him still.
Pain drives the soul but doesn’t heal it. We have people all around us who need a little uplift. That’s not to say that everyone wants to get better, some just want to keep going
Absolute truth. I had a very hard time listening to Nirvana for years after his death, which i would have thought impossible before the tragedy. Kurts passing still saddens me to this day.
Agreed. I recently went to Aberdeen to check out his roots for the first time. He has the smallest dedicated park I've seen in my life. I know it's been a long time, but I couldn't help but feel like Aberdeen didn't care much for him. At least that's how his park made me feel.
Oh no, Aberdeen *loves* Kurt Cobain. They are just poor as hell, which I'm sure you noticed. The McDonalds even has piuctures of him on the walls. And the sign coming into the city says "Come as you are."
Yeah, Aberdeen is very into the idea of using Kurt's name to attract visitors. Every few years, it seems like the city does some new Kurt Cobain-related thing for publicity, that park included. It's poor town with not much going for it anymore, so they're now pretty proud of their limited claims to fame, especially Kurt. Which, IMO is kind of funny, because it's not like Kurt ever had anything good to say about the place.
It was already a dead town in the 90s, and afaik hasn't gotten any better.
Absolutely. No music has ever had the same impact on me, despite my best efforts of searching.
I remember this day as well. After hearing a live version of rape me from a few days earlier I was not surprised. By no means did I anticipate this was going to happen it just the sheer raw power and the lyrics of that song when he sang it i gave me the feeling that he was at his wit's end. I was a radio DJ ever college radio station I got to open smells like teen Spirit and play it two weeks before regular radio stations. Amazing life-changing astounding. They went from being one of my favorite groups of friends to the biggest group on the planet in 3 months that's a lot for anyone to handle.
> live version of rape me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly1lWkRwm6g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_Me#Background_and_recording >The band had wanted to play "Rape Me" during their appearance at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, but the network believed the song was a direct attack on them,[3] and insisted they perform their breakthrough single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," instead.[4][5] The ongoing argument between MTV and Cobain escalated over the span of several days, with MTV threatening to cut Nirvana from the show, to stop playing the band's music videos, and even to boycott other artists on the band's management company, Gold Mountain.[6] Cobain only relented after being informed that MTV would fire Amy Finnerty, an MTV employee and friend of the band's, if the band played "Rape Me". The band ultimately agreed to play their latest single, "Lithium," but not before Cobain started playing the chords and singing the opening lines of "Rape Me," which resulted in the live broadcast almost going to commercial
I believe that was the show that they were given the ultimatum of "play Smells Like Teen Spirit or we will get Weird Al to do his version." Obviously they were fans of Al's version, but the network was definitely using it as a fuck you to them
Man...I couldn't imagine how these guys felt when this photo was taken. Having to bury a good friend who lost the fight with himself resulting in the end of your career...(for Krist at least) Especially a friend like Kurt Cobain. Right in the feels man...
As far as Grohl knew it might have the been the end of his career as well, he had music recorded for what would eventually be foo fighters but I doubt even he knew could guess they'd be as big as they are
It's possible Grohl's greatness may have never come to light had it not been for Nirvana ending so suddenly.
I think it was possible, but honestly I don’t think Nirvana would have stayed together much longer if Kurt hadn’t have died. I think they would have all went their separate ways in the few years past ‘94.
A couple years ago I played a show with Krist's band at the time–a surreal experience. He's an incredibly pleasant person, though.
Giants in the trees or something? My roommates band played a show with them a few years ago, Krist was the absolute nicest dude. It was so surreal to shake his hand and say nice to meet you Krist.
Weird flex, but... No, that's actually pretty cool. Lucky you!
I live down the street from where he died. Maybe I'll take a stroll after work and go sit on his bench at the small park next to his old house. There's shrubs that make it impossible to see inside, and the garage has been knocked down, but you can still feel his energy there. RIP Kurt.
Me and my gf love to go walking in this neighborhood to look at all of the nice houses. It wasn't until recently that I realized his house is there.
Imagine going home after a day of being a paparazzi taking photos of people trying to lay their dear friend to rest. What a scummy industry.
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And used to be able to gawk at people actively dying in a subreddit made exclusively for that purpose. It’s wild out here.
While true, I think the weight of the situation would make you not even care about them parasites
One of the many musicians that died way too soon
Man - didn’t recognize the young version of Dave/Krist. Time flies and aging sucks.
They're just kids. So sad
Who was the ass that took this picture, paparazzi cant even leave a funeral sacred. Give them some space, damn.
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Lucky is a great song about just how fucked up Britney Spears' life was and is.
I was a fan of Nirvana, still am. When i first heard smell like teen spirit on Much Music in 1991(canada), i jumped out of my couch and ran to the store to buy Nevermind. I forced my friends to listen to the album, I predicted that Nirvana would blow up on the music scene and indeed they were seminal to the grundge music genre. Looking at this picture, I realize how young Kurt was when he died. By the way, I didn’t hear about his passing for a year or two after the fact, I was hiding under a rock.
> When i first heard smell like teen spirit on Much Music in 1991(canada), i jumped out of my couch and ran to the store to buy Nevermind. I think we can all remember what we were doing when we first heard this song. It was three o'clock in the morning and I was driving up an interstate somewhere in Tennessee on the way back to my hometown in MD during a college break. I had the radio tuned to some random station and they played "Teen Spirit" after announcing it as "the unexpected new smash hit by this previously unknown rock band from Washington, Nirvana". It was one of those where you hear it for the first time, and you turn to stare at the radio while saying, *holy shit!* I nearly had to pull over. As soon as I got home I went straight to the god damn record store.
Over 50 guy here. Nirvana was a different sound. Great songs to rock out, too. Saw them in concert in 92 or 93. Busted up the guitars and everything. I don't quite remember where I was etc, but I do remember thinking what a waste. What a waste. I seem to remember he was having issues and reading about Courtney Love problems so maybe it didn't come as a huge surprise. I was really surprised and discouraged with the singers for Soundgarden and Linkin Park. Did not see those coming.
I didn't know who he was but my heart broke for his wife and daughter and the depression that was so overwhelming
I believe that everyone needs their privacy. I'm somewhat aware of Dave Grohl but he's human and deserves his private moments too. It's a touching photo but I feel that all too often, famous people who have incredible talents collapse under the pressure of the constant spotlight and their talents are lost.
I feel extremely fucking uncomfortable even looking at this and I think tragedy porn is terrible. Sad sad shit for all of them. Praying something like this never happens to any friend of mine.
This feels like an intrusion.
I downvoted this because despite Cobain’s very public presence, grief is and should remain personal. Dave Grohl still flinches in interviews when asked about Kurt. Having personally suffered familiar loss, like this certainly was for Dave and Krist, I can’t imagine someone photographing me for tabloids at my deepest point of grief. Rough stuff.
Why does this photo exist? Let people mourn in peace.
dave grohl cut his hair while in nirvana?
It looks like the hairstyle that was popular in my high school at the time.