by Everett True
I couldn’t reply. My voice had gone.
That Coliseum show – prestigious, Nirvana’s first announced show in Manhattan since the Marquee Club in September 1991 – was even more surreal. I recall standing in the super-VIP area by the stage: there was only one other person in the enclosure, supermodel Naomi Campbell.24 Huh? The whole time, I was thinking, “I’m going to be up there shortly” – but I couldn’t croak above a whisper, I’d screamed myself so hoarse the previous night. I was suffering from nerves, mainly because I knew Kurt was going to call on me to sing again and for some reason I’d sworn off alcohol momentarily, probably because I couldn’t speak. The sound was dreadful: echoing around the cavernous, circular venue like a disused aircraft hangar. Indeed, I so couldn’t sing that Kurt doubled up for me, the pair of us doing some sort of deranged duet. “Kurt wasn’t even singing,” Jim Merlis told Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna (not quite true, as bootlegs prove). “It was Everett by himself. It was so terrible. Kurt brought him on stage and he just screamed into the microphone.”
The following morning, Nirvana’s management received calls from New York journalists wanting to know who the mystery ‘rock star’ on stage with Nirvana had been.
“I bet you were happy about that,” comments Earnie.
I think it’s funny as fuck. The fact that people like Jim hated me was the reason why Kurt asked me to get on stage in the first place. It was pretty obvious he wanted to piss the crowd off.
“Was that the show where Alex threw Kate Moss out?” asks Earnie. “She had come backstage with a friend of hers, and I heard there was something bizarre about that, like they approached the security guy and he let them in without being on the guest list. So Alex booted them out.”
The Roseland Ballroom on November 15 was another great show although I was almost past caring as I’d pummelled my body so hard. It was another industry showcase – supposedly an intimate one at that – but I never did come to terms with the concept of a 5,000-capacity venue being ‘intimate’. Surely intimate means you and Kurt’s mum, and no one else? Or maybe one of the old house parties Nirvana played in Olympia when they were starting out.
“That show was amazing,” comments Rosemary Carroll. “The intensity with which they played was one of the things that made them so great: the expression of pent-up anger and frustration, and the sense of solidarity with the audience that was wordless and wasn’t pandering . . . Kurt had the ability to establish the connection with the audience that very few people have.”
A whole load of us gathered on stage for the encore, an extended version of The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’.25 Kurt played drums, Dave was wandering round with a bass, I was croaking out the occasional line that I could remember, Jad was shouting down a megaphone, Krist was beating a floor tom, and various members of Half Japanese were pummelling the hell out of their instruments. At the song’s climax, Pat Smear handed Jad Fair’s young stepson Simon one of Kurt’s guitars, and nodded at him, encouraging him to break it – he took about a dozen attempts. By the time he’d finished, the whole ensemble was standing round cheering him on.
“At first, I was horrified at the way Kurt would smash instruments,” Pat Smear told www.nirvanaclub.com’s Rasmus Holmen. “But it was showbiz . . . certainly not as horrifying as Darby Crash smashing bottles on his head and slicing his chest up at every show. And then I learned about Earnie Bailey, who was a genius at putting them back together in ways that made them even cooler than they started out. Guitar smashing is pretty contagious, though – I did it myself sometimes. Fender would send us fresh guitars on tour and you’d have like three brand new guitars that were all identical. I almost needed to scar them up just to tell them apart. Overall, I think guitar smashing is as amazing and shocking as it was when I first saw it done by Marc Bolan at a T. Rex show in ’73.26 Who cares, it’s just a piece of wood. Smash away!”
“In ’92 and ’93 I would bring a mixed bag of guitars along,” recalls Earnie. “And you never really knew what was going to get it, and things got it for different reasons. By In Utero we were getting these more disposable Stratocasters and Japanese Mustangs, and I remember thinking, ‘The Mustangs are going to be the first to get splintered,’ because I thought they were terrible. I did a few basic modifications to them, to make them at least tolerable during the one song Kurt was going to smash them, and they turned out to be his main workhorses.
“It was strange because, in the early days, if Kurt only had one guitar and the time was right for smashing, he would smash it. It didn’t matter how much he liked the guitar. I felt the destruction set should have been phased out by the In Utero tour. In a way I liked it, though, because it could turn unpredictable and it was a part of my purpose for being there. And they weren’t smashing rare guitars that had survived four decades, but new, off the shelf things.”
I didn’t attend the recording of MTV Unplugged on November 18. I can’t remember why. I was in New York, and I’m sure it would have been easy enough to go. Probably, I wanted no more part in the corporate crap surrounding Nirvana. Listen to those wankers cheering every note of each song’s introduction on the CD,27 like it’s a jazz concert. Look at all those lilies, chandeliers and black candles, cameras and carefully framed screen shots on the sleeve. You tell me I was wrong to stay away. What did MTV Unplugged have to do with Krist or Dave, or even Pat?
Nirvana were a band, remember.
Why is it that American music critics think rock groups turn grown up the moment they go acoustic? It couldn’t possibly be because they didn’t like said rock groups in the first place, could it?
MTV Unplugged is not Kurt Cobain sharing an intimate moment with the world; you have intimate moments in the privacy of your own bathroom. You don’t have intimate moments in front of batteries of soul-sucking video cameras and technicians. I’m not denying that when Kurt covers that Vaselines song (‘Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam’), or David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ with its insistent guitar refrain, it touched a chord deep within me, and hundreds of thousands of fans. And the Leadbelly cover (‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’) is pure gold, Kurt’s voice sounding so awesomely betrayed and world-weary, and when he screams . . . when he screams, my God, it’s like a thousand years of blood-lust and disappointment and rejection, all encapsulated within a couple of bone-chilling moments. (It’s pretty bloody obvious who the song is aimed at – especially considering Courtney wasn’t present.) And yes, it was nice to hear Kurt experimenting with his songs, and giving them space to breathe and blossom.
It’s just . . . Jesus! It’s MTV, the absolute enemy, for God’s sake.
How patronising was the whole concept of inviting Nirvana on to a show like that? The Kurt of old would have scorned it for the shallow façade it was.28 The singer was in too deep to withdraw by this point, though. Myself and Gullick skipped across town to where old mates Chicago’s Urge Overkill were sitting in a diner, dreaming of being swank rock stars on a par with Neil Diamond . . . or at least Nirvana.
There was crap surrounding MTV Unplugged right from the start.
As ever, MTV were being arrogant corporate assholes, thinking they knew how to judge a band’s material better than the band itself – they wanted Nirvana to play the hits, no unknown songs. Kurt disagreed and announced he wanted The Meat Puppets to come on as guests, much to the disgust of MTV, who were expecting Eddie Vedder at the very least. Originally, the idea was that Nirvana were going to cover three Meat Puppets songs – ‘Plateau’, ‘Oh Me’ and ‘Lake Of Fire’, all from their second album – but, as Pat Smear explained, “Curt Kirkwood’s playing style is so unique we could never make them sound quite right. Krist or Kurt suggested that we just have ’em come up and do it themselves.”
It wasn’t like the format itself was particularly successful, either: Stone Temple Plagiarists had done an Unplugged a few weeks earlier, and taken several hours to record a 45-minute, ostensibly ‘live’ set.
It wasn’t even ‘un
plugged’, come to that, as most bands – including Nirvana – played with their instruments amplified. They just played a little quieter.
“We did the rehearsals out in New Jersey,” says Earnie. “I worked on two of Kurt’s Mustangs that day, and his Jagstang as well. I could hardly look over at the stage. Every song sounded very rough and awkward, like hearing a band getting together for the very first time. I couldn’t believe they were going ahead with this the very next day. It was looking like their first bad career move. There was one glaring mistake during ‘Pennyroyal Tea’. On the video, it’s apparent – but they went back and fixed it on the CD, and I almost wish they hadn’t. ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ was unbelievable, it gave you chills, but I didn’t see the point of releasing the album. I liked The Meat Puppets’ songs better than their own songs, but I didn’t care for the guitar sounds on the record.”
Others disagree with Earnie and me, though.
“Last time I saw Kurt was at the Unplugged show,” says New York photographer Michael Lavine. “He specifically got us front row seats and came out and gave [video-maker] Steve Brown and me huge hugs. On stage, it was perfect. We went backstage and he was messed up, grumpy and distant, somebody had given him those green Converse with the white stars – those were the shoes he was wearing when he killed himself.”
“That was an incredible show,” remarks Janet Billig. “Kurt was so focused and in it, and this was a bit of a surprise as he was not in a good place emotionally by that point. He was angry that day, really shitty and moody at everyone around him29, but when he got on stage he was incredible. He was in every song. He was so excited about the songs being taken seriously, that they were being properly crafted. I told him afterwards it was a career-defining moment and that he played guitar beautifully, and he retorted that he played guitar like fucking shit. You could comfortably say he didn’t take a compliment that easily. And that was the path he was on, songwriting that was real and true.”
“Kurt was extremely excited about it,” comments Danny Goldberg.30 “He was very proud of it and thought it would bring the band to a whole new audience. The fact it came out retrospectively doesn’t mean it was someone else’s idea.”
“That was one of my only regrets,” says Cali. “Here’s exactly as it happened. It was a drug thing. Courtney and I were in Seattle and we both had been doing drugs for the weekend and didn’t want to go to New York. We got to the airport; we got on the plane, but while we were waiting for the plane to take off, we talked ourselves into believing that the show would be better for Kurt if we weren’t there – which actually might have been very true. Really, our reason for not going was that we wanted to go back to the house and get more drugs, and that’s what we did. So I didn’t see Unplugged. Instead, I got to hang around with scumbags on Capitol Hill.
“Talk about missing a great, great show,” Cali laughs. “I didn’t even think about it until a couple of weeks later when I heard a tape of it. It was just so good. Hearing them do ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ for the first time blew my mind.”
A couple of days before Unplugged was recorded, an amusing incident happened outside the band’s New York hotel, the Regis.
“There’s a certain kind of New York kid that’s crazy for famous people – all a little too old to be doing it, aged about 20–21, drama club kinda kids,” states Lori Goldston. “There were three of them waiting outside the hotel, holding CDs. We came out, and they rushed over. ‘Kurt, Kurt!’ He was in a bad mood. They were like, ‘Kurt, we love you!’ – and he got out the van, stood up on the step and spat over the van on to these kids on the sidewalk. They looked shocked. Absolutely stunned, crestfallen, devastated, and it was really, really funny. I’m not a mean person, but it was hilarious. He was a really good spitter, and this was the only rock gesture I ever saw him make.”
Addenda 1: Steve Turner
Why did Nirvana get big and not Mudhoney?
“It’s pretty obvious!” exclaims the Mudhoney guitarist. “That record [ Nevermind ] is anthem after anthem. It’s very deep music. We had songs that were serious too, but Nirvana sound totally legit and real and there’s a desperation that cuts deep.”
I always thought Kurt was a rotten lyric writer.
“He was, but he has one of those voices that could sing the telephone book and make it sound real and convincing. Nirvana frustrated me so much once they got famous: how could that band make as many mistakes as they made? Once they got a little bit of success, it was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re doing everything wrong!’ I never liked the production on Nevermind , it sounded like Eighties big rock. I liked the demos better – great melodies, great songs, great voice. I don’t like Grohl’s drumming at all. He’s a hard-hitting, pounding drummer. I like things with more finesse. I liked Chad’s drumming for Nirvana, a little sloppier and a little looser. It swung more.”
Do you think Olympia was a big influence on them?
“Sure. Well, Krist was always the guy that hung out with Melvins, from day one. I think the Olympia influence became negative towards the end – where Kurt kept trying to prove that he was real and ‘punk rock’, as opposed to Pearl Jam. One of the saddest mistakes they made was his inability to admit what they’d done with Nevermind , that they’d gone totally LA – and that’s not bad, whatever. They made a pro, expensive record, they had people remix it for radio, they played ball completely and it worked.
“There was a lot of guilt and back-pedalling trying to prove they were still punk rock. They surrendered way too much control to their management and lawyers and people. It was almost like they were saying, ‘If we don’t care about what we’re doing that means we’re more punk rock than you.’ What???” Steve shakes his head in bemusement. “Nirvana became stooges far more than – to use the opposite example – Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam were in control of their own destiny. Whereas once Nirvana got big, it was like, ‘OK, now you have your money-hungry management making decisions for you.’ Great! That’s real punk rock!”
Going back to the Olympia influence . . .
“Olympia is a bit of a mystery to me. They played their first show in Olympia. In their early days it seemed like everything they did was organic and a lot smaller, like their scope was small: it wasn’t about success, more about being with cool people, nice people and whatnot. Nirvana wasn’t really from Seattle. They were closer to Olympia. Geographically, they were more aligned with the scene there and also to the Olympia lifestyle, both the college kids and the wastoid rednecks. Meeting some of the Melvins’ and Matt [ Lukin]’ s friends in Aberdeen freaked me out. I was like, ‘This is fucking weeeeeird .’ That was not my world at all down there.”
A lot of Kurt’s ideas about punk rock . . .
“They sprung directly from Olympia and Calvin. Yeah. A lot of that stuff came from DC as well, the politics of it.”
It’s about setting up your own alternative lifestyle outside of society . . . “Which is great! I’m all for it!”
But this is where things got fucked up with Nirvana because all of a sudden they decided they were a punk band – and punk has traditionally embraced the mainstream . . .
“Yeah, they were being pushed and pulled and they couldn’t even admit some of their influences . . .”
I guess part of the problem is that Olympia is a very elitist town.
“People move there and become snobs. It’s weird. They never liked Mudhoney down there.”
That elitist attitude sat very uncomfortably with fame. You can’t have both. You can’t be ultra-elitist and make a record like Nevermind.
“Yeah, if they’d just admitted their ambition, if they could have reconciled the dichotomy somehow – and it’s not a big stretch, it’s stuff that doesn’t fucking matter in the big picture. It’s little insular in-fighting crap that doesn’t apply any more.”
The mystery person in this equation to me is Krist.
“ Krist is very punk rock, but he wants everyone to love each other.31 He’s just a big . . .�
��
. . . old hippie.
“Yeah. Totally. Big fucking hippie. He was kind of the guy that was along for the ride. He did stuff but he was trying to make what Kurt wanted to happen, happen.”
He got thrown quite a curveball in the shape of Courtney.
“Right,” Steve laughs. “That kind of . . . messed things up a little bit.” You think?
“It’s weird because they dropped the ball big time. That’s the tragedy of the whole thing to me. They couldn’t see that they’d outgrown any of their previous ideas. Everything that they were using to make decisions was irrelevant. If they’d only sat down and talked with Pearl Jam, I swear to God, it would have helped them a lot. They were in a powerful situation and they just handed it all to people like that manager guy [ John Silva]. Fucker! And the thing that always blew my mind was that Sonic Youth used him. I just never could understand, like, even before Nirvana, I was like, ‘Why is this guy your manager? He’s a prick!’ I never could figure out how they could deal with him.”
Addenda 2: Bruce Pavitt
You know that The Legend! got up on stage with Nirvana several times on their last US tour. About five or six dates. We did the encore together, myself singing.
“I didn’t know that!” exclaims Bruce.
Yeah, the Courtney-sanctioned version of history (Heavier Than Heaven) doesn’t mention it.
“It seems Kurt and the band were able to maintain some creative ties, although it seems Courtney did her best to sever a lot of those ties. For the most part, it appeared that attorneys and managers and handlers surrounded Kurt in his final days, while many of his long-standing creative friends – and I would include myself in that, and Calvin and so forth – felt distanced. Courtney did not want any of those people around.”