Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  Kim Gordon was there, Thurston Moore, Jon Spencer, and Joan Jett. But we were having serious problems, and I was going through some nervous breakdown at the time, because Riot Grrrl was just eating itself. There were these girls that had been stalking me, who were trying to tear me apart and break me down — try to say that, “We’re more radical than you,” and “You suck.” I was kind of buying it and feeling bad about myself. Some of those girls had followed me up to New York, came to the show, and were causing problems. Kept jumping up on the stage and trying to stop us in the middle of the set, saying, “Some guy punched me — what are you going to do about it? ” It’s true — there was almost no security there, it was way over capacity. But at the same time, I don’t see how we should have to be responsible for every aspect of the show — we’re just trying to play.

  We ended up falling apart onstage. It ended up being this huge circus onstage — girls jumping onstage, screaming into the mic, the manager coming on and yelling. Joan Jett was onstage the whole time yelling at the girls. At one point, Molly and Erin threw their instruments down and were like, “That’s it!” Molly left the building, I started crying, and it was totally packed. Someone told me Thurston Moore said that that was the greatest performance he’d ever seen [laughs]. It was more like performance art — we had this really public breakup onstage.

  ALICE WHEELER: In the Northwest, even though we’re very left wing out here, women have always been sort of second-class. I don’t know if that’s because it’s like the wild, wild West — nature versus humanity, or whatever. It’s always been that as a woman, you make a little bit less money — still, that’s true. In the rock scene, that’s definitely true. I think it gave women a voice. All the bands that counted in my mind were friends with the girls that were doing Riot Grrrl, and were supportive of that. Some of the boy rock star bands probably ignored the whole thing and were too busy on tour — or just wanted their girlfriends to be models and keep their mouths shut.

  I think the whole idea about Riot Grrrl is that you could have your own opinion and you could make your own art. And it was equally as valid as anything else — I think that has been proven to be true in history. Part of what happened with Riot Grrrl is that they got a lot of press really early on, and it freaked them out. So then they did a press blackout, and I don’t think that helped their position in history any. But I think that people now are wanting to explore what happened with that. Since the ’60s, I think it’s been the main swing of contemporary feminism — the main underground swing of feminism.

  ALLISON WOLFE: I do think that it’s important that there were all these girls that were politicized, making a mark in music. And I think we did trans-form somewhat the punk rock scene, and maybe the Northwest music scene and DIY music scene. I think that even if it was through the convoluted sense of Seventeen magazine reporting on Riot Grrrl, maybe some girls who live in remote places that might not have a scene to hang out in, could read about Riot Grrrl and feel influenced by that. And to feel like maybe it would give them the strength to tell their boyfriend to fuck off if he was fucking [with] them, or to tell their teacher at school who is being horrible to leave them alone. Or to start their own band, their own zine, or anything productive. I am proud of that.

  KATHLEEN HANNA: Everything is “Grrrl this” and “Grrrl that.” It seemed convenient, and it was really catchy. We were just like, “Whatever.” It’s a little weird to still have the “Grrrl” thing follow me around when I’m thirty-seven. I think of myself as a woman now [laughs].

  CHAPTER 28

  “Everything is not OK anymore”: Nirvana

  With Nirvana still riding high on the vast commercial success of Nevermind, the group experienced inner turmoil due to the drug addiction of Kurt Cobain. But the group continued, with an outtakes compilation, Incesticide, and the highly anticipated follow-up to Nevermind — In Utero.

  TRACY MARANDER: Within, like, two years, we broke up, [Kurt] got his own place, became a rock star, developed a heroin addiction, got married, and had a kid. That’s a lot of stress in a couple of years.

  STEVE MANNING: When Nirvana was on Saturday Night Live, I thought it was the coolest fucking thing I’d ever seen — I was so happy for them. And a little sad, because you knew that your little private thing was over. All of a sudden your parents knew who Nirvana were. The whole time before that, it was exactly what your parents didn’t want you involved in.

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: The Chili Peppers thing was just a four or five day trip. But that’s where we were when the album went number one. That was really surreal, like, “What? Nirvana’s album is number one?!” We went to Australia — really big, great shows. The shows were pretty consistent. Sometimes [Kurt] might have a shitty attitude about the show, but generally, the show was good and the crowd was happy. Hours of tension, punctuated by moments of brilliance and fun. There was Kurt and Courtney, and the people in charge of getting them everywhere — and then everybody else. There was really a dichotomy. Their drug problems were pretty bad, and they were worried about how they were going to get drugs. They’re pretty much sick because they can’t get their drugs. And then you go to Japan where it’s even harder — he was just a shell in Japan. At the end of that tour is where we stopped in Hawaii, and those guys got married.

  Hole’s Courtney Love in Melkweg, Amsterdam, December 8, 1991

  As much as I could, I tried to insulate myself from all their little dramas. It could be a downer being around them — being around all the tension at times. It wasn’t just the drug problem — they were starting to have issues within the band about how they were going to divide royalties. By now, they’re talking about real money. So there was tension about that. The impression that I had was that Courtney was in his ear, saying, “You should be more than an equal third of this band, because you’re doing all the writing and the singing.” The impression I got was he started trying to change the deal.

  Then there were the European festivals in the summer. You got the feeling that Nirvana was the center of the universe. They were headlining these huge festivals, and they were the band that everyone was there to see. Nirvana were allowed to dictate the lineup at some of these festivals too — it was a very heady time. They weren’t having as much fun, Courtney was having health problems, Kurt was having health and drug problems. I wasn’t directly privy to it — I tried to keep my head down and do sound, and hopefully not have anybody get pissed at me. It would be stressful, because there were times that we didn’t know if we were going to make the show or not. Kurt’s in the hotel room throwing up, or he’s worried about his voice — his voice was always a problem. He was not a healthy guy. Every show we got through was a relief.

  SUSAN SILVER: [Kurt and Courtney] were incredibly paranoid. She was extremely threatened by any woman in Kurt’s life — that was really clear. There were a couple of incidences where I happened to be in the room with a bunch of other people, but I was the only woman, so she took aim at me — unrightfully and unnecessarily. There was a weird incident, where Soundgarden was touring in Europe with Guns N’ Roses, and they played Spain. Nirvana was playing the next night, so we all went — it was so fucking exciting to be there with this band that we all loved for several years. And now they’re the biggest band on the planet. It was like going and seeing people you think are your really good friends, you see the show, it’s amazing, we go backstage, and all of a sudden, it’s not amazing anymore.

  Krist and Dave were really uncomfortable. Courtney was very pregnant, and was on the couch with Kurt. There were probably fifteen of us or more in this room talking to each other. But there was this real air of discomfort. All of a sudden, she stood up and starts screaming, “Yeah, we shoot dope! We shoot dope every day! Fuck yeah!” It’s the elephant in the middle of the room you try not to talk about. It was the moment where I realized, everything is not OK anymore. Andy died, and that really wasn’t OK, but we all pulled through it, and things started to really take off for Seattle — everybody wa
s still in each other’s corner. They stormed out of the room. Kurt had an interview going on in the other room, which I found out because I tried to say goodbye to him, and I could see that he wasn’t really comfortable with it. He didn’t look particularly well, but he’d had a lot of health problems — I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, he’s high.” I just thought he looked sick.

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: [The Reading Festival] was fun. There were a lot of rumors in the British press about Kurt’s health and “Courtney this and that.” I think it was Everett True — they had him wear a doctor’s smock and wheel Kurt out onto the stage in a wheelchair, just to make fun of that. The band always had a great sense of humor. Nirvana was never about angst, grunge, and being unhappy. A Nirvana show was always the most hilarious thing you ever saw — people forget that. Their main motivation was, “What can we do that would be funny?” At these festivals, they would play, and if some “serious band” had to come on after them, they would just look silly. Because here’s Nirvana that’s completely taking the piss out of rock ’n’ roll, and rocking harder than anybody else.

  DUFF McKAGAN: I was never really friendly with them at the time. I think we tried to get them to open on one of those tours during the Illusion time, and they didn’t want to. And then some bad blood started between … well, Axl had some bad blood. I think Axl might have taken it personally, and might have said something in the press — although he was a Nirvana fan. And Kurt was a pretty cynical, funny guy. The punk rock humor in Seattle — if you didn’t get it, you might be offended. I think Kurt said something [at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards] — they had their girl, and wanting Axl to be the godfather of the child. And Axl got huffy about it, because he thought Kurt was trying to take the piss out of him. It was no big fucking deal. If it was two mid-level bands and that happened, nobody would have heard of it. But because the media eye was so tuned in to both bands, it got blown out of proportion. And then, you can’t downplay it. Then it was, “It’s a war between the two bands.” It’s like, “Oh fucking brother.”

  JACK ENDINO: I was not in touch with the band much during the period when [1992’s] Incesticide came about. I recall hearing that the record company wanted some product out there quickly to capitalize on the success of Nevermind, but the band was not ready to make their next album. So someone must have thought of this other thing. Makes perfect sense really, since the band did have quite a lot of miscellaneous recordings. I did hear about it in time to remind them that I had the master tape for “Big Long Now,” a Bleach outtake that was sitting on my shelf. They had completely forgotten it. I knew there was an abundance of unreleased tracks because I had recorded an album’s worth of them myself! Some others are on the box set [2004’s With the Lights Out].

  CHAD CHANNING: I was actually never contacted by Krist or Kurt during that time — just by [Nirvana’s lawyer]. I had heard I was gonna have three tracks on the album — “Dive,” “Stain,” and “Big Long Now.” A lot of that stuff I had heard before, ’cause it was from the demo they had made with Dale — the demo they gave to me just before I joined up. I’d never heard the cover tunes before, so that was pretty cool. I was surprised to see “Big Long Now” in the list — that was a song I thought might never get released. That was a song I actually named — like “About a Girl.” And “Stain” was taken from the recordings at Soundhouse with Steve Fisk. There were a number of cool songs from that session which ended up on the Lights Out stuff, like “Token Eastern Song.”

  JERRY CANTRELL: Out of all of the bands, I probably had the least amount of contact with the guys in Nirvana. I think I only met Kurt twice — once in South America, and once in Seattle, when they were doing some MTV show. The first time, we had a great time hanging for a couple of hours in a hotel — partying and talking about music. Kind of digging on each other, like, “Fuck, man, I love what you do” and “Man, I fucking dig your shit too.” A cool hang — in South America, for God sakes! It took us to go to South America for me to actually meet him.

  DONITA SPARKS: The [São Paulo] show was the worst set I had ever seen Nirvana do. They were trading off instruments and doing a lot of covers. I was thinking, “God, what are they doing?” I think they knew it when they got off stage. Krist still feels shamed about that show — it seems like whenever it comes up, he hangs his head in shame [laughs]. But then [several nights later in Rio de Janeiro] they were on fire. I was almost glad that I got to see them play a shitty show, because I was like, “They’re not completely invincible.” It was breaking my heart, but it made them seem a little more human.

  SLIM MOON: It seemed like they had to promote Nevermind for two years or something. Then [Kurt and Courtney] finally bought their mansion in Seattle, and they were home some — they started trying to have a life. Courtney started contacting me, saying, “Kurt’s friends are a negative influence.” Once she came on the scene, she spent all this time dissing me and my friends in the press — sending me faxes, crank calling me in the middle of the night, all this shit. But then suddenly, she was like, “Oh, Slim — you’re OK. You’re misguided, and you’ve been suckered by your evil friends … but I like you. You should come hang out with Kurt, because his friends are a bad influence.” But I never got any invites from Kurt, so I didn’t really take that seriously, and I never took her up on that. I didn’t want to be the guy who kisses up to “the rock star.”

  ROD MOODY: I remained a huge fan up until [1993’s] In Utero, which was a huge disappointment.

  ADAM KASPER: [Nirvana] weren’t sure if they wanted Andy Wallace to mix the record again — they were on the fence. I was the engineer who spent a couple of days listening with them. They weren’t sure the tapes were recorded very well — the Albini stuff. There were some big questions about it — particularly from the label. So we went in and spent a couple of days eq’ing, listening to all the tracks, and seeing what could be done with it. It was probably eighty-five, ninety percent finished, but the label had a big issue with it at the time. Nirvana won out in the end, but they had to remix a few things.

  MARK PICKEREL: One time, Kurt, Krist, and I ended up sitting on a flight together to Los Angeles — they were flying down to have meetings and to rehearse for the In Utero tour, I’m pretty sure. I hadn’t seen Kurt or Krist for maybe two years. The strange thing that I attributed to fate — my plane ticket for some reason was separate from Hiro and Robert’s. I ended up sitting in the very last row of the airplane — I could see Krist was occupying probably seat D. I was seat E, and sat next to him. The plane was almost done loading, when I heard what sounded like someone with Tourette’s, barking out bizarre comments — really incohesive statements, filled with vulgarities. As the voice got closer, I looked up to see that it was Kurt approaching this last row. The only seat available left on the plane was the one next to me. It was strange, because I’d just bought the issue of Details with Nirvana on the cover. I was going to read the interview on the way to L.A. [Kurt said] “I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. It’s really strange that I ran into you, because I was just listening to Mark Lanegan’s The Winding Sheet, and I love your drumming on it.”

  So he asked if he could read my issue of Details. While he was reading this interview, he started making comments how disgusted he was — or how frustrated he was — with some of the comments Dave made in the interview. He was frustrated with Dave becoming more comfortable with being a spokesperson within the band, or being a voice in the band. I think for some reason that was something Kurt didn’t really appreciate, or didn’t want to see happening. He and Krist went back and forth — Krist must have become the person in the band who was the peacekeeper. While he might have echoed some of Kurt’s concerns, he, I think, wanted to see the band continue to move forward, get along, and learn how to live and work together professionally. This whole Details column [and] Kurt being reminded of The Winding Sheet sessions prompted this conversation about having me [and] Dale Crover play on the next record. He wanted the drumming responsibilities to be split betwe
en Dave Grohl, myself, and Dale. He wanted to hear the band’s sound expand, and because of my playing on the Jury sessions and Mark Lanegan’s solo record, for some of the songs that required maybe a lighter touch, he wanted to bring me in. It seemed that Krist was a little more reluctant to pursue that. I think he saw it as something that would cause a lot of tension within the band, considering that they were already starting to crack up. But [Kurt] definitely was excited about it.

  DALE CROVER: I talked to Kurt about writing some songs together — between Nevermind and In Utero. He was living in Los Angeles. We had talked on the phone — he was trying to get me to come down to L.A. Maybe rehearsing and possibly songwriting. We both liked playing with each other. Thought that eventually we probably would be able to play together again — or something at some point.

  MARK PICKEREL: Of course, I was really excited about it — he gave me his home phone number and address. I remember talking about our different favorite records. I was asking him if he ever spent time listening to the Gun Club’s Fire of Love, which was a favorite of mine. He hadn’t, as well as a few other favorites of mine. Since I owned a record shop, I sent him a package of Fire of Love, as well as I think the Gun Club’s Mother Juno, and — of all records — the most current Talk Talk records at the time. Because he was talking about wanting to do quieter music, and Talk Talk had just released a couple of bizarre, quiet, depressing records — The Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden. We talked on the telephone a couple of times after.

  KURT DANIELSON: There was a lot of interesting talk — Kurt had a lot of ideas and plans. I’d heard at one point that Kurt was interested in working with Michael Stipe. I had conversations with Kurt myself, where we’d talk about this and that. It would be fun to do more a Butthole Surfers–type thing, with more electronics involved — not a front man — more of an electronic band, with a lot of noise, but also real songs and pop songs. A combination of things.