by Nick Soulsby
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About the Author
Copyright Page
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PREFACE
BLAG DAHLIA, The Dwarves: The ’90s were such a special time, full of warmth and good cheer—and Nirvana really helped that along by crying all the time, doing dope, and fucking ugly chicks … helping to bring flannel and heroin to the unwashed masses …
Kurt Cobain’s demise was not a media event, or a breaking news story. Among the community of musicians to whom he was a well-liked friend, it was a death in the family. While speaking of those times means celebrating achievement and fun, for many of the people who tell this story it also means remembrance of pain. Death should never feel like a nothing; to most of the comrades sharing their memories with us, it still doesn’t—and that’s good. Nirvana was a bunch of normal guys sharing a musical life with thousands of other talented and dedicated individuals, and this is the story of the life they all shared.
Nirvana’s tale is inseparable from that of the life and death of Kurt Cobain. His story, however, is not just the story of a normal man. It’s about a guy who became part of the less than 1 percent of humanity who rise to the top of the creative professions; the one boy among Aberdeen, Washington’s 18,000 residents to become a global legend. His death, at the peak of his fame, only increased his exceptionalism.
VICTOR POISON-TETE, Rat at Rat R: Why do and/or should we love Kurt Cobain and Nirvana? They will not be given the opportunity to disappoint us. No future song entitled “Smells Like the Interior of a New Lexus.” No duets with a current octogenarian to broaden the audience demographic. No holiday specials or a department-store clothing line (pre-washed grunge apparel), sugary soda downloads, halftime wardrobe malfunctions, or attempts to build an alternative marketing strategy that actually works, only to turn around and appear on lamestream media shows that flash signs prompting you to clap or laugh. And Nirvana will never attempt to bring sexy back, buy a basketball team, or act as judge on a talent show.
This book came about while browsing the Nirvana Live Guide, a truly astounding website listing details of as many of Nirvana’s performances as are known, and being fascinated by all the rarely mentioned bands. Many of them have vanished, leaving only names on old fliers but, by chance, live on through association with one of the world’s most celebrated groups. Nirvana never felt it was above the many bands they befriended; they always felt they were part of the community who tell this tale rather than of the celebrity world they joined. This book is about the magic of everyday people doing something remarkable because they had the guts to ignore the naysayers and go for it. For the many people who were good enough to lend their time and energies, I hope you feel happy reading the result and it reminds you of your great times. It’s been an honor to learn of your worlds—thank you.
For Nirvana fans, I hope it makes the fiction of the superstar feel closer to the reality of everyday life and gives you that sneaking feeling that you could be extraordinary too.
And Dad? Thanks for letting me sit by the bedside at the hospital with you and finish this—and for so much more besides.
1.0
First Fruit
February to December 1987
One evening in April 1987, a sweaty-palmed and fidgety trio of young men purporting to be a band named Skid Row (and decidedly not the more famous hair-metal band) lined up at the doors of the Community World Theater, Tacoma—a ramshackle punk venue in a small town in Washington. There was no reason to notice them; they were nothing special. Just two house parties into their life as a band, with their first performance only a month earlier, this show was the big test. Their scrawny, fragile, and shy front man, at twenty years of age, wasn’t even old enough to drink.
Sandwiched on a four-band bill, Skid Row’s performance passed without incident or laurels.
BRIAN NAUBERT, Yellow Snow: A combination of having to tear down after our set, deal with our gear, and all the beer we drank—forty-ouncers of Old English, if I’m not mistaken—I’m sorry to admit it but I don’t remember being impressed by anyone that night. We were a little bit shy and defensive because even though the punk scene welcomed us, we were not one of them. Yellow Snow was appreciated for having its own sound. Something that would be considered “indie” these days.
PAT WATSON, Yellow Snow: They were older than we were, I was sixteen, seventeen, high school—they seemed to be pushing past twenty. We were nervous because we were one of the young bands age-wise … We might have bailed, so I don’t remember if I saw them. But while we were playing our set—it was someone’s birthday in the band. so we played the Beatles’ birthday song and some guy yelled out, “The Beatles suck!” Really loud. And then Kurt Cobain said, “Shut the fuck up, man! The fucking Beatles rule!” Everybody laughed and that guy didn’t heckle us again.
BRUCE PURKEY, Soylent Green: They were unique. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to make of them at first—noisy, a bit chaotic, unpolished. They could’ve easily, at first blush, been one of those bands you see a couple of times then fades away, never to be seen again.
AARON BURCKHARD, Nirvana: I lived right across the alley from Dale Crover’s house; I was ’round there all the time, at Melvins practice every day. So, Krist Novoselic brought Kurt ’round—first time we’d met—and the very next day they asked me if I wanted to play drums. They knew I was a drummer, they needed someone and I said, “Of course! Yes!” But I didn’t have drums, so we drove up to a friend in Westport and he set us up with some drums, and that same night we were in Kurt’s living room set up playing. That was late ’86; we were a band for two or three months before we played our first show.
The soon-to-be Nirvana boys probably sorely underappreciated they had grown up just as a wave of musicians came through the remote Aberdeen, Washington, area. The community of musicians was small enough too that they all knew one another, even if the absence of outlets except parties and practices affected everyone.
TONY POUKKULA, Black Ice: That area cultivated a lot of talent … It was like there were layers of bands, so the band in front of us in school was Crystal Image, and part of that turned into Metal Church—those guys were a year or two ahead of me and it was full of camaraderie, to the point they’d let us come watch them practice or they’d swing by our pad … Kurt used to come watch us too; he’d come watch just standing on our front porch—we had a big window, it was a beauty salon—he’d stand there and watch through the window … Dale Crover and I used to jam all the time—we used to live less than a mile from each other, so I’d go down there and we’d play Iron Maiden … Krist and Rob Novoselic were in there too—they lived just up from me, so I went over to their house and we listened to, when Metallica first came out, [a] Cliff Burton bass solo and we were all like, “That’s bass?!” … We saw those guys at school—Krist towered over everybody; you knew when he walked in the room it was Krist. Nice guy, pretty intelligent. But Kurt was super-quiet … He was just one of those guys who would walk by and you just wouldn’t notice him right off the bat. One day
in school he passed up a note to the girl behind me; she passed it to me and it said, “Will you teach me to play guitar?” I told him, “Yeah, no problem.” But it never happened.
DUKE HARNER, Black Ice: Since we were so young and there weren’t any venues for young bands to play at, ours and other young bands mostly had small get-togethers at their practice rooms … As for the radio stations and newspapers, you had to be a big name or be playing at one of the top local clubs to even get any kind of mention; neither source did anything for the young bands on the Harbor. At the time we were growing up, there weren’t any underage clubs or venues, so it was practice, practice, practice!… My cousin is married to Mike Dillard [the Melvins’ original drummer] and asked if I cared if they came by … so they stopped in for about an hour. They didn’t look too impressed but sat there and bullshitted us and had a few questions about amps and PA stuff. Later, I asked my cousin what they thought, and she said they weren’t too into it: “No Ramones, no Sex Pistols, no Police, no Clash … no thanks!”
Nirvana’s first public performance in March 1987, in the small town of Raymond, had relied on their friend’s willingness to make the connections for them.
RYAN AIGNER, Psychlodds: I was at these rehearsals two or three times a week, so I was just listening over and over again to them doing their set. Probably after the fifth or sixth time this discussion starts up … I’m telling him, “Kurt, this doesn’t sound that bad, you may not like it but it sounds OK,” and he’s like, “Yeah, I dunno…” He was pretty insecure about the whole thing. One time we had this discussion and I said, “I could picture this on the radio,” and it was a real insult to him because our radio station locally had a bad reputation because they just played schlock rock. So I’m like, “No, that’s not what I’m saying!” This is pre-’91, before anyone ever thought that there would be an alternative status-quo mainstream—it was insulting to insinuate that could ever happen, and I’d just done that. “How dare you say something like that! I wouldn’t want that!” That’s where the thing comes—“You don’t believe me?” He replies, “No, no one would want to listen.” I say, “I’ll prove it to you…”
TONY POUKKULA: In the Raymond days, at that house, we’d party every night, doesn’t matter what night it was! We’d have musicians in, didn’t matter who you were, you could just come on down and play—not even necessarily bands, but play, we just wanted to hear. That house was very isolated, even if there was a fight out in the driveway it didn’t affect anybody, very secluded.
RYAN AIGNER: I worked with a band called Black Ice. They were a very successful cover band that did shows locally … these guys seemed so skilled and so talented, so good technically … Tony Poukkula rented the house where the first Nirvana show went down—that’s why it happened, because I’d worked with Black Ice. He was their guitar player.
TONY POUKKULA: I talked to Ryan and he was saying, “Hey, I’ve got these guys—Kurt, Krist, and Aaron—they’ve got a band together, they’re coming up with some cool stuff, would you mind them coming by and jamming sometime?” It was Ryan’s suggestion, and I just said, “Yeah, we’re going all the time, just tell me when you want.” It was pretty quick after that.
RYAN AIGNER: They didn’t have the wherewithal, they didn’t have the place, they didn’t have the van, they didn’t have the money, they didn’t have the job … I was a carpet-layer so I had all these things at my disposal and I was thinking in terms of networking—that’s how my mind worked. So I put these pieces together and casually said, “What are you guys doing Friday? Let’s do this thing…” Initially there was a kneejerk “Nah, we better not” … I just finessed and kept it up—there wasn’t a lot of pressure, they could go try it out and it’d be fun and they could try it out … It didn’t take a lot of effort on their part, put it that way. It’s about a forty-five-minute drive, so we pile in and start playing.
TONY POUKKULA: Ryan’s good. He’ll have made sure they had their act together before they came down. To me it was just going to be the regular thing: a jam session. I had my guitar warmed up by the time they were setting up … I didn’t actually know the song. You’ll hear me say “I don’t know it!” That’s why you hear the whammy bar going nuts, plus I was probably “on my way” … After Ryan told me, “Hey, they don’t really jam with people,” I was like, “Cool, I’ll go grab a beer,” so I sat my guitar down and went into the kitchen and after a little bit Jeff opened his jacket and pulled his collar out and showed me he had that recorder going. I said, “Right on, they actually sound pretty good. They’ve got some cool stuff.” … They were really rough, but back then you can tell they were just trying to be themselves—coming up with some melody lines—it was different, definitely, to what we were used to. I was just having fun. Krist was standing on the coffee table with duct tape on his nipples and I was just sitting there laughing.
RYAN AIGNER: We weren’t hated, but we weren’t liked.… when you grow up in a conservative culture and you try to be liberal or avant-garde or artsy, then you get a kind of rejection—a feeling of “You’re not welcome here.” That’s hard to take, growing up. The things you’ve heard, the negative things, about how Nirvana felt about Grays Harbor County, we didn’t make that all up. We really wanted to be accepted by our peers and we really weren’t until much later. It wasn’t because we didn’t try to do shows down here. It’s what the Raymond show was—they went down, did their thing, and the crowd stood in the kitchen and went “Wow, what the hell is this?” I was in the room, Shelli [Dilley], Tracy [Marander] … about four of us who would have been at the rehearsal if they’d been back in Aberdeen while the Raymond crowd looked through from the kitchen thinking, What the hell is that? and not running into the room like they did in 1991, ’92, ’93—not pogoing like they did at the Coliseum. We didn’t forget that. Standing on the stage at the Coliseum in ’92, I was a youth-group advisor for our church and looking out in the crowd I saw kids from my youth group looking up at me onstage and I’m looking out thinking, You were the guys who didn’t think they were good enough for the radio—there’s 16,000 people pogoing to “Teen Spirit”—I tried to tell you this in ’88.
Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic—Cobain’s best friend and a gregarious foil to his band-mate’s quieter presence—and Aaron Burckhard were not the new Beatles. In this first incarnation they were blaring out a diverse vibe ranging from hard rock to psychedelic covers to sludgy punk—they weren’t quite sure what they wanted to be, and that showed in other aspects of their behavior onstage.
SLIM MOON, Nisqually Delta Podunk Nightmare: Kurt was definitely showing his “performer” side already. To the best of my recollection, although he seemed nervous, he was dressed very outrageously, sort of a send-up of a glam outfit, and he did a memorable “solo” by squatting down and messing with all the controls on his effects pedals.
For some, however, there was an immediate connection.
JOHN PURKEY, Machine: I was in a band called Noxious Fumes—we did a lot of shows at the Tropicana, and Krist Novoselic would travel with the Melvins to the Tropicana … I met Krist when he roadied for them. So, years later, one of those random nights where I went to the Community World Theater—didn’t know who was playing—Skid Row was onstage … It was maybe a couple dozen people—maybe twenty-five people or so … I walked in and was like, Wow, that’s Krist … His band’s cool … Right on! Krist is on bass … So I sat down and watched them play and totally loved it. The emotion, what I was hearing—I really liked. Kurt’s voice really blew me away from the start, hands-down—it’s a certain sound in his voice. After the show I approached Kurt and I asked him if they had a tape, a demo. He said they were going to record.
Recording was still some way off for this young band. April 1987 was a fresh start for Kurt Cobain in which he gained something that proved crucial to his artistic flourishing: a real home at 114½ Pear Street in Olympia. His parents’ split in 1976 had torn him from the one he had known for eight years—the longest he’d been
at a single address in his whole life. From age fifteen, his living arrangements had further imploded and for the next half a decade he didn’t stay even a year at any address. At seventeen, eighteen, and again at nineteen he hovered on the border of homelessness and in the ultimate regression slept at the hospital in which he’d been born.
With nowhere lower to go, he climbed. It wasn’t through pluck or courage, though. Cobain had a benefactor: his girlfriend, Tracy.
RYAN AIGNER: Tracy Marander was really involved with the scene and had become a big advocate of the Melvins early on—that’s how she met Kurt. She was one of the few Olympia people buying into the little music scene that was happening down in Grays Harbor, which was pretty important because she validated what he was doing from a position of having this much vaster exposure to the music and artists going on around Olympia and the Evergreen State College, yet she was saying, You guys are kind of cool … Tracy went to every Nirvana show. She was very supportive … Krist had [his girlfriend] Shelli. She worked. He worked too, but he could quit working and not work for two-three weeks or a month; he was a painter so he’d work the summer months but then not work because it poured down with rain, so Shelli had this constant job that was always making sure the rent was paid and food was on the table. But when he was away from Shelli, he might or he might not have money in his pocket. Kurt was the same way, he had jobs when he absolutely had to—but he had Tracy Marander, and both Shelli and Tracy worked at this cafeteria for Boeing, worked graveyard shift there, but when either one of those guys didn’t have their girlfriend around to support them, they might not have money in their pocket …
Nirvana’s next show in May nearly stopped before it started due to a simple case of youthful high spirits—possibly the whole case of spirits.
SLIM MOON: Krist was very drunk, and yes he was a jolly drunk but also sometimes very annoying. I remember parties where he set off fire extinguishers, broke furniture while dancing on tables … His inebriation didn’t affect the music, or at least I don’t remember it being affected, but I do think that Kurt was less theatrical at that show.
