I Found My Friends

by Nick Soulsby

  Hurt by the UK media’s intrusive speculation on his drug problem, Cobain choreographed Nirvana’s show as a parody of his supposed frailty.

  ROD STEPHEN: Kurt was wheeled out in the wheelchair with the blond wig—I’ve always speculated what the wig was about, part of me thinks it was about the blond singer in ABBA—wearing the wig … it made sense, “the blond singer in the band.” Iconically, Agnetha is the standout in ABBA with her blond hair. Kurt is perhaps usurping that; that blond wig is a statement, what else was it meant to be?

  He moaned a riff of “The Rose”—the title theme of a film about a star self-destructing under the impact of fame—before mock-collapsing. Most journalists sang praise for the festival performance without seeing that Cobain had made a sarcastic attack on their negative coverage of his personal life. Meanwhile, some observers saw nothing special.

  IAN PROWSE, Pele: When you’re actually near someone, though, you realize how prosaic it all is. Unfortunately when stuff is filtered through the lens of the gutter media it takes on a certain sick glamour that isn’t actually there. When you see them walking across a muddy field backstage they are simply Walking. Through. A. Muddy. Field. It’s so dull … Our show was a bit of a nightmare too; the bad weather curtailed our gig so we didn’t manage to explode … I watched them for thirty minutes, yes. They were truly awful … Our roadie Nick Leech was a notoriously bad-tempered drunk (we called him Killer as a nickname). He went straight up to Kurt after the show and told him they were rubbish before being bundled off out of the enclosure.

  Nirvana broke again from the corporate plan, canceling their November US tour. Instead, they were motivated to make their first mainland US appearances since the New Year by their opposition to an anti-gay-rights ballot measure in Oregon and to the Erotic Music Law in Washington. Neither was a topic that endeared them to mainstream audiences, but Nirvana saw fame as valuable only if it stood for something.

  JON GINOLI: The only communication we had with Nirvana at the time was through Jello Biafra, who was a fan of ours. He was at the No On 9 benefit that Nirvana played in Portland against an anti-gay measure on the Oregon state ballot. I thought, Wow, how cool! Guns N’ Roses would never do that—a popular rock band had never taken such a pro-gay stand at that point in time. Jello told us he was going to emcee the show, and I asked him to ask Nirvana if they minded us doing a gay version of their song as “Smells Like Queer Spirit.” He said he spoke with all three of them together, and said they were cool with it … We did the song the way we did it for several reasons. Nevermind did not come with a lyric sheet; we couldn’t tell what half the lyrics were. We thought, what if the lyrics were slurred and indecipherable because they were all about being gay? That’s when I came up with the title “Smells Like Queer Spirit” … One reason we wanted to do the song was that even though we loved it, it was so ubiquitous that we were getting sick of it.

  Cobain spoke of the Pansy Division cover as a real pleasure; his band had been baiting homophobes all year.

  JELLO BIAFRA: Jon wasn’t sure they were going to release that song because they were afraid of being sued by Nirvana—or, more likely, Nirvana’s management or record company … The bill was set and they added me as emcee and “rantologist”—for all the bands involved it was a very important issue, but Nirvana knew full well that they were such a huge band and so many of their fans were jocks by then that it was a great opportunity to wake people up and educate them about tolerance and gay rights, against this kind of attempt at backdoor coups by religious-right bigots. I heard grumbling in the crowd throughout that they had no idea this was a “pro-faggot” concert, but I’m really glad that those people may have woken up a few months later realizing we were right. I mean, a lot of the pre-hardcore punk bands in San Francisco, L.A., and New York, among other places—there were many of them, many people in them, who were gay and out and people didn’t bat an eye. It was just people we knew … Finally I’m introduced to Kurt and I could tell he seemed shell-shocked, very. Not knowing when the next shoe was going to drop … I couldn’t resist anyway asking him why he didn’t name his baby after me—I used to use that as a joke way of congratulating people on their family, but he couldn’t tell I was joking. He may be the only person I’ve ever asked who thought I was serious—it was real evidence that he was just in shock at the position he’d gotten himself in. Later on he warmed up; all of a sudden he lit up like a Christmas tree telling me about this photo he had of a Republican headquarters in Southern California on fire—we had a good laugh about that and I chased for ages wanting it for an album cover until I realized they’d used it as part of the collage inside In Utero …

  Cobain and Nirvana made repeated statements, whether subtle or otherwise, regarding the issue of gay rights; Cobain appeared on MTV in a ballroom gown, Novoselic French-kissed him on Saturday Night Live, the “In Bloom” video dissolved into cross-dressing hilarity, and Cobain accused Axl Rose of sexism, homophobia, and racism … Nirvana helped to bring a downplayed strand of the underground to the fore.

  JON GINOLI: People noticed all right. It was a big middle finger to hard-rock stupidity. Rock stars were not supposed to make fun of themselves and not take their image seriously. They got away with it because they were huge. I remember too when they wore dresses for the “In Bloom” video—that was a gesture that had major impact, to so blatantly fuck with gender. It wasn’t about rock-star cool … Kurt sang, “God is gay” and “Everyone is gay.” Axl sang “Immigrants and faggots, they make no sense to me,” and that they “spread some fucking disease” … I don’t think much pro-gay sentiment was happening in rock until the ’90s—punk rock got more macho as times went on. Originally punk could be aggressive without being macho. Part of the homophobia stemmed from the idea that people thought gays weren’t making or listening to that kind of music, because almost no one playing it was out of the closet. Part of the reason I formed Pansy Division was that I knew that wasn’t true. Our mere presence (along with queer peers like Tribe 8 and Team Dresch) forced the issue out into the open the same way that Bikini Kill did for women and feminism … Someone told me that Maximum Rocknroll magazine were afraid to give us bad reviews because they didn’t want to look homophobic, but because they were the home of hardcore they were never too enthusiastic, either.

  GARY FLOYD: If I had just been singing about gay issues only, I would have been pegged as more of a “gay singer” than I am. I think I was more “a singer that was gay” than “a gay singer.” My songs were multi-issue … I’m happy Kurt felt gay topics were part of what was going on. I loved him for that. However, most punks could not care less that Bad Brains did some despicable homophobic bullshit … Never apologized … Never said “We are sorry,” anti-“bloodclot faggot,” crap … They do not care a fucking thing; maybe Kurt did … Most so-called punks don’t give a shit. I didn’t get shit because I didn’t take shit.

  While Nirvana dedicated time to their political commitments, the whirlwind of attention that had followed Nevermind was now lashing the Northwest scene from whence they’d come.

  BEAU FREDERICKS: Things changed a lot for sure. Before, no money. Afterward, big money—in Seattle, at least … Once the money hit, then the Seattle attitudes changed and there wasn’t as much of just playing music for fun anymore.

  LEIGHTON BEEZER: We actually had some major label approach my band Stomach Pump … The A&R person told us we would be big stars and would have total creative control. I said our band was totally improvisational, and he held his finger up to his lips and said, “Shhhh. I don’t give a shit. You guys are from Seattle and you play loud grunge. You’ll sell and become huge. So whaddya say?” I smiled, shook his hand, and said, “Yes!” He told me to get my band into the studio … he would fly us down to L.A. and advance us a bunch of money to make a record. So, I asked the guys from the Thrown Ups: Mark, Steve, and Ed, to join me as a hoot. We showed up at the L.A. studio two weeks later wearing our old flower costumes. The A&R guy called us motherfucke
rs and kicked us out of the studio, and that was the end of that deal … It did get pretty ugly, but funny at the same time. I remember Mark saying, “But we have a great cover of ‘San Francisco’” while the A&R guy shouted obscenities …

  DUANE LANCE BODENHEIMER: The music scene was great, always something to do every night of the week … Not much attitude—not really. Everyone happy to play, not trying to be famous or doing it to become a rock star; they were just doing what they did—that’s what I really appreciated about Seattle. It changed after the whole Nirvana thing; it seemed like this band and that band were just there to try and get a record deal.

  ROBIN PERINGER: People saw Nirvana make it big and wanted that as well. As a result, everyone thought they could achieve it, even the labels. It seemed to me that every little shitty band that got a small blurb in the Rocket started to believe that they were hot shit. I don’t know, it somehow created a competition that hadn’t really been there before.

  Thanks to the ludicrous hype surrounding Seattle, what had been a close-knit community of musicians, venues, and labels found itself drowning under a wave of out-of-town wannabes.

  RYAN LOISELLE: Everyone hated the popularity. C/Z Records would get boxes of demo tapes in the mail and I’d hang out with the guys running the label. They had a tape deck and they’re on the fifth floor of some building in Seattle and they’d put in a tape and within the first three seconds just: All right. Yoink! Boom! They’d throw it right out the window. Everything. Three seconds—if it wasn’t amazing right now they’d throw it right out the window and it’d hit the streets out on the avenue. But there seriously were boxes of tapes being sent to labels in Seattle.

  JOHN PURKEY: I was given the box of demo tapes sent to the Central Tavern—people were sending tapes into clubs—so 1993, they asked, “Anybody want these?” I took it. There were some good demos in there, I went through everything myself and found some good bands … There was a huge number of bands came in, a lot of clubs opening—there were bands moving to the Northwest to try and get a record deal. Two bands from Hawaii lived in Tacoma—they moved here? From Hawaii?!

  TIM KERR: When Nirvana “hit” in ’91, it broke the dam and you had the industry machine come in full force plastering their template and guidelines for the future generations, through mainstream magazines, to follow so they could be successful in this “new industry.” This, of course, led and always leads to another generation of smaller pockets digging deeper into the real DIY ethic, which still happens to this day … the scene at the time was more a community that was having to deal with a big influx of “fans” now showing up. They all had a great sense of humor and reality about it, which I thought was a healthy attitude and I respected them for it. I still do.

  BEN MUNAT: That’s what made the Nirvana happening so extraordinary; the pop commercial world cracked into the “Fuck you we don’t need your money” world and there was a crazy period of swirling opportunism and confusion; some people got hurt … With the unexpected smash success of Nirvana, many labels of all stripes swooped down on Portland looking for the next big thing.

  DANIEL RIDDLE: Portland … changed radically once Nirvana broke nationally with a hit record and all of a sudden, like most musical towns at that time, became a hypercompetitive snake pit filled with money-hungry vampires representing the record labels and many so-called musicians who could barely conceal the fact that they were plagiaristic chimps looking to prostitute themselves.

  For most bands there was no revolution; the mainstream wasn’t buying punk, it was buying a version that didn’t need a parental advisory sticker.

  RICK SIMS: The biz didn’t change for us. We were still on the same label (Touch and Go) as we’d always been and getting the same push/support as we always had. I kind of doubt we were going to fit into that mainstream punk rock world anyway. We were too crude and our attitude was a little too fuck-you to all of a sudden start dealing with some major-label schmo. I think most bands still had to fight hard, as in having to schlep around in a van for two months playing one-night stands and sleeping on friends’ floors.

  JOE KEITHLEY: Punk rock was still an obscure art form that never really got its due—no complaining, but that’s the way it was. It was too political, too offensive, and it wasn’t safe for kids … The punk rock movement is akin to the hippie movement, but 1 percent of the size because with the hippies you did have bands who were big and were saying stuff—even the Beatles and the Stones, the giants, they got into that culture. You never had those big bands in punk. The biggest was the Dead Kennedys, who might draw a thousand people when the MC5 had been drawing fifteen thousand and preaching revolution.

  PETER IRVINE: The idea of a genre called “alternative” was new, and not yet mainstream. It started as an actual alternative that was not popular. So it was strange and mystifying to watch “alternative” catch on as a genre term, become “Alternative,” and then become mainstream … Touring actually became more difficult after Nevermind … there were suddenly a lot more bands trying to play the same venues, with the result that it became economically more challenging to tour. We were suddenly competing for gigs with bands that had label tour support and booking agents. They weren’t necessarily drawing bigger crowds at first, but they were able to get booked places we couldn’t. With tour support, those bands could afford to play gigs for little money, while we had to turn more to the folk scene for gigs that would pay enough for us to survive.

  KEVIN RUTMANIS: Grunge as a label and a genre was always repellent to me—that stuff was all so conservative musically. Like nostalgia. I was really hoping music was gonna progress more. It looked good there for a second. Until grunge. We referred to Nirvana as “the N word” in the Cows … it just seemed more and more like they were shitting on bands like ours and what we thought we were trying to accomplish. The whole “corporate rock sucks” thing seemed like total BS, as they were behaving exactly how corporate bands always behaved. If they really were against corporate rock, they wouldn’t need to say it on the cover of Rolling Stone. It looks like they were saying that they themselves sucked, which within that context they did! They had this amazing chance to do something really creative and different. But they just did what everyone does. Played big giant boring arena shows at any price. I have no problem with “corporate” rock. I have a problem with lazy, half-baked complaining, however …

  Nirvana’s effect wasn’t entirely negative: the flood of media attention, record-label attention, new audiences, and sales meant that the dream of surviving solely on music did become reality for many musicians.

  DANA HATCH: All the old musical barriers seemed to collapse … More people developed wide-ranging musical tastes rather than living and dying for one particular genre. Nirvana’s success brought indie rock into the mainstream and made it easier for low-budget indie bands to record and tour. Record labels, caught unawares, starting throwing a lot of money around. We got a development deal with Warners that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It also gave mainstream rock fans a point of reference for weirder music.

  MARIA MABRA: [It was] literally the biggest music scene in the world, it was awesome being in the middle of it … from one day listening to your fellow musicians playing bars and clubs, then it seemed like overnight they got that one sweet deal and they were gone. That’s awesome because that’s kind of the dream—as punk as I can be, I don’t give a shit what anyone says when something like that is offered to you, a chance to take off, then you’re going to do it—I don’t care how punk-rock you are. What they did changed music forever, just these Northwest boys … Washington is a huge state, it’s largely barren, it’s redneck, it’s hillbilly, it’s got these few big towns they call cities, then other than that it’s coal-mining towns. Those guys, Nirvana, were small-town … these small-town boys getting a chance to be huge … And it’s awesome. It gave us all a chance, it cleared the playing fields and made us all think, Yes! We can do this! That we could be artists and do great things.
>