You know, I find it funny when people seem shocked to find out that I was a huge NIRVANA fan.
Most of you know me from those
post Cobain suicide days, but back in the day,
*devil horns*It seems like it was another life. The early 90s were a lazy time for me. I had little ambition and not much money to spend. But music was always a passion.
I remember the first time I saw the video for
"Smells Like Teen Spirit", I knew the revolution had arrived. My friends that were all into the "hair bands" initially hated them. Months later they would become fellow worshipers at the temple. It was a time when a lot of new groups (well new to us) were breaking through and causing that sudden national northern gaze towards the Emerald city called Seattle: Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains. And to the south: Jane's Addiction and the Chili Peppers were finally being hailed as the forerunners to a free alternative music.
But no one, no group to me meant more than NIRVANA.
I lived, ate, slept and wept Nevermind. More than
"Smells like...",
"In Bloom" was my favorite song. There was a happy beauty about it. You could bob your head along to it (like Cobain did in the 60's styled video) yet the words were so raw. Kurt Cobain was my hero, my idol. Modern music's savior.
I read everything about them I could. Hung their posters on my walls. Collected magazines and articles. Taped their videos off MTV. They were everything to me. I shopped at thrift stores looking for ratty sweaters (as opposed to flannels) grew my hair and tried, in vain, to grow that perfect round the mouth goatee. When In Utero came out, I blew out my mothers stereo speakers by constantly playing it to decibels even my deaf grandparents could hear.
Then one day, as I was driving down the street, I flipped on the radio (which was tunes WKPX) and heard the words.."Well, that's some pretty sad news from Seattle..." and I knew.
A few months earlier he tried to top himself in Europe. My friends and I had hoped it had been an accident. I guess, we really couldn't picture a world without him.
An electrician found his body on April 8, 1994. A coroner placed the time of death sometime on April 5th.
Well, I guess you could also date the death of my taste for modern music on that date as well.
After that, nothing new really turned me on so much. I didn't sit sadly watching the other grunge bands dissolve or fade back into obscurity. I didn't want to be reminded. I started listening to more things that had a timelessness (BEATLES, and the swing stuff like Squirrel Nut Zippers) or by bands and singers that had died the death even before I was born.
I through away all my posters, my magazines, my memories.
As hip hop began to take prominence over alternative, I switched off the MTV.
Eventually, the depression lifted. I went on to do my own thing with what was left of the 90's.
And NIRVANA became just an unpleasant reflection (like an ex wife or a dead dog): reminisced for the good, yet forgotten in the foreground.
Still, life is funny. I heard
"In Bloom" this morning..and the tears began to fall.
You never really get over your first love, and NIRVANA was mine.
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