**KURT DONALD COBAIN**
20th Feb 1967 - 5th Apr 1994

"cobain's death was one of the most devastating moments in the history of rock music. the whole scene stopped for four or five weeks. now, there is hardly any band that can't take his death into consideration. everybody's changed." - steve sutherland
On April 5th 1994, Kurt Cobain returned to his mansion in Lake Washington Boulevard. He shot up with heroin and valium, put the shotgun in his mouth and squeezed with his toe. He was twenty-seven.

It is easy to say that Kurt Cobain died too young. What is harder to see is how he would have lived any longer and kept his sense of integrity. Being the product of a punk tradition had a high price. He wanted to be an outcast, an irritant, to be heard and understood by only a small community of believers that shared his punk ideals. He was annoyed by the fact that Nirvana were seen so mainstream,

"i found myself being overly obnoxious during the nevermind tour, because i saw more and more average people coming into our shows and i didn't want them there. they started to get on my nerves."

Instead, Nirvana had become a bloated rock event as bankrupt, as he saw it, as any of the bands he had come to destroy. The tour for 'in utero' had sold out before they had played a note. kurt could not escape. he had become the kind of rock star he could not stand.

In his songs, he had taunted his audience from the beginning; despite his scorn, they kept listening. In his rockstar death of drugs and suicide, he taunted them again; there would be nothing more for them to listen to.


people's memories of kurt as a child:

"He got up every day with such joy that there was another day to be had. He was so enthusiastic. He would come running out of his bedroom so excited that there was another day ahead of him and he couldn't wait to find out what it was going to bring him." - wendy o'connor

"when his father and i divorced, it destroyed his life. he changed completely. i think he was ashamed. he became very inward - he just held everything. he became very shy." - wendy o'connor


people's memories of kurt as an adult:

"for the past two years, i have been in no doubt he'd do it, and for five years i have known that he wasn't going to live for very long. I was in his house earlier this year...the phones never stopped ringing, faxes were spewing onto the floor, delivery people were at his door, fans were camped outside. He always tried to make time for everybody; in the end, he just couldn't take any more turmoil or confusion." - wendy o'connor

"kurt was very timid and respectful. a very nice, gentle guy." - jonathon poneman (from subpop)

"he was a very shy, very polite man. there was something boyish about him, fragile, engagingly lost." - william burroughs

"one of the great things about cobain is that he never stopped being a fan, so in a way he was always watching himself and saying would i buy my own record, would i cheer for my own performance, or would i say 'this guy's a fake'." - greil marcus

"he smoked cigarettes, but didn't do any drugs. i never showed him my gun collection." - william burroughs, on meeting kurt

"there's something wrong with that boy. he frowns for no good reason." - william burroughs, to his secretary, after kurt left

"kurt was an old, old soul. Far older than me. I think he had a mission to fulfill, and he felt it was completed. kurt was done with life." - wendy o'connor

"he was a closet deathrocker. some of the art he bought is so goth its unbelievable. if you actually listen to nirvana, some of its almost kind of like bauhaus. but he would never admit that. he made a list of his favourite records and i didn't even see zeppelin on there. or devo, or bauhaus. it was all obscure bands. that was one of our biggest fights. i was like, "that list, why are you doing that?" it was going to be in the azerrad book. he's like, "so kids will buy it." i'm like, "kid's are gonna buy saccharine trust and like it?" but you can't even play his fuckin' bauhaus records anymore, they're so scratched up." - courtney

"his death is an ongoing event." - nils bernstein


*read courtney saying kurts suicide note*
*back*