Nirvana Memories:
The Day the Music Died
By
Jeff Burlingame
April
8, 1994.
Sorry,
Don McLean. For me, that was the day the music
died. Plucking my pathetic $100 bass in a
wall-to-wall carpeted bedroom in the basement of
my house on Spokane's South Hill, a friend called
with the news. Had the TV been on, I would have
already heard, he said. Kurt Cobain killed
himself.
Though
my news-bearing friend was also a fraternity
brother renowned for practical jokes, no grain of
salt was necessary with this nugget; The friend
was as big a Nirvana fan as I. With us, a joke
like that was way over the
writing-on-you-when-you-pass-out decency line.
Still, with a jolt that big, I needed
confirmation.
When
I turned the TV on, Kurt's stubbled face was on
CNN and all the major news networks. MTV was
running a tribute to his life.
Off
went my tube.
What
I did next is not something I'm proud of, nor is
it something I'd now condone. Suffice to say I
didn't go to school that day. And that my
"to-do" neighbors were fortunate my
shaggy, red-carpeted walls provided good sound
insulation.
Like
many people I knew and have since come to know, I
wrote that night. Probably not a surprise,
considering my occupation. Unedited, it is still
some of the best work I've ever done.
The
part I'm going to write next always seems to
bring trouble. Mainly from people who want to
hear stories. Stories, I rarely feel like
telling. For background, I'll spit it out. I knew
Kurt. For a period, I knew him well.
I
met him in the ninth grade when I went home for
lunch with a friend of mine who lived a few
blocks away from Aberdeen High School. He was
lying asleep on a couch in the living room.
Nonchalantly, my friend said "that's
Kurt," and we moved on, ate our peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches, and walked back to
school.
This
lunchtime routine continued for the rest of the
year. Sometimes, when Kurt was awake, we'd take
trips down to Dill's Second Hand store to look at
guitars. After school, we'd hang out at Melvins'
practices _ held in the back room of drummer Dale
Crover's house.
And,
occasionally, we played music. A poor-quality
tape of one of those sessions is still among my
most prized possessions.
We
even climbed inside Aberdeen's empty, historic
Finch Building once late at night. The walls of
that century-old treasure fell to the wrecking
ball earlier this month. It was the same month
Kurt's face was plastered on the cover of nearly
every national music magazine. But the irony of
seeing those juxtapositions is likely lost within
me.
My
tenth grade year I found the
"socially-acceptable" field of
athletics to occupy my time. My orange and black
Melvins shirt was replaced with college
sweatshirts; My angst was now being diffused with
exercise.
On
April 8, 1994, my bass guitar ended up in pieces
_ it's neck sticking like a piece of modern art
out of a sheetrock wall. I've got a new guitar
now, it was easy to replace. Kurt, however, never
will be.
Jeff
Burlingame is the entertainment editor for The Daily World in Aberdeen, Wash. He
can be reached at (jeff@thedailyworld.com).
Also
by Jeff Burlingame:
From Nirvana to
Ninth Grade
Former
Nirvana bassist, Krist Novoselic, shocks troubled
teens with frank talk about sex (not), life, and
how to "be real," by Jeff
Burlingame
Fedora: Come for
the Chick Singer, Stay for the Hip-Swaying,
Feel-Good Grooves
Jeff Burlingame talks to Fedora, a
fast-rising jazz-rock combo with Gen-X lyrics
Also
in Pandemonium
Online:
Kill The
Lights, Pando's Seattle
music column
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