I have been thinking about Nirvana a lot lately. I don’t know why. I’m living back in the hometown I grew up in; I’ve been here since May. This is the same town that my mother, father, and brother have all vacated. I’m living in a ‘side of the road motel which just so happens to be the closest and most cost effective thing to work in New York City.
We have an apartment in the city; it’s just not ready yet.
Like so much of my youth; I’m told I have to wait; so I’m stuck in a sort of limbo. Can’t find work yet because my wife and I share a car; can’t even be in the City today (Sunday!) because of various street fairs and the MS Bike race. All avenues are clogged; all potential is squandered; all progress is on hold; so here I am; in a motel room by the side of the road with the town I grew up in spread out before me.
These were similar feelings of discontentment I was feeling in the same place in 1991 when I first rocked out to this Seattle hair band with an attitude. Nirvana spoke my language; stuck, bored, pissed off. Disaffected is a good word; “discontented and disloyal, as toward the government or toward authority.” That’s how I feel.
Regardless I’ve been thinking about Nirvana a lot lately; they were a favorite band of mine growing up. A favorite band which took the place of another band ahead of them; Guns n’ Roses.
G n’ R were okay; a good band to have on my Walkman in my denim jean jacket, smoking Marlboro light cigarettes my friend Eric had stolen from his moms stash. One thing that bugged me about Guns n’ Roses was that I would hear their music on my dads classic rock radio station on the weekends. My dad would be out washing the car and he’d have on I-95 and “Sweet Child o’ Mine” or “Welcome to the Jungle” would come in between Phil Collins and Bob Seger and he’d rock out.
But Nirvana was secret; Nirvana hadn’t crossed over yet; Nirvana hadn’t become commonplace. Even today when people are not the least moved when they hear a song with the verse “Rape me, rape me my friends,” Nirvana sort of has this aloof status. They are still untouchable because they have been canonized.
Depending on whose story you believe, Kurt Cobain blew his own brains out or was murdered in April 1994. Whatever you believe about Kurt Cobain’s death, these recent musings got me on the kick; “I wonder if Kurt Cobain would have wound up like Axl Rose had he lived on?”
Axl Rose is the epitome of irrelevant in 2011 despite his huge contributions to music and pop culture in his heyday. His blip on the radar screen is all but over despite recent word that Guns n’ Roses are touring the United States again for the first time in five years beginning at the end of October. Still Axl was a control freak who demanded the name “Guns n’ Roses” be one hundred percent his. The only longtime member of Guns n’ Roses besides Axl going on this upcoming tour is keyboard player Dizzy Reed.
While I don’t know how Kurt Cobain would have been had he still lived on, I can only hope he would have treated Krist and Dave with a little more class than Mr. Rose has to Duff, Slash, Matt, and the rest.
Source:
http://www. mtv .com/news/articles/1671133/guns-n-roses-us-tour. jhtml