Remembering Kurt

Early on April 9th 1994, I was getting ready to fly to Canada with the band I was playing in at the time (yes I was in a band). It was the biggest day of our musical career, and the start of a pretty big and fairly torrid adventure into the unknown. The overnight news was coming in of Kurt Cobain's death. At the time I was in like (not love) with Nirvana, but the impact of that event is still with me, and it's unsettling to re-visit the news footage and to remember the house and attic that was shown so often as the story broke.

In the couple of days after we arrived in Vancouver, we took a trip down to Seattle. I remember a service station buried in some woods off the highway and watching some fairly stereotypical redneck types pick up a magazine with Kurt on the cover, put cocked fingers in their mouths and have a good laugh about the whole thing. We didn't stick around - we didn't exactly look like locals and were driving a friend's old Chevy (?) with bullet holes in the front windscreen.

In Seattle, we went straight the Sub Pop shop and met up with the label guys. At the time we had just had a single released on Sub Pop, so we were feeling pretty cool and a bit self important. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that we were in Kurt's heartland, and folks weren't taking it all that well. There were lots of candlight vigils going on, even church signs that were normally displaying anti-abortion messages were showing messages of support for the fans that were taking it so hard.

I think that seeing the impact Kurt's death had on so many people is part of what ultimately rebounded on me. After we got back from the trip (which broke the band btw, probably compounding the impact of the recent events) I had a drink with a friend who, until then, I didn't even know liked anything other than electro. He was seriously depressed, and even broke down after a few. He said he just couldn't get over Kurt's death. This was months after.

Kurt's music wasn't life-altering for me by any means, but his death just might have been. I think it scarred a lot of people back then, and I expect it's bringing back some sad memories with the 15th anniversary.