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Why
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| Something bad happened to the Nirvana live experience Up until the In Utero tour the Nirvana live experience was a simple production; no stage set - just three guys - the power trio. I think there's something indescribably brilliant about a band with 3 people. it's as few members you can have to fill each sonic void. With just the bass, guitar, drums and vocals, each instrument is so well defined - if another guitar was introduced, more often than not, the sound suffers. For the In Utero tour this is what happened; They introduced a second guitar player to the line-up. Ex-Germs guitarist Pat Smear (that's a funny name) joined the line up. To be fair his guitar was always quite low in the mix despite what's been said in 'crucifixion piece' articles (e.g. in Christopher Sandford's book he suggested that it was Pats playing alone that carried the guitar sound). It wasn't anything sonic that bugged me too much. What really vexed me was Pat's constant fannying around - jumping about the stage like a two year old. It was just so damned annoying. A good example of this can be seen on their Saturday night live performances in 1993. They sucked because of him. Audiences across the land didn't come to see him. The boys often spoke of Pat's presence being very much welcomed and somehow took the agonising pain and hell out of being on the road. If that's the case than that comfort came at the cost of the band's visual integrity. The other thing that marred their performances was Kurt himself. He was now a rockstar and acted like one. They were no longer three regular guys trying to make their mark on an artistic level. They were now two regular guys, some spazz-dancing older guy and some blond guy with his head up his rectum. His behaviour and ego were well documented around this period. An early example of this time can be seen in the ‘Hollywood Rocks’ bootlegged video from January 1993. Kurt gives a particularly lask-luster performance full of mistakes and deliberate attempts to piss the crowd off of which he has absolutely no respect for (which is fair enough, afterall they're ALL sexist homophobe jocks). When Flea comes on to join in on Teen Spirit they chat to each other for ages - as if 100,000 people aren't there! they do a pisspoor Scentless Apprentice for ten minutes or something ridiculous. That situation is nothing new. There are countless bands who have a 'golden period' and ask themselves 'what's next' after achieving everything they'd set out to achieve. Kurt simply didn't have to try anymore and instead just took the piss because he could. Oh well.
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| What if Kurt hadn't killed himself? This is a difficult one. For one thing the band just wouldn’t have carried on. I believe they might have had one more record but that’s all. It's widely documented that towards the end of his life Kurt was frustrated with the musical limitations of his fellow bandmates and of course the Nirvana formula and also himself to a certain extent. His lack of technical musical skills made it difficult for him to express himself in ways other than the ‘four chords and one that doesn’t fit’ trick. He was trying to get away from all that. He might have done a solo record, I can imagine the critics would’ve panned him claiming without Dave and Krist there was no-one to challange his more radical and unpractical (and possibly unmarketable) approaches to things and keep his feet on the ground. An example of this is when Pink Floyd's highly prolific songwriter Roger Waters broke free of the restraints of his band, he just went intersteller. I reckon Kurt would have disappeared from music and just concentrated on his paintings and passion for heroin leaving the band consigned only to a paragraph on the ‘grunge movement in the early nineties’ with the myriad other bands of the time. What I do know is Nirvana would no way have been as big as it became if Kurt hadn’t killed himself. It’s an unsettling thought but it’s the truth. So often is the case. There are countless examples. During the In Utero period, there wasn’t a great deal of fuss about them here in England although I was a big (13 year old) fan, sure. A year after he killed himself, everyone started to discover the music and the man. it’s been like that ever since. In effect, It took the guy to kill himself to jolt the public conscience into sitting up and listening. It's terrible how these things work out ... but good in some ways.
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Kurt played left-handed or left-strung guitars. In interviews he spoke of the troubles he had regarding the availability of good quality left-handed guitars (by the dozen presumably). So what's the deal with this photograph?. It clearly shows Kurt writing with his right hand. The photograph is not flipped (as the can of Sprite shows). He appears serious and oblivious to the camera so it would seem he's not 'posing' or 'pretending'. Was Kurt in fact ambidextrous? after extensive research and study into this (I typed "Kurt Cobain" and 'ambidextrous' into Google') There are no conclusions. Ambidexterity is one of those things people often claim they have in order to make themselves appear cool - along with manic depression and sometimes even dyslexia. For Kurt to actually have been ambidextrous is indeed genuinely cool. This photograph (if genuine) would prove once again that Kurt was naturally cool - gifted coolness by God. If anyone has any information about Kurt's hand sexually drop me a line!
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Kurt was often well known for his love of Fender guitars. In 1991 when the name 'Kurt' was mentioned in any context you could be 100% sure the words 'Jaguar', 'Mustang' or 'Strat' wouldn't be far behind. But in the early days of the band (and towards the very end) Kurt used Univox guitars. This was often not spoke about because not many people knew what they were. They were cheap lightweight super-thin Japanese guitars mostly from the 70s loosely styled on Mosrite 'the ventures' guitars. They had funny 'reversed bodies' and looked cool played normal or strung for a lefthander. I so wanted to get a hold of one of these instruments but living in England in the pre-WWW days it was almost impossible, especially as I am incredibly lazy. The shape of the guitar really interested me. I was bored of the strat/tele/lespaul shapes of contemporary guitar design - I was sure that if any guitar manufacturer introduced mosrite/univox shaped guitars in the UK (pushing the Kurt Cobain link) they'd sell like hot pies. Nothing happened, Altough, ten years later, now that I'm totally bored of them, Mosrites have been reissued and are available in the UK. Anyhow, I had my own custom axe built in the style of a Univox Hi-Flier. Sort of. Take a look here.
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