The Death of Nirvana

If you ever get the itch to look up the life story of Kurt Cobain, you'll notice this rare little oddity next to his name: his date of death is listed as "circa" 5 April 1994.

In modern times, that's quite unusual.

It means that the exact day of his death is a mystery.

Either today -- or at least his week -- marks the passing of one of rock music's most enigmatic and unlikely personas, the lead and inspiration of Nirvana, lead group of the grunge music pack of the 90's.

After a couple of substance-abuse excesses, to phrase it politely, in his European tour and a complete meltdown in Rome, Curt returned to the States and, typical recluse that he could be, he squirreled himself away in his Lake Washington (Seattle) home and was found -- suicide note and all -- by a hapless electrician who had arrived to install a security alarm system.

After existing on this planet for a mere 27 days, Curt joined the list of drug-addled musicians who found that his goal of changing the rock-music scene -- and succeeding -- so early in life had left him with too little direction or sense of "things to do" on his list of "things to do."

He reportedly said it all in his suicide note:

"I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now".

Once you reach the mountaintop, there aren't many directions left except . . . down.

I arrived at "grunge" music rather late, which is odd considering that I was both in the Seattle area at the time and that this is a musical close cousin to Beatles-style rock and Hendrix-style experimentation that I was weaned on.

By the time I discovered Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Sound Garden and Alice in Chains . . . it had already become mainstream stuff and was beginning to lose its edge. I could blame Carl for some of that. I was suffering my own loss and disorientation at the time.

Music didn't matter all that much and my interest in politics had even waned. Clinton was, for a true-blue Democrat, much like eating milquetoast.

And so he exited. Curt was almost gone before I had discovered him. I still rue the day, much as I mourned the passing of Janis or Jimi decades before.

Nirvana came and went . . . which is probably poetic in some ethereal realm. Nirvana, the group, proved to be as elusive as nirvana the place (or state of being).

This I know for sure: they both took a major hit about this time, fifteen years ago.

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NOTE: (I plan on posting a collection of Nirvana cuts in a music album later today.)