I Found My Friends (20 page)

DANA ONG:
We didn't have a nice introduction. While Nirvana was onstage, a friend, who will remain anonymous, took all the strings off Krist's bass. He wasn't a fan of Nirvana, maybe he was drunk, I don't remember. But the next day I got a call from another local band manager who told me we were weren't allowed to open for Nirvana again; we were banned! That's hilarious that Krist may have defaced some part of MIT and then was upset about the string incident, if the account of his actions are true. Wouldn't that be a little rock 'n' roll hypocrisy?

VICTOR POISON-TETE:
In all honesty, fanboys, I don't remember anything memorable about the ten-minute temper tantrum “FM Jesus” might have thrown on that particular night, as I secured my personal belongings, exchanged pleasantries with friends—I believe I saw Iggy Pop at the rear of the club (not an actual friend, but you will take me serious if I drop a name), and prepared to walk the four blocks from the Pyramid Club to my apartment, and prepare for work the following morning … in the middle of the first song Kurt started flinging instruments and kicking amps; it seems the current drummer continued to fall off beat; and Cobain, still somewhat asleep, couldn't “find a pony to ride.” I believe they played maybe ten minutes, and although people where eager to hear them, the overcrowding of the club and length of time already spent standing and pushing for airspace resulted in an early night.

Things came to a head on April 27 at a Hampshire College benefit show for Amnesty International.

PEYTON PINKERTON:
Novoselic had just shaved his head the night before after being heckled off the stage by David Berman, later of the Silver Jews in Hoboken! He looked like an eight-foot-tall five-year-old.

PETER IRVINE:
Krist might have been on something, but to us he was friendly, chatty, and even apologetic. I recall hanging out with him outside the venue. We were next to the backstage parking area, and he came up and engaged in conversation. He told us that Nirvana had a really terrible gig the night before, underattended, and out of frustration he had shaved his head … Hampshire College did have a thriving music-appreciation scene. They had funding and a good group of organizers who brought in a lot of cutting-edge bands. The Amnesty show was just another of a series of events at Hampshire that consistently brought in interesting new bands.

JIM ROY,
Sweet Lickin' Honey Babes:
Just Gobblehoof, Cordelia's Dad, and Nirvana were the big fish. So basically, the folks putting on the show had most of the Hampshire bands that were active on that bill. It would have been practically impossible for us not to be playing … I knew who Cordelia's Dad were, and liked them; I didn't know Gobblehoof and I didn't know Nirvana at all. At all! I mostly paid attention to getting set up/wound up for our set, and beer … there was some generalized pissing contest between Gobblehoof and Nirvana and this had escalated to the point that Cordelia's Dad got fed up and played a free acoustic set out in front of the venue.

CHARLES SHIPMAN,
Three Merry Widows:
We played right before Gobblehoof … They dithered endlessly during their sound check so that we never got to have one and had to rush up and start right away when they finally got off. Terrible breach of etiquette—we took such things very seriously in those days! And then one of their guitar players continued fiddling with his pedals even while we were trying to start, so our drummer went up and screamed in his ear, “Get the fuck off the stage!”

PETER IRVINE:
Nirvana was late. There was some problem with the sound, so we kept waiting to do our sound check. At some point there was some talk of switching the sequence of bands … I overheard someone ask, “Who is Cordelia's Dad?” and I believe it was J Mascis who responded, disparagingly, “They're just an Amherst College band.” This was annoying, as we actually had a good following in the area (above and beyond a typical “college” band), and were appropriately placed on the bill … What Mascis was suggesting was that we get bumped to an earlier spot so that, I think, Gobblehoof, who were friends with Nirvana, be put in a more prominent spot. After waiting around some more it became apparent that we were not going to get a sound check. I don't know if it was Nirvana's fault, or someone else, but the whole show seemed to be falling apart. We were annoyed at the petty jockeying and feeling disrespected, so we decided that instead of playing inside, we would play an acoustic set outside. When we moved outside, a lot of people followed us … We had no way of knowing but were told by several people that there were far more people watching our set outside than were inside watching the other bands. In some ways this night encapsulates our whole career—when faced with the threshold of popularity, we take an intimate turn, break the rules, and end up outside.

The line between mischievous and annoying depends on whether one is on the receiving end.

PEYTON PINKERTON:
They got in trouble with security for stealing loaves of Wonder Bread from the commissary at Saga after the concert … Everett True—the Brit journalist—was traveling with them and I think they were really working the Beatles'
Hard Day's Night
shenanigans and doing stupid rock shit. Krist kept stealing the beers that were meant for all of the bands (about ten bands played in total)—taking them out to their van in his pants—making several trips. Bands would come off stage and find no beer waiting for them. The young woman sponsoring the benefit kept getting more beer for the bands—out of her own dollars—yet Krist kept taking them still. Same for cigarettes. We had someone buy us cartons of cigarettes up in Vermont, where they were much cheaper, and they brought them to us at the show. Nirvana kept bumming smokes off me so I gave them a pack. Later I caught Novoselic going through my backpack and taking several packs for himself and the band. When I went to grab my backpack he just gave me this dumb little-boy look like
What did I do?
I got a bad vibe off of him even before he started hoarding everybody's beer and smokes. He presented himself as a real dick in several regards from the moment I came in contact with him until their van drove away … He was so rude to the “rich college kids” who were paying to hear his band … I hate that cliché rock-star shit—he acted like they were sticking it to the man but ended up just fucking over some poor students (like the girl sponsoring the event) holding a benefit for a worthy cause … From stage he more than once yelled at kids in the back of the room (a room which was almost entirely a slam/mosh pit) to dance their “rich” asses off. The people in the back by the kitchen doors were actually work-study kids who had to work and clean up at the show to pay for school.

The tour was certainly not a high for Nirvana; they'd been booed offstage and had equipment break down, then added to the ugly vibe by taking it out on their own drummer, upsetting other musicians and generally acting sullen.

DANA ONG:
I don't remember Krist being reckless or destructive, he was sitting cross-legged in the dressing room when I met him, surrounded by goggly eyed rockers … I remember Kurt being moody; he was kind of a black cloud when they arrived at MIT. I don't know if he even introduced himself. I'm sure if he was using at the time [he] could've been in a nasty state of withdrawals or waiting to get high … Having met the problems of my own addictions, I understand why he may have been less than charming that day.

TIM AARON,
Gobblehoof:
Cobain liked us—gave the band a hundred bucks after the show when he heard we weren't getting paid. I remember him sitting outside, side stage, on the loading dock just kind of chilling solo and he seemed like he was thinking—wanted his space.

CHARLES SHIPMAN:
There was a negative vibe coming from that crowd. Hard to put a finger on, but they definitely didn't seem to be enjoying themselves.

PEYTON PINKERTON:
Kurt was shy and fairly amenable to casual conversation, but he shut down after getting stoned and just kind of slumped into his chair in the band room and watched Krist and his mean-spirited behavior. We did manage to talk about Scratch Acid's first EP and how we both loved Rey Washam's drumming on that record. He also knew J Mascis was coming to the show, and you could tell he really was worked up about hanging out with someone whom I presumed to be an idol for him.

CRISPIN WOOD:
As for visible signs of tension, that's so hard to say. Touring can be exhausting, tensions come and go. Cobain wasn't particularly friendly. Was he always that way? I have no idea.

ROBERT HAMPSON:
I didn't really care for the Seattle scene. It was filled with too many bar bands that riffed on the sub–Black Sabbath angle or the overearnest, self-indulgent Pearl Jam types … They [Nirvana] definitely were a band apart from the “Seattle sound”; they had something a little extra. I guess you can count me as a fan, so I was looking forward to playing with them … The drummer was nowhere to be seen backstage, so I didn't meet him. Krist just seemed like a very tall and shaven-headed goof. I tried to talk to Kurt and say how much I liked his records and the show. He just literally blanked me. Didn't say a word. Looked straight through me. So, I just left him to his own thing. I walked away and just thought, Fuck him, arrogant miserable cunt!

JIM ROY:
Nirvana didn't make a big impression on me at the time, But Novoselic impressed me as a figure onstage, and played well enough that I approached him after the set to congratulate him, “Great set, dude, you're a monster up there!” And he just totally shut me down, “No, I'm not,” and walked away. It stung, so I was done with them and didn't give them another thought until my band had broken up and their band was all over MTV. For a long time, I disliked them out of principle.

 

11.0

Intermission

June to September 1990

Cobain retreated
to his one-room apartment and spent much of the summer cocooned there. While Nirvana barely played as a group, this time alone would bear fruit in the form of an entire suite of new songs; Cobain's most prolific spell ever.

GEORGE SMITH:
As far as Kurt the person, he was fairly reclusive—you might see him out at shows, at a party, but he definitely wasn't out a whole lot. Not terribly social. He wasn't particularly awkward; he was friendly—not just a wallflower—he just didn't seem to be someone who craved social attention. He stuck to his own circle. When I knew him he was staying in Olympia, at Tracy's house—that's where he lived and he just spent an awful lot of time there.

JOHN PURKEY:
He had a lot of pictures of Jesus and crosses, a collection of them behind the couch … almost like a shrine but not that he's doing it religiously. Above it was one of his paintings—I remember that. Kurt and Tracy's place smelled like rabbit shit; they had birds and rabbits, sometimes there'd be a rabbit running around.

SLIM MOON:
I really loved Kurt's visual art, his sculpture and painting. Also when he lived with Tracy, they had a lot of animals, rats and turtles … I loved his gentle nature. I loved that I introduced Kurt to the music of Lead Belly and he loved it so much.

RONNA MYLES-ERA:
I wouldn't say that Kurt, Krist (I only knew him as Chris), or Chad ever really rambled around town … Not in the early days. I don't recall them being in bars much. They were stoner types, usually home listening to or playing music. I would see Kurt around; he lived next to Slim Moon and I would hang out at Slim's house sometimes. They weren't showy people at all …

Channing bowed out on May 17, 1990, having endured his comrades' increasingly aggressive antics on the last tour: glass thrown at the wall behind him as he played, his kit demolished with him beneath it, a jug full of water gooshed over him.

PEYTON PINKERTON:
Chad Channing seemed like he already knew his days were numbered but was real nice and humble—at, like, five-foot-two, he and Kurt really seemed like hobbits next to Novoselic's giant frame. Chad just stayed outside the band circle and seemed like he didn't want to be involved …

RYAN AIGNER:
Chad was the really shocking one to me, because he was pretty punk rock, alternative mentality, came from Bainbridge Island—artsy, hippie, cool—he had the background, he wouldn't be questioned as hard as Dave [Foster]. Dave they were still like, “Dave you're still wearing that redneck baseball cap, what's up with that?” Asking him, “Maybe your culture, your style, needs to be more like us…” Chad had that. Why and how they ever got to where they felt like he wasn't a good enough commitment I never did know.

DAMON ROMERO:
I feel he got a bit of a raw deal in the end; they weren't super-professional about how they kicked him out. He put up with a lot—he toured with them all through the United States, all through Europe; he put in the work to help them achieve success. It's hard to keep together—every band I've been in has broken up—so I have respect for people who can be mature enough to keep working together.

Just as Nirvana's last shift in drummers had coincided with their move onto Sub Pop in spring 1988, this one happened as a potential major-label move was in the cards.

Nirvana had been a relative latecomer to the Seattle scene, and then they were a latecomer to the major-label whirl surrounding the Northwest.

MATT HUNTER:
Well before Nirvana became a global phenomenon … Seattle was already being combed over by A&R people because of Soundgarden and Mudhoney, and a bunch of other bands (as early as 1986, in fact).