Originally published March 29, 2014 at 7:03 PM | Page modified March 30, 2014 at 9:01 AM
[h=1]Remembering Kurt Cobain and Nirvana: the band that defined Seattle[/h] The 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death draws near, on April 5. Five days later, Nirvana will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We asked Seattle locals, as well as cultural figures and younger musicians, to share their memories of Nirvana and its legacy.
PREV 1 of 2 NEXT
Alan Berner / The Seattle TimesLeft by visitors at Viretta Park were images of Kurt Cobain and candles extinguished by Saturday’s rain. The park, at 151 Lake Washington Blvd. E., is next to the Seattle home where Nirvana’s lead singer and driving force had lived at the time of his suicide two decades ago.
With the death of Kurt Cobain 20 years ago — April 5, 1994 — Nirvana was finished. Since then, drummer Dave Grohl has gone on to further global success with his band Foo Fighters, and bassist Krist Novoselic has become an outspoken political activist for electoral reform. But the influence of the trio in rock music and beyond has only grown and changed in the intervening decades.
With Nirvana being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10 with a ceremony in New York City, we reached out to locals who were around for the ascent, as well as cultural figures and younger musicians. They shared their memories and views of the effect the band had on people at the time, its legacy in the music community and the way Nirvana helped shape the identity of Seattle.
Here is what some of them had to say.
I remember the first time we heard “Nevermind” at the Rocket. Designer Dennis White comes waltzing in. He had this cassette. He said, ‘I’ve got Soundgarden’s new record.’ ” “Nevermind” and “Badmotorfinger” were both supposed to be released at the same time. We said, “Let’s listen to ‘Badmotorfinger.’ ” We said, “That’s a great record.” Then somebody flipped the tape over. “That’s really ... good. That’s Nirvana? Play that again.” We played the tape about 30 or 40 times, all day.
It was one of those breathtaking moments, an epiphany, the skies parted. Kurt was able to reach inside himself and grab those universal ideas and express them in such an emotive way it just gotcha! Pop just doesn’t get better than that.
— Art Chantry, graphic designer of the Rocket magazine, and who made many of the early grunge-rock posters, which were featured in a one-man show at the Seattle Art Museum
All I knew, sitting next to my then-boyfriend Jack Endino, listening to this band that he had just recorded — a group of Aberdeen guys said to be “friends of the Melvins” — was that Nirvana was yet another cool Seattle band and this Kurt Cobain guy was one tortured mofo.
We never thought any of this would happen. I was putting out a local magazine called Backlash and covering all sorts of awesome local bands — Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Tad, and of course the Melvins. Jack was making 12 bucks an hour recording some of these bands at a little studio in Ballard.
It was magical, all the amazing rock being recorded in the late ’80s, though nobody outside of Seattle knew about it and damn few people inside Seattle had ever heard of it, either. Back then the idea of major record label execs slithering into our city signing up every band they could find was about as likely as Elvis showing up at my doorstep with a bushel of Percocet.
Those were special days, before the word “grunge” was widely used to describe the brain-rattling heavy riff rock slowly seeping into the Central Tavern, the Vogue and Squid Row on weeknights. I knew Nirvana was a great band, of course. In a town reputed to be heavy on riffs and light on songs, Cobain’s melodies were strong, his guitar lines artful and his agony real.
But how was I to know this band was to become the “voice of a generation”? As usual, I didn’t.
— Dawn Anderson, editor of Backlash magazine
I probably saw that band eight to 10 times. I don’t think anyone would ever have guessed that this was going to be this huge international pop phenomenon. They were playing for 100-150 people on a good night. When [Fantagraphics] had that Sub Pop panel discussion, [Sub Pop Records co-founder] Bruce Pavitt was on the panel and one of the audience members asked him what band made it that surprised you. He didn’t hesitate. He said Nirvana.
My fondest memories are when they were playing at the Vogue, the OK Hotel, CoCA. I think they were better in a small club. The first time I ever saw them at a big arena was at the Coliseum. ... I saw Kurt afterward. He said something like ‘I don’t know what to do with myself.’ The intimacy of the lyrics, of the music, didn’t literally translate that well to big arenas. It was hard to command the stage.
I remember seeing Nirvana play one time at the Crocodile, and Mudhoney was playing. That’s one of the only times I remember seeing Kurt be really happy. There was a big smile on his face. He did some stage diving and he was crowd surfing — and that was after he gained all that notoriety.
— Larry Reid, curator for the Fantagraphics bookstore and gallery in Georgetown. He was the executive director of the Center on Contemporary Art when he presented Nirvana there in 1989.
Nirvana had just played a sellout show at the Coliseum. Now, I was part of a lucky crowd of a few hundred who crammed themselves into the Crocodile for a private show, to see a band we’d been sure would never play such an intimate venue again. There was little of the moshing and slam dancing that usually accompanied Nirvana’s shows. We were all a bit awe-struck.
There were songs from the band’s first demo, songs that later appeared on “In Utero,” and barely anything from the multimillion-selling “Nevermind.” It was a terrific show. Nirvana wasn’t the “biggest group in the world” that night; they were a local band once again, thrilling a packed house like they used to do before the rest of the world caught on.
— Gillian Gaar, author of “Entertain Us: The Rise of Nirvana”
