I caught part of the latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on HBO recently and was really moved by the Nirvana performances. I loved how the band brought up some rocking' ladies on stage to play some of their songs with them. First up was Joan Jett, for "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
L-R: Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, St. Vincent, Lorde
The awkward reconciliation between Courtney Love and the band and Kurt's fancily on stage was weirdly touching, too, but it was the music that really brought up all the emotions.
Also performing with the band were Kim Gordon on "Aneurysm," St. Vincent on "Lithium," and Lorde for "All Apologies."
Kim Gordon on stage with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselić
My favorite rendition of a classic Nirvana song was by St. Vincent, who not only captured a bit of Kurt, but brought her own flavor to the song. Plus, her dress and hair were to die for.
These great performances not only brought back all the sad feelings at losing a talent like Kurt Cobain too soon, but made me realize how much I loved the band's music, and what it meant and still means to me. Still a punk in my heart, it seems.
I'm loving the photos that are everywhere of Frances Bean Cobain. In some great black and white shots by Hedi Slimane she is portrayed as a true grunge heiress.
In another shoot, by Rocky Schenck, she is a glam Hollywood goddess.
I still love her dad's music and I wish the kid the best. She has quite a legacy to contend with, but like every person entering their twenties, it's time to escape the shadow of the parents.
Much is being made of yesterday's announcement of Amy Winehouse being found dead from a drug overdose — that she has now joined the "27 club," which includes such music immortals as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.
Amy was undeniably talented, and it is always a shame when someone so young, with possibly so much promise, has died. I was too young to mourn Joplin, Hendrix or Morrison — they became rock legends when I was just a child. Kurt Cobain's death hit home hard for me. I was a big fan of Nirvana and just a few years old than Kurt. I remember being on vacation in 1994 in the south of France, a trip that was a mad adventure that I had planned and saved for for quite some time, and the first news I heard from home was about a recent rehab stint of Kurt's. I may have even bought a silly postcard with his face on it — he was fine, and as popular as ever, on the postcard stalls in Nice. So it was a huge shock to hear a few months later that he had died an apparent suicide.
Conspiracy theories aside, maybe that is why Kurt's death still twinges me more than Winehouse's does. His witty and gritty songwriting had always made him my personal selection to follow in the footsteps of John Lennon. To suffer so that you would leave a child behind ... And I'm older now. He died, unbelievably, 17 years ago.
I have great sympathy for the family and friends and fans that Winehouse has left behind, as I do for poor Amy herself. I bought and liked Back to Black. But she has undeniably been on her own personal path of destruction for so long, it is hard to feel too surprised at her death. I wish, as I do for all of these artists, that their lives had taken a different turn. Who knows what they would have become if they had survived. Some may have still become legends. But our society looks away while such folks are destroying themselves or being destroyed and then enshrines them when they are gone. Strange ...
