All the tributes today for Cobain seem so weird to me, because it’s not until just tonight that it sunk in that anybody else ever cared besides me. Please understand, this is an irrational conclusion that I came to 17 years ago and have been running with ever since. Even though I’ve seen footage of people mourning Kurt from all around the world, and even had people tell me they were fans, I’ve never talked at length with another human being about Nirvana. I was the only kid at my school who listened to them as far as I knew, and I’ve never had anyone tell me they shed any tears that weekend in April 1994, let alone holed themselves up in their room with the lights turned off like I did.

I’ve never opened up to other people about the depth of my love for this band and their music, or how imitating the famous screaming vocals was how I first got comfortable on a microphone. I’ve never obsessed over details with anybody else, like the difference between the January 1992 performance of “Drain You” in the MTV studio and the version from the “Live and Loud” special aired on New Year’s Day 1994. (It’s after the bridge, where in 1992 you hear Dave Grohl counting off, but in 1994, you hear Kurt howl, and then microphone feedback.) I’ve never compared collections with anyone else who hunted down the “Outcesticide” bootlegs, or VHS copy of the first “In Bloom” video from 1990, when Chad Channing was their drummer. 

There are plenty of bands and musicians I am crazy about, but none whose catalog I have memorized like Nirvana’s (starting from “Love Buzz” all the way to “Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through The Strip”). I don’t know all the state capitals, but I can recite every track from their three LPs (definitely in chronological order, maybe in reverse chronological order), and the name of every B-side (“Even In His Youth,” “Curmudgeon,” “Marigold,” etc.). “Nevermind” was the first cassette I ever bought. (The opening date of the “In Uetro” tour, in Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Arizona State Fair, would have been my first concert, but sis backed out of driving me to the show, so I never got to see them live.) As much as I enjoyed the radio hits, “Endless, Nameless” was just as important a track to me as the others, having memorized every piece of feedback and mumbled vocal. I have met and interviewed countless celebrities, political leaders, and performers, and had no problem chatting up a storm, but on the numerous occasions I have ended up in the same room as Dale Crover, I can’t muster up the courage to say a word, because, hey, that dude played on “Bleach”!

The video on this post is for “Sliver.” If you understand why “I woke up in my mother’s arms” is both the happiest and saddest lyric, we can be friends. If you want to make my day the next time you see me, help shake me from my selfish notion that Nirvana was a band created only for me. I don’t mind sharing them anymore. I think that music was meant to bring us together.