Notebook kurt cobain biography rolling stone

When Kurt started spiralling down, I remembered a visit to his hotel room while he was on tour in New Orleans. We were lying on his bed, talking and watching a Pete Townshend concert on public television with the sound off, and Kurt marvelled at how Townshend was so passionate about making music—even after, in Kurt’s opinion, his music was no longer any good. I’d been a huge Who fan as a teen and noted his respect for his fellow guitar smasher Townshend. Months later, I was part of a team working with Townshend on a project about the history of the Who’s 1969 rock opera, “Tommy.” Townshend had helped his friend Eric Clapton recover from a heroin addiction years earlier and was all too familiar with substance abuse. I asked Townshend whether he might have a word with Kurt about beating heroin and dealing with the slings and arrows of fame. I gave him Kurt’s phone number, hoping that he would call and that Kurt would listen.

“When Cobain was in deep trouble with heroin addiction in 1993,” Townshend wrote in the Guardian, in 2002, “Azerrad asked if I would contact Cobain, who was in constant danger of overdosing. I had chosen this year to give booze another gentle try after 11 years. When Azerrad approached me, I was not drunk, nor unsympathetic, but I did not make the necessary judgment I would make today that an immediate ‘intervention’ was required to save his life.” To this day, Townshend probably wonders what might have happened had he gotten through to Kurt. That’s the kind of thing that haunts people who know people who have committed suicide: Is there something I could have done? Twenty-seven years later, I still ask myself that question. I tried, but perhaps I could have—and should have—tried harder. The thing is, although I was in my early thirties, I was still immature and naïve. Maybe I wasn’t so well suited to the task.

And there were other people much closer to Kurt. Krist Novoselic had know

For now, Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain and his new wife, Courtney Love, live in an apartment in Los Angeles’s modest Fairfax district. The living room holds little besides a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier, a stringless guitar, a makeshift Buddhist shrine and, on the mantel, the couple’s collection of naked plastic dolls.

Scores of CDs and tapes are strewn around the stereo – obscurities such as Calamity Jane, Cosmic Psychos and Billy Childish, as well as Cheap Trick and the Beatles. “Norwegian Wood” drifts down the hall to the dimly lit bedroom, where Cobain lies flat on his back in striped pajamas, a red-painted big toenail peeking out the other end of the blanket and a couple of teddy bears lying beside him for company. The surprisingly fragrant Los Angeles night seeps through the window screen.

He’s been suffering from a long-standing and painful stomach condition – perhaps probably an ulcer – aggravated by stress and, apparently, his screaming singing style. Having eaten virtually nothing for over more than two weeks, Cobain is strikingly gaunt and frail, far from the stubbly doughboy who smirked out from a photo inside Nevermind. It’s hard to believe this is the same guy who smashes guitars and wails with such violence – until you notice his blazing blue eyes and the faded pink and purple streaks in his hair.

Cobain had abruptly canceled an earlier interview, partly because of the anti-Nirvana letters that recently dominated Rolling Stone‘s Correspondence page and partly because the magazine borrowed the title of the band’s hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for a headline on the recent Beverly Hills, 90210 cover.

Then he came around. “There are a lot of things about Rolling Stone that I’ve never agreed with,” says Cobain in a gentle growl one or two steps up from a whisper. “But it’s

Collection of writings and drawings by Kurt Cobain

Journals is a collection of writings and drawings by American musician Kurt Cobain, who was the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana. Though the content is undated, it is arranged in approximately chronological order. It was published in hardcover by Riverhead Books in November 2002, and in paperback by Riverhead Books in November 2003. Journals opened at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list (non-fiction). It contains scrawled notes, drafted letters, shopping lists, and drawings by Cobain.

Release

Journals was released one month after the release in 2002 of Nirvana, the self-titled greatest hits album of Cobain's band before his suicide in 1994.Billboard thus described the book as a "music driven blockbuster" with a first printing of nearly 375,000 copies.

Letters

Journals contains a number of letters, either early drafts or unsent, that Cobain wrote to friends or peers. Included are friendly letters to Dale Crover of the Melvins,Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill and Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines, a tender letter to his wife, Courtney Love, a letter thanking The Advocate following his interview with the gay and lesbian magazine in early 1992, and even a letter to Simon Fair Timony, the then-nine-year-old stepson of Half Japanese member Jad Fair, asking him to contribute artwork for what would become In Utero. It also includes a letter from Cobain and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic firing then-drummer Dave Foster from the band, and angry letters from Cobain to MTV and Rolling Stone.

Lists

Like many music fans, Cobain often made lists of his favorite bands and albums, several of which are included in Journals. His lists included artists from indie and alternative rock (the Vaselines, Pixies, the Breeders, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., PJ Harvey, Meat

Kurt Cobain, Journals

Cobain, Kurt

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. Jacket by Chip Kidd (illustrator). 1st Edition. First edition, first impression with '1' on copyright page. Should apparently have a slipcase but absent in this copy. Book sadly a bit tatty, edge wear to top and bottom of largely black jacket and spine, damp cockling to jacket and page block, jacket stuck in places to front board, some considerable wear to boards. corners rubbed and bruised, some white paint splashes to back jacket, tear to upper mid spine, price clipped, no inscriptions, internally cleanish, tight and almost square, overall a somewhat compromised, carelessly treated copy. 280pp, illustrated. The first publication of Kurt Cobain's diaries, which were found after his death in 1994. Genuinely moving, provocative and candid, and surprisingly funny, pieces of writing which, as a whole, provide a unique account of the rise and fall of a popular artist and icon. Quite a scarce book. Seller Inventory # 011768

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