Man, Nirvana… it’s still hard to talk about them without getting a little choked up. Even after all these years.
I first heard them back in the spring of ’91. I was still in Queens, working at the record store, when this guy I worked with handed me a copy of Bleach and said, “You gotta hear this, man.” I took it home, put it on, and it just knocked me sideways. Then “About a Girl” came on and that was it — I was hooked for good.
By the time I moved to Seattle in ’92 I was already a huge fan. Couldn’t believe I was living in the same city. A couple months later I got to see them live on October 4th at the Crocodile Café. They were playing under the old name “Pen Cap Chew” as a surprise opener for Mudhoney. The place was packed and hot, and hardly anyone knew for sure it was them at first. They didn’t play any of the big radio songs the whole night. Just dug into older stuff and a few things nobody had heard yet. At one point Kurt asked if anyone had requests and Dave Grohl yelled out “Play ‘Teen Spirit’!” in this mocking voice. Everybody cracked up. That show is still one of my favorite memories from those years.
Kurt was from Aberdeen, that small rainy town a couple hours south. Krist too, after his family moved there. They started the band out there back in ’87 as a couple of kids who didn’t fit in anywhere. They went through a bunch of drummers before Dave joined in ’90 and everything finally clicked. They came out of nowhere and turned the whole thing upside down so fast it was crazy. One minute it felt like our own little scene, and the next the whole country was paying attention.
I still remember how strange it was watching Nevermind blow up and suddenly show up everywhere — malls, radio, even commercials. Part of me was happy for them. Another part missed when it still felt like something that belonged to us out here.
These days I put on Bleach when I want to go back to the beginning, or Nevermind when I’m feeling nostalgic for that wild time in ’91 and ’92. In Utero is a whole other story — it hits different now.
And then April 8th, 1994 came and everything just stopped. When I heard the news about Kurt, it felt like the end of something bigger than just one band. Like the whole spirit of those early nineties years was gone for good. A lot of people say that was the day grunge died, and I get why they say it. It sure felt that way to me.
Nirvana wasn’t perfect. They were complicated, they fought with everything, including themselves. But they made a ton of us feel like we weren’t alone. I don’t think another band will ever hit quite the same way.