Category: Nirvana

I didn’t listen to the Lemonheads much in the 90s. I thought they were lightweight because I first learned of them through their cover of Mrs Robinson. But Evan Dando was always in the background, appearing in magazines and TV, as well as in ‘scandalous’ photos with Courtney Love.

Dando comes across as charmingly foolish in his book, just like he seemed to in interviews. But there’s a section where he talks about vandalising a house he rented. It suggested a carelessness, something unpleasant. And, having read Patti Schemel’s Hit So Hard, I suspect that the casual discussions of taking crack obscure some darker stories.

There were two moments of Dando’s life I was most curious about. The first was his relationship with Courtney Love. Dando never met Kurt Cobain but would hang out and take drugs with Courtney. Rumours spread after Cobain’s death that Love and Dando were having an affair. A set of photographs that seemed to show Love and Dando making out fuelled these rumours. Dando says that Love wanted to take the photos as a ‘prank’, and implies it was her that leaked them to the press. Dando writes:

“Unfortunately, I’ll always be a part of the sad, strange story of Kurt and Courtney. “That photo implicated me in all kinds of conspiracy theories about Kurt’s death, which persist to this day… Even though I’ve told the story many times, people still think I had something to do with the circumstances that led to Kurt’s death.”

The conspiracy theories around Cobain’s death are flimsy and sexist, but Dando also includes a few lines that seem out of place from someone who dislikes conspiracy theories.

One thing Courtney said to me on that tour has stuck with me.
“Evan, we’re rich! We can take out hits on people!”
“Hooray,” I answered confusedly.

The other bit I was most curious about what Dando’s account of Glastonbury 1995. In short, he wandered off to a hotel room with two women and missed his band’s slot. Somehow he ended up rescheduled to appear in the acoustic tent, just before a performance from Portishead.

I was crammed into that tent at the time – it felt like the whole world wanted to see Portishead. We weren’t a long way from the stage but couldn’t see a thing. The tent was crowded and we’d been there for ages when it was announced that there would be a set by Evan Dando. This would delay the band that everyone came to see. I can’t imagine that many Lemonheads fans had made it to the performance.

“People were there to see an acoustic set from Portishead, not an American plunking away on a guitar like some wanker at the pub. People actually started throwing bottles at me, which I didn’t appreciate. I picked one up and threw it back, and that put a stop to that. I’d actually scared them somehow, but it was a chaotic situation. As the bottles were replaced by boos, I was quickly hustled off the stage for my own safety. Amazingly, there isn’t any footage of my very brief performance.”

I never saw Portishead that night – I decided to wander off elsewhere. But I’ve never forgotten Dando’s intensity. He faced a hostile crowd, doing his best to calm them. He got some respite with Big Gay Heart, but it wasn’t enough. His playing became angrier and the PA was eventually cut off. He left the stage shouting “Fuck you and your hippy-shit festival”. I’d rather have seen Portishead, but it was a great performance.

Dando points out that no recordings exist of that show. I was in that tent with someone who had a tape recorder with them, recording the festival for a friend of ours who’d ended up in prison. That tape is likely lost now. It would be unthinkable that you’d not have any documentation of a set like that nowadays. There is a watershed, before which we have little trace of cultural events.

Like John Higgs’ return to his KLF book, Michael Azzerad’s new version of 1993’s Come As You Are features a writer responding to his original text.

As a teenager, Nirvana were one of the first bands I became obsessed with. Part of the attraction was the ongoing soap opera. Cobain’s public struggles seemed to reflect my teenaged difficulties. His interviews at the time were defiant and determined – weirdly optimistic – and it was only in retrospect that I thought that the conclusion was inevitable.

With this gap of 30 years, Cobain’s faults seem more obvious. Azzerad was close to the band and, for me, the book suffers from not dealing with the misogynistic abuse Cobain inflicted on Victoria Clarke and Britt Collins, or his appalling treatment of Mary Lou Lord. Cobain was a great spokesman for feminism and the punk ideals of Olympia, but failed to live them. Despite these omissions, the book is still frank and honest about things Azzerad felt unable to say at the time. While Cobain was a great artist, he was deeply flawed and his addiction had taken over his life and his talent.

At the time, through the eyes of tame journalists, the love affair between Kurt and Courtney seemed incredible. As details have emerged, it’s become obvious things were more complicated. For a long time, I wanted to write about Nirvana. As a teenager, the love affair between Cobain and Love seemed quirky and powerful. Over the years, sad details have crept in. I wanted to write about how the story changed with time, yet to also hack away the reality to the romance at the heart of it.

Reading Azzerad’s new book, Cobain was feels like a talented artist. But his petulance and pettiness came through strongly. I will probably still read every major book that emerges about Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, but I can no longer imagine writing about them.