DESPAIR REMAINS IN SEATTLE

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Seattle It hardly seems a year has passed since Kurt Cobain's body was found above the garage of his Lake Washington home in Seattle.

Cobain's shotgun suicide was a monstrous tragedy for Seattle rock, and the shock, despair and sheer ghoulishness of that week last April lingers.

In the months after Cobain's death, fans and rock pundits have tried to make sense of the suicide and assess the singer's enormous contributions to rock 'n' roll as the leader of Nirvana.

Magazine articles on the band and Cobain the punk poet who helped change the course of rock have poured forth with numbing frequency. In its recent 10th anniversary issue, Spin magazine carried a feature titled "Ten Years That Rocked the World." Of the 10 rock artists that mattered most between 1985 and 1995, Nirvana was picked No. 1.

One of the finest books on the late rock star was "Cobain: A Leg 1 ends here Commemorative Book From the Editors of Rolling Stone," an extraordinary 142-page volume chronicling the singer's life and death.

"Kurt Cobain never wanted to be the spokesman for a generation, though that doesn't mean much," Anthony DeCurtis wrote. "Anybody who did would never have become one. It is not a role you campaign for. It is thrust upon you, and you live with it. Or don't."

Two days after Cobain's body was found April 8, several thousand mourners converged for a candlelight vigil and public memorial at Seattle Center, where Courtney Love, his tearful and bitter widow, read parts of a suicide note her husband had left behind for her and daughter Frances.

But a year later, there apparently are no memorials planned for the biggest Seattle rock star since Jimi Hendrix. The subject of Cobain's death still elicits a palpable discomfort in people.

Leg 2 ends here Cobain's surviving bandmates have been mum about Cobain's death and about the demise of their band. Neither drummer Dave Grohl nor bassist Krist Novoselic have said much to the media, though Novoselic said recently, "It's been the worst year of my life."

Novoselic has turned his energies to writing and politics. He appeared at a recent taping of a town meeting on a Seattle television station, and he helped form the Joint Artists and Music Promotions Political Action Committee.

Grohl, meanwhile, has formed a new band, Foo Fighters. The group features Grohl, former Germs guitarist Pat Smear (who had a stint with Nirvana), and bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith of Seattle's Sunny Day Real Estate.

Copyright 1995
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.