Essay/Term paper: Kurt cobain: biography

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Culture

Kurt Cobain: Biography


Kurt Donald Cobain was born to Wendy and Donald Cobain on February 20,
1967 in the small logging community of Aberdeen Washington and his life ended on
April 5, 1994. Kurt fronted one of the greatest bands of our time called Nirvana.
In this report I hope to inform you about the life and mysterious death of Kurt
Cobain.
Kurt had a good childhood, but a troubled adolescence. Partly because of
his parents splitting up in 1975 when Kurt was eight years old. Kurt chose to
live with his mother. Kurt's father remarried three years later.
Kurt got his first guitar for his 14th birthday. He took one guitar
lesson and never paid for it. Kurt says "I went and learned the power chords and
never went back and never paid for the lesson I guess I still owe that guy the
$6 or whatever it was. I didn't go back because once you know the power chords
you can start writing your own songs." Kurt's mother remarried in May
of 1984 to Pat O'Connor and one year later in May of 1985 Kurt would drop out of
high school at the age of 17. During this period of his life Kurt got caught up
with the drug community of Aberdeen and started heroin, an addiction he would
never defeat. Many blame his death on this horrendous drug. Kurt often lived
under a bridge along the muddy banks of the Wishkah river during that period.
Kurt had been just hanging out when he met Chad Channing and Krist
Novaselic and they would go on to find out that they each played music. Chad
played the drums and Krist played the bass. The three started getting together
and jamming. They wrote some of their own songs and sent out some demo tapes.
They released a single in November of 1988. They got signed to a small company
and produced their first album titled Bleach. It featured Chad Channing on Drums,
Kurt Cobain on guitar and vocals, and Krist Novaselic on bass. Bleach only
ending up costing $600 to produce and did not sell big. After recording Bleach
the band made a short west coast tour that started in February of 1989 in
Seattle and moved down the coast. However the band was just preparing for the
tour for Bleach which started on June 22, 1989 in San Francisco and ended in New
Castle, England, the bands first European show.
Nirvana started another short US tour in February of 1990 and one month
later Chad left the band to be replaced with Dave Grohl. To break in the new
addition they did a seven show west coast tour.
Chad wanted to move on and Dave was totally down with where Nirvana was
headed so the band said bye to Chad Channing and hello to Dave Grohl. Dave was a
drummer who could carry Kurt's uneven beat without a thought. The band with it's
new addition was ready to start recording again, this time it was another single
and few more shows. Then on April 30, 1991 the band got it's big break, they
signed with Geffen Records a huge record company. With a new record deal under
their belt Nirvana started recording it's next full length album in May of 1991.
Geffen sent the band on a massive European tour in August of 1991, to
hopefully boost record sales over seas. That same month they made a music video
for one of their new songs called Smells Like Teen Spirit. After the tour of
Europe the band went back to the US and on September 13, 1991 the release party
for Nevermind was held. One week later the tour began in Toronto for Nevermind.
Four days later Nevermind was released and debuted at 144 in sales on the
billboards. After touring for two months in the US the band was once again going
to Europe. The European tour started on November 2, 1991 in Bristol England.
On January 24, 1992 the band went on a world tour. While in Hawaii Kurt
marries Courtney Love. Courtney was a groupie and Kurt's girlfriend. She was a
also a heroin user. And we would find out later that she was pregnant with
Kurt's baby as well. While on the tour Kurt wasn't feeling very well and
collapsed a few times due to stomach pains.
The band wound up the world tour and on August 18, 1992 Francis Bean
Cobain was born to Kurt and Courtney who still went by Courtney Love, her maiden
name. Francis was named after a member of the band called the Vaselines and Bean
came from what she looked like in her sonogram.
On December 15, 1992 the band released its third full length album
titled Incesticide. Four months later the band went back to record it's last
album in two weeks titled In Utero. the album was released on September 21, 1993
and the band again went on tour on October 10, 1993. The band took the tour to
Europe in February of 1994, 29 days later the last Nirvana performance is played
in Munich Germany. Five days later Kurt was hospitalized after a "suicide"
attempt, due to an apparent drug overdose. He enters a coma and awakens the next
day asking for a milkshake. Three days later he leaves the hospital under his
own power. Exactly one month later Kurt's body is found in the greenhouse above
his garage by an electrical technician, who ironically calls a local radio
station first instead of the police.
Kurt had been shot in the mouth with a shotgun, This is where the
mysterious part comes in. The rest is full of contradictions and lies. The
coroner reported the gunshot self inflicted, however the Private Investigator
Courtney hired pointed the finger at Courtney and said murder. He did not mean
that Courtney had pulled the trigger but that she had planned it. His reasoning
behind this was 1: the two were apparently getting a divorce and Courtney had
asked for the meanest most vicious divorce lawyer available and Kurt had
requested to take Courtney out of his will. 2: Kurt had just turned down 9.5
million dollars to front the Lollapalooza tour. 3: the police reports said that
Kurt had barricaded himself in the room but the lock on the door could've been
locked by anybody by simply turning the lock and walking out the door shutting
it behind them. 4: Courtney kept telling Dylan Carlson to check the greenhouse.
Dylan was Kurt's best friend and helped Tom Grant look for Kurt, This is where
my survey comes in out of 47 people surveyed including fans, students, and
teachers 20 said they believed that Kurt was murdered and 27 said they believed
that Kurt committed suicide, almost an even split.
Kurt left a big hole in the music industry and this was expressed by
many of his fellow musicians including Eddy Vedder of Pearl Jam and Michael
Stipe of R.E.M. Eddy had to say "I feel bad that Kurt's not still writing songs
because he was brilliant and that guy could emotionally twang my heart-strings.
Every song he wrote spoke to me."
Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, who had been a late edition for In Utero an
back-up guitar formed a band called the Foo Fighters with Dave on lead guitar
and vocals, Pat on back-up guitar again, and two new people. Krist went on to
join a band called Sweet 75. Krist has also become a "spokesperson" for the band
being the only member that was with the band all the way until the end. I hope i
have shown you what Kurt's life and death were like. There is much more
information about this subject out there this is just some of it.