"I still have very vivid images of him laughing, smiling, and goofing around": Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon remembers Nirvana's Kurt Cobain
published 3 days ago (5 March 2024)
Kurt Cobain and Kim Gorden
Kim Gordon remembers her friend Kurt Cobain, as the 30th anniversary of his death nears
Kim Gordon, formerly the bassist/vocalist with Sonic Youth, has shared her memories of her friend Kurt Cobain as the 30th anniversary of the Nirvana frontman's death approaches.
Nirvana had huge respect for Gordon's band, with who they shared a management company, and the fact that the New York art-rock/alternative band made the transition from independent labels to major label record company Geffen with their integrity and artistic freedom wholly intact played a big part in Cobain's band signing to the same label ahead of the release of Nevermind. In the summer of 1991, Nirvana would premiere a number of songs from their then-still-forthcoming second album while supporting Sonic Youth in Europe, a tour famously documented by LA film-maker Dave Markey for release as 1991: The Year Punk Broke, and Cobain and Courtney Love remained close friends with Gordon and Thurston Moore.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the fact that the 30th anniversary of Cobain's death is coming next month is put to Gordon.
"That is hard to believe, but it makes sense," she replies. "My daughter was born that year and she’s 29 now. I still have very vivid images of him laughing, smiling, and goofing around backstage. And doing these amazing shows, throwing himself into his drum kit. Really just going for it in a way I’d never seen anyone quite do."
When writer David Browne mentions the fact that Nirvana merchandise is still hugely popular with consumers, Gordon replies, "Oh yeah. It cracks me up walking around and seeing people wearing that. Maybe they are into Nirvana. Maybe they’ve never heard of them!"
In his acclaimed memoir Sonic Life, Gordon's former bandmate and partner Moore recalled his first sighting of Nirvana, and remembers standing "agape and transfixed" by Cobain's band."It took all of an electric flash of a second to see how incredibly beautiful they were and how soul-shredding the music was," Moore wrote. "It would soon be clear that Nirvana was articulating something that connected not just with the punks but with the nerds, the freaks, the geeks, the losers, and the weirdos... It was going to be more than just cheap thrills, offering instead a radical reconsideration of musical expression at large."
Kim Gorden from Sonic Youth
Here Nirvana and Sonic Youth are together in the old days
The passing of Kurt Cobain not only devastated fans around the world but also many artists who called the late Nirvana singer their friend.
Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore Talks about Kurt Cobain’s Death
Among the various stories brought up in his new book Sonic Life: A Memoir, Sonic Youth guitarist and singer Thurston Moore, married to Kim Gordon (also part of the band!) reflects on the passing of Cobain. Among the details he shares regarding this time, Moore talks about breaking the news of Cobain’s death to his then-wife, Sonic Youth guitarist Kim Gordon, and writes what he experienced being on the phone with her for that call.
In an excerpt from this book (shared via The Guardian), Moore writes about the last time he and Gordon would see Cobain, which was at a Nirvana show at Bayfront Park.
Accompanying Moore and Gordon at this show was Moore’s mother. Moore notes seeing a very young Frances Bean Cobain running around; while nannies were present, Moore notes that his mom was taking in observations of Courtney Love attending to her child. At one point, Moore’s mom expressed to Love, “You’re a very good mother.” Moore says Love was surprised by this comment, and he goes on to note, “It was so unlike the accusations that Courtney and Kurt had been dealing with in the press, the two of them always depicted as drug-addled monsters.” Love thanked Moore’s mom for her compliment. At the end of the night, John Silva, the manager for Sonic Youth and Nirvana, talked to Moore and Gordon about Lollapalooza 1994 and how Nirvana would be headlining; Moore notes that Sonic Youth would be invited.
Sometime after this, Gordon reached out to Silva and announced that she was pregnant, with the manager replying “Well, that certainly changes things.” Following this point, Moore jumps to April 8th, 1994, with Gordon being nearly seven months pregnant. As Moore writes, it was on that morning that Bob Lawton, the booking agent for Sonic Youth called him, and asked: “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?” Moore replied.
“Cobain…”
Moore goes on to share that, around the time he got news of Cobain’s passing, Gordon was at a photo shoot for a clothing line she co-founded called X-girl; while it hurt him to do so, he rang to get a hold of Gordon and break the news to her.
In his own words, here’s how the moment played out:
“It pained me to do so, but I called Daisy’s apartment and broke the news to her – then she went silent. ‘Kim?’ She couldn’t speak. In the silence, I could sense her weeping. Like every one of us, she had loved the boy.”
In her own memoir, Girl In A Band, Gordon wrote about the moment when she learned of Cobain’s death (excerpt shared via The Guardian):
“I’ll always remember the day Thurston called to tell me Kurt had shot himself. Of course I was totally shocked, but I wasn’t entirely surprised. There had been an incident in Rome, where Kurt had OD’d, but the details were never clear. I was shattered and felt as if I were moving in slow-motion inside some strange dream.”
For some, the death of Kurt Cobain meant losing a music icon, for others it meant losing a hero, and for some, it meant losing a friend. While many still mourn Cobain’s passing to this day, his legacy lives on, his art inspiring young artists around the world and providing comfort to those in need.
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