27: Kurt Cobain by Chris Salewicz Read Free Book Online

now once again drinking heavily. On Tracy’s birthday in late April, she received a phone call from Kurt, on tour. He told her that he still wanted to be her boyfriend, but no longer wanted to live with her. Unusually, Kurt then had sex with a girl while on the road in Texas, the one time his bandmates recalled him behaving in such a manner. He cursed himself afterwards for his weakness. It was an unsatisfactory, depressing experience, and he later told Tracy about it.
    Nirvana were also aware that their relationship with Sub Pop was becoming problematic. Like many independent labels, Sub Pop was forever stymied by its distribution network. Nirvana would arrive on tour in a town and find no copies of
Bleach
in the local stores. By the summer of 1990, Sub Pop were aware that Nirvana had decided to leave the label.
    Moreover, the group leaving Sub Pop would be without a drummer. In mid-June Kurt and Krist took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island to let Chad know that he was out of the group. The same week Tracy moved out of the apartment, which Kurt took over.
    The truth was that Kurt had fallen for another girl, Tobi Vail, an Olympia musician a year younger than him with an enormous knowledge of punk music. She had also had a better education than Kurt. A feminist, who had coined the phrase ‘riot grrrl’ and was forming a band called Bikini Kill, Tobi’s rants about sexual politics fascinated Kurt – who was obliged to put to the back of his mind the porn magazines he had leered at in the van in Europe. However, as Charles R. Cross recalled, a person with such views was not precisely who Kurt was looking for: ‘What Kurt was searching for in a relationship was the kind of family intimacy he had lacked since early childhood; but Tobi rejected the traditional relationship he sought as sexist.’ Yet his endless late-night discussions – and less frequent late-night sex – with Tobi had been inspiring. ‘Punk rock is freedom’ was a rubric he coined while hanging with Tobi, and he would quote it at every opportunity.
    Kurt and Krist were now sending cassettes of their Butch Vig sessions to major labels. Punk purist Tobi declared that she would never sign with a major. Did this manifest some inner conflict for Kurt Cobain? On a radio interview in April, he had declared: ‘We don’t have any interest in a major label. It would be nice to have better distribution, but anything else that goes on major labels is just a bunch of shit.’
    Then Kurt did the precise opposite, enlisting the assistance of Susan Silver, Soundgarden’s manager. Kurt and Krist met Alan Mintz, a top-end Los Angeles-based music business lawyer who understood the Butch Vig tape, and vowed to sign them to a major. After the relative success of
Bleach
, and many positive reviews, there was already a considerable buzz over Nirvana.
    Nirvana were scheduled to record another single for Sub Pop. They brought in Dan Peters from Mudhoney on drums and recorded the tune, ‘Sliver’, while Tad, busy recording an album, took time off for a meal. As far as Kurt’s writing went, ‘Sliver’ was a serious development. It told the autobiographical story of a boy who is left by his mother and father to be baby-sat by his grandparents. ‘It also,’ according to Charles R. Cross, ‘was one of the first Nirvana songs to use contrasting dynamics, which would become a signature for the band: the verses were quiet and slow, but the chorus came in as a thunderous wall of sound.’ [32] The song ends with Greta Garbo’s moody (and misquoted) imprecation, ‘I want to be alone.’
    For an August tour of the West Coast with Sonic Youth, Dale Crover was brought back in as drummer. When he had to return to the Melvins, in came Dan Peters, for a show on 22 September, at the Motor Sports International Garage in Seattle. Although Dale was told Nirvana were getting ready for a UK tour, he would