27: Kurt Cobain by Chris Salewicz Read Free Book Online Page B

windows at a nearby building housing the Washington State Lottery.
    Days later, Nirvana were visited by John Silva, the partner of former Led Zeppelin publicist Danny Goldberg at Gold Mountain Management, who oversaw the career of Sonic Youth. Gold Mountain secured Nirvana a deal with DGC, the same Geffen imprint to which Sonic Youth were signed, for $287,000, a very substantial advance. (It was not until 30 April 1991 that the contract was finally completed.) From the advance Kurt received wages of $1,000 a month. Although for years he had been living on far less, the $250 a week was somehow never enough. After falling behind on his rent, Kurt for a time was reduced to living in his car. For much of the time he ate only corn dogs – hardly the best diet for a man incessantly plagued by violent stomach pains.
    To record their first album – what would become
Nevermind
– Kurt and Krist wanted to continue working with Butch Vig. While they were in Los Angeles recording, Courtney Love began to call by to see Kurt. Since they had first met at a show in Portland in 1989, she had been very taken with him. ‘I just thought he was really beautiful. He was really cool and he had really beautiful hands,’ she said. [33] With worrying prescience, Kurt’s first impression of Courtney Love was that she looked like Nancy Spungen – ‘Nancy’ as in ‘Sid’n’Nancy’. Running into each other at a Butthole Surfers show at the Los Angeles Palladium, Courtney showed her affection for Kurt by hitting him in the belly, before – as though in some primitive mating ritual – they began wrestling with each other.
    A highly intelligent woman, Courtney Love was clearly driven towards stardom. In March 1990, she had started the group Hole. A former stripper and Oregon reform school alumnus, she had lived in Liverpool in the UK, on the scene with the Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen. She had also had a film part – the one Kurt had seen – in Alex Cox’s
Straight to Hell
. And she could talk until hell froze over. According to her former longstanding boyfriend from Portland, Courtney’s ambition was tempered by conventional belief: ‘She thought it was a male-dominated world. She thought the only way she could achieve stardom was through a man.’
    At first Kurt was intent on not getting into another relationship. His purpose in Los Angeles was to make a successful album; he was inspired by the city’s spirit-lifting ceaseless sunshine, a considerable contrast to that of Seattle. Sound City Studios in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley was the reasonably priced recording complex recommended to Nirvana by DGC. The first record made there had been Neil Young’s masterly
After the Goldrush
. Later in the 1970s Fleetwood Mac had recorded their enormously successful
Rumour
album at Sound City. As Kurt was not acquainted with any local heroin dealers, he resorted to drinking codeine-based cough syrup throughout the sessions. Purist Kurt would often refuse to record a second take.
    The record was finally mixed by Andy Wallace, who had worked magic on Slayer’s
Seasons in the Abyss
. ‘Wallace sweetened the sound, filtering the raw tracks through various special effects boxes, cranking out about one mix a day,’ said Azerrad. [34] The record was completed, at a cost of $65,000, by mid-June 1991. Almost immediately Kurt found himself suffering from that sense of being utterly underwhelmed and empty – on top of the overriding depression to which he was always prone – that often follows the successful completion of creative work.
    But for now it was on with the show. Nirvana undertook a week-long West Coast tour, supporting Dinosaur Jr. The shows, which included dates in Denver, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, were notable for revealing the audience’s air of expectation about Nirvana.
    Then, in August, it was back to Europe. Once again,