Source: Bay Area Reporter

by David Lamble
In his evocative new film Kurt Cobain About a Son, A.J. Schnack strips away the spin, the buzz and the dead skin of tabloid TV, and essentially reintroduces us to a guy who for an all-too-brief moment allowed some of us to fall back in love with rock n roll. The core of the film consists of audio chats between the singer/songwriter and Rolling Stone editor Michael Azerrad, illustrated with a soundtrack of the bands that make up Cobain's musical roots, illustrated with a Koyaanisqatsi-like montage of everyday moments gathered in the three cities (Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle, Washington) where Cobain spent a blissful childhood, a catastrophic and largely migratory adolescence, then an astonishingly productive seven-year career.

The Azerrad tapes, never before played in public, rolled for 25 hours in a series of late-night conversations that began around Christmas 1992, and continued off and on for six months. The tapes, supplemented by intimate talks with Nirvana bandmates Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl, would form the basis of Azerrad's admiring but not obsessively laudatory portrait of the band, Come as You Are, a book many consider one of the best guides to the birth pains of the early-90s indie rock movement.

Queer viewers will find a two-minute passage (about 20 minutes in) about the roots of Cobain's pro-gay feelings both amusing and instructive. In Come as You Are, Azerrad refers to a time when Cobain was hanging with a rough crowd headed up by Buzz Osborne, leader of the seminal Northwest punk band the Melvins. While Osborne was instructing Cobain how to get back at obnoxious jocks, the skinny young Kurt was making a rather different alliance in school. Azerrad refers to a handsome kid named Myer Lofton. In the film, Cobain goes off on a rant about the odd benefits of having the school see you as a gay geek.

"Luckily, I found a gay friend who basically saved me from wanting to kill myself half the time. Apparently, everybody in high school knew that he was gay, they just didn't bother to tell me, or I just didn't bother to notice until he decided to make a pass at me one night, and I just flatly told him that I wasn't gay, but I'd still be his friend.

"After that, I started to realize that people were looking at me even more peculiarly than usual. And then I started getting harassed by some of the people, especially in gym class. They felt threatened because they were naked and I was supposedly gay, so they either better cover up their penises or punch me, or both. But after that, I started to be proud about the fact that I was gay, even though I wasn't -- I really enjoyed the conflict, it was pretty exciting, because I almost found my identity: I was a special geek, you know. I wasn't quite the punk rocker I was looking for, but at least it was better than being the average geek."

In his book, Azerrad explains that even the famously anti-social Cobain broke under the strain of the company he was keeping. "One day, Kurt walked up to Lofton, visibly upset, and told him that he couldn't hang around with him anymore. He was just getting too much abuse for being the friend of a 'faggot.' Lofton understood completely, and they parted ways." The incident, as fleshed out in the book, speaks volumes about Nirvana's later pro-gay broadsides, as well as hinting at both Cobain's candor and his shrewd ability to burnish his legend.

Apart from Cobain's published journals, and of course his wrenched-from-life lyrics, Kurt Cobain About a Son is the next best thing to an autobiography. We hear a famous artist, speaking at times with his mouth full, talking until he wears out his interviewer, or until the sound of wife Courtney Love is heard off-mike, summoning her man to their bedroom and the precious few moments that would be theirs alone.

Full article: The other side of Nirvana | The Bay Area Reporter Online