Here's an unsettling fact: if Kurt Cobain were still alive today, he would have just turned forty. Even though this April will mark the thirteenth anniversay of of his death, I still find it hard to believe that so much time has passed since then. Now, I'm not one of those people who say that they were into Nirvana before they got super popular. In fact, I jumped on the Nirvana bandwagon pretty late in the game. I remember getting the Nevermind casette (remember casettes?) from Trevor Eisner sometime in '93. I listened to the band faithfully from '93 until sometime around '96. After that, it would be another four or five years until a Nirvana album would find its way into my stereo again. I have Cory Mott to thank for my revitalized interest in the band. Think back to the musical landscape of 2000-2001. Limp Bizkit and wave after wave of nu-metal clones saturated radio and music television. At the time, I was nineteen and living in residence at St. Thomas University. My roommate was the aforementioned Cory Mott, a man with an electric guitar, a copy of Bleach and the unwavering desire to party until he could party no more. The other guys living in our wing of the residence (the historic Harrington Hall) must have hated us. You could almost set your clock to our foolishness. Friday evening would only be setting in and we would crank In Utero as loud as we cared to crank it. With beers in hand, we would rock out until the proctors made us stop. The music of Nirvana was as much a part of my university experience as anything or anyone else. So happy belated birthday to you, Kurt. And thanks for the memories.
