The Alternative 90's

“How do those of us who love rock ‘n’ roll interact with it in real life? We sit on the couch and blast the stuff on the stereo, trying to convince each other that the music we love is something that our friends need in their lives, too, while simultaneously railing against the crap that we brought that turned out to be a hype” –Jim DeRogatis

I am more than halfway through Jim DeRogatis’ Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90’s. I highly recommend this book. It got me thinking about a conversation that K and I had on one of our road trips. I think everyone in our age group who likes music inevitably has to share their like/dislike/indifference towards Nirvana. I am puzzled by what an icon Kurt Cobain has become to some teens today. During the summer of ’91, I had just moved back to the States from Germany. I was waiting tables and watching MTV while I tried to decide if I was going back to college. I was thinking about beauty school until my friend D said to me, “Just what we need, another hairdresser”. I think I saw Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video every day, at least three times a day that summer. Because of video saturation and the “I don’t want to be a rock star” image of Kurt Cobain, I never got into the music. I was through because of the media coverage. I told K on this road trip that I was more of a Pearl Jam fan at that time than Nirvana. She was the opposite. For some reason, as much as those two bands probably hated it, they are forever fused together in my mind as if one is the alternative to the other. You have to like one or both, but you have to like one. Anyway, this little anecdote from Milk It! cracked me up.

“One of my best friends, the head sports photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently told a revealing story about Eddie Vedder. A longtime basketball fan who roots for his former home team the Bulls, Vedder had courtside seats for the championship series between Chicago and the Seattle Sonics. At one of these games, Kenny G. played an excruciatingly painful free-jazz version of the national anthem. It seems Kenny had to walk past Eddie on his way back to the sidelines, and Eddie stood there glaring at him the whole time and wielding him both middle fingers”.

--J