| PART SIX OF 11th SEPTEMBER 2000 UPDATE
Buzzcocks are to be the main support act for Nirvanas dates at London Brixton Academy on April 5and 6. The two bands have been touring Europe together, and Kurt Cobain last week issued a handwritten statement declaring: “The Buzzcocks have always been one of the best bands I’ve ever heard. I finally saw them for the first time a few months ago in Boston and it was the most energetic, exciting and fun shows I’ve seen in a long, long time. They’ve written a truckload of songs that, if the record companies weren’t so stupid and the band members were cuter (joke) then they could easily be Number One, history making singles. I recommend them to everyone.” (Melody Maker’s March 5 1994 edition). Those aren’t the words of a suicidal man, and that was just a week before the Rome incident which supports what I said about Kurt on the bootleg In Utero tour tapes. Further in this magazine there was a review of a gig Nirvana did in Paris that week. Dave Jennings who reviewed the show, wrote: Is any band in a stranger situation than that which confronts Buzzcocks at present? Here they are touring major European venues at the personal invitation of one of the worlds biggest and hippest acts. The dates with Nirvana are just another part of a seemingly never ending international touring schedule, that’s gone on since they reformed in 1989. Nirvana open with ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ and go on to deliver a punter-friendly crowd pleaser of a show. ....The show is shockingly smooth.....then Novoselic suggests, “Hey, Kurt, I think you should give the kids some communion.” Cobain obliges by stretching forward to touch a few hands before being forced to retreat by the fervour of the response. ....Tonight, Nirvana are better than I dared hope, delivering all that anyone could ever reasonably want or expect from a rock band. ‘In Utero’ may have seemed like the work of a songwriter guilt-ridden and traumatised by success, but Nirvana looked determined to enjoy themselves again. The enjoyment could not be more infectious. Nirvana 1994 are transcendent, glorious, magnificent. What else could I write? Then Kurt got flu and laryngitis and had to cancel a few shows. “She was obsessed with media and how she’s perceived. What I didn't realise was that 95 percent of it was her directly calling editors. She’s got a full media network going on...” Trent Reznor talking about Courtney. Courtney had called me suggesting we get together, by virtue of the fact that writing was my theoretical career....While she had a Newsweek stringer on the line, Courtney took the opportunity to let loose about Vanity Fair... (This was in November 1992. Melissa Rossi p 137). “You should write a biography about me”. (Courtney to Melissa Rossi, Nov 1992. Melissa Rossi’s ‘Courtney Love: Queen of Noise’ p 143). You’ve something of a reputation for ringing up rock writers and magazine editors and haranguing them about stories that concern you. Aren’t rock stars supposed to have people who do all those kinds of things for them? “Well, when you’ve come up through punk rock- which I have- you kind of think you ought to be available, that there shouldn’t be people in the middle. But I’m stupid! I’m naive! I am always surprised when I get fucked by magazines”. (Courtney Love interview with Andrew Harrison, Select magazine May 1994). Early the next morning she turned up at Rozz's apartment. Though he lived in Portland most of the year, he’d kept the run-down studio in San Francisco. And when she stopped by, he was there, celebrating his first wedding anniversary with his baby faced wife, who was a decade younger than Courtney. Perfect timing. “I had a nightmare”, Courtney told Rozz Rezabek as she stepped into the apartment.... in the dream, she said, he had published a book of her love letters. It appeared to Rozz she didn’t care if he wrote the book. She just wanted to make sure he wrote some nice things about her; she even mentioned bank-rolling a book, if he wrote one. ...According to Rozz, Courtney brought up the subject of his old notebook. What did he want? She asked. Ten grand? A record deal? Everybody borrows lyrics, you know. She referred to her riches as “blood money” and seemed to want to get rid of it. He declined the offer. Rozz claimed that Courtney later offered him a writing credit on her next album. After a stop at the bank machine where she transformed her pile of gold plastic into thick stacks of green, she took Rozz Rezabek and his wife out shopping. She bought Rozz a pair of $4 sunglasses. She bought his wife $4,000 worth of clothes. Before they left his place, she had tucked away wads of money throughout their apartment, as if hiding eggs for an Easter hunt. (Rossi p 235-236). In Feb 1995 I’d been approached to write a book about her again. This time however, the person who approached me was Rozz Rezabek...when he showed up at my door lugging suitcases filled with her numerous love letters to him, her diaries... I knew he was serious. ..Alas, the book project was ill-fated....a few days into the book, after talking to Courtney, Rozz left me a note saying he’d gone for the suitcase full of money, though I was welcome to find a suitcase of my own. I dropped the Courtney project. Pocket books called a few months later.... The answer seemed clear, write the book and then hightail it out of Seattle. (Melissa Rossi’s introduction to her book ‘Courtney Love: Queen of Noise’). Courtney Love calls me one night. I don’t question how she got my unlisted number; people like her have ways. (Poppy Z Brite’s ‘Courtney Love: The Real Story’ p 15). I finish this book. It wasn’t her idea, but obviously having Courtney as a friend made researching it easier. (Poppy Z Brite’s ‘Courtney Love: The Real Story’ p 17). How desperate do you have to be, to have to approach an ex-boyfriend to write a biography about you, and to take them on spending trips and leave money for them? And offer to bankroll the book? And ask them to write nice things about you? How desperate do you have to be, to manipulate a writer (Melissa Rossi) into producing a book in which she was clearly directed by Courtney to false leads? How desperate do you have to be, to call up another writer (Poppy Z Brite) and get the whole story rewritten? How many famous people need to continuously approach editors, authors and journalists, in order to get their name in print? How desperate do you have to be, to cultivate a bunch of journalists for friends? Courtney’s lust for publicity and fame, and her manipulation of the media is turning into the rope with which she has been hanging herself for years. “While it’s difficult to determine Courtney’s ulterior motive with regard to Kurt, she does have minifeuds galore”. (Lynn Hirschberg, Vanity Fair article, September 1992). Back to In Defence Main |