Courtney Love 'should be banned from Twitter' — Frances Bean Cobain

 

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain is speaking out against her mother’s latest Twitter comments, saying, “Twitter should ban my mother.” This follows Love’s recent posts on her personal Twitter account alleging that former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl had a physical relationship with Frances Bean.

“While I'm generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn,” Frances Bean Cobain said in a statement issued Thursday. “I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I’m in a monogamous relationship and very happy.”

Grohl, through his spokesman, said, “Unfortunately Courtney is on another hateful twitter rant. These new accustions are upsetting, offensive and absolutely untrue.”

Love has a history of posting provocative statements over the Internet and via Twitter but has laid relatively low since paying out more than $400,000 last year in what was considered the first Twitter defamation settlement for derogatory things she wrote about fashion designer Dawn Simonrangkir.

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Photo: Courtney Love with daughter Frances Bean Cobain in 2007. Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images.

Rare Nirvana concert debuts ahead of 'Nevermind' anniversary release

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s classic album "Nevermind," VH1 Classic will broadcast a rare, never-before televised concert from the grunge rockers, the network announced Thursday.

“Nirvana: Live at the Paramount” was filmed in Cobain's home base of Seattle on Halloween 1991 and features performances of the songs that helped define an angst-ridden generation, including "Smells Like Teen Spirit," “Lithium” and “Breed,” along with other tracks from the band's catalog, including “Aneurysm" and “Sliver.” Nirvana also covers the Vaselines' "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" in the 11-song set.

The concert will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on Sept. 27, along with a "super-deluxe" reissue of "Nevermind," which will span four discs and include the seminal album, rare demos, rehearsals, B-sides,  the Paramount concert as a live disc, a 90-page collector's book and rare memorabilia. The super-deluxe edition will set fans back a cool $169.99 at Best Buy, and is also available on iTunes and Amazon through the band's official site.

“Nirvana: Live at the Paramount” airs on VH1 Classic on Sept. 23 at 11 p.m. 

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Kurt Cobain performs with his group Nirvana at a taping of the television program "MTV Unplugged" in New York City in 1993. Credit: Frank Micelotta /Getty Images

Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' jacket highlights 'Music Icons' memorabilia auction June 25-26

 
Michael Jackson’s iconic red leather jacket worn in the “Thriller” video will go up for auction later this month in Beverly Hills along with a large group of items from other pop musicians including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Madonna, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Steven Tyler and Nirvana.

Jackson’s “Thriller” jacket has a pre-auction estimate of $200,000 to $400,000, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Shambala Preserve in Acton, Calif., which houses the two Bengal tigers the singer kept at his Neverland Ranch.

Among the other music memorabilia in the auction to be held June 25 and 26 at Julien’s Auctions Gallery are the glove Jackson wore to an American Music Awards ceremony, estimated to sell for $20,000 to $30,000); a Presley TCB necklace ($20,000-$40,000); a denim jacket Bruce Springsteen wore during his “Born to Run” tour ($2,000-$4,000); the wool cape Ringo Starr wore in the Beatles film “Help!” ($6,000-$8,000); two pages of lyrics and other notes by Hendrix of a song titled “Here Comes the Sun” not related to the George Harrison song ($25,000-$30,000); and the broken neck of a guitar used by Kurt Cobain ($2,000-$3,000).

The items will be exhibited June 13-24 at the gallery at  9665 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 150, Beverly Hills. The catalog is viewable online at www.juliensauctions.com/auctions/2011/music-icons/index.html.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. Credit: MJJ Productions.

Yes, Miley Cyrus is allowed to play Nirvana covers

Via Matt Yglesias, a reminder that Kurt Cobain's catalog surving into Miley Curus' demographic is probably a good thing for music --

Miley Cyrus was 18 months old when Cobain died and many of her fans are even younger than she is. Yet here she is playing Cobain’s song to an audience in Ecuador. That, to me, is how you take art seriously—by celebrating it, and taking joy in the idea of a growing set of people experiencing it.

Yep.

Let's all remember that as potent and singular as Nirvana's music is, Kurt Cobain purportedly killed himself out of his terrible mental illness and addiction, not because he couldn't bear pop music's philistines missing the point. His catalog is open to anyone to explore it and be moved by it, and that includes tween Ecuadorians and late-adolescent pop stars. A kid ditching her "Hannah Montana" soundtracks for "Nevermind" should be applauded for it, and if that kid is Miley Cyrus, then she should be applauded too.

-- August Brown

Highlights from The Times: Kurt Cobain remembered, 1967-1994

Kurt Cobain, the frontman for 1990s rock band Nirvana and reluctant spokesperson for a generation of anti-establishment, angst-riddled listeners, died in his Seattle-area home 17 years ago today. On this anniversary, we revisit the impact he had on the music industry and its listeners by featuring tributes that ran in the Los Angeles Times after his death:

"To many who weren't touched by his music, he will be dismissed as another rock 'n' roll stereotype ... a guy who was more lucky than talented, more indulgent than tormented," wrote then-Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn, adding, "But he was so much more. In a pop world filled with pretenders and opportunists, Cobain was the real thing -- a unique and invaluable voice."

He continued:

The first time I met Cobain was in the fall of 1992. He hadn't done an interview in months, but was troubled by recurring rumors that identified him and wife Courtney Love, the rock singer and songwriter, as drug addicts.

He said he had run into a teen-ager who was on heroin at a club in Orange County a few nights before and the kid nodded at Cobain as if they were mates because of their drugs.

"We had a lot of young fans and I don't want to have anything to do with inciting drug use," he said in a soft, fragile voice that contrasted with his howling intensity on stage.

He then admitted using heroin in the past, but said he was doing it no longer. Referring to the couple's then 4-week-old daughter, he added, "I don't want people telling her that her parents were junkies."

Bob Guccione Jr., then-editor and publisher of Spin magazine, also shared his appreciation for Cobain in The Times, writing:

"He was the poet of this generation. It will be easy in the coming months, especially for older people, to downplay Kurt's significance and contribution, but that would be wrong. Like Rimbaud, he died too young, lived too unflatteringly and left too little compared with what we hoped for, but it was enough for him to be one of the pillars in the artistic pantheon. The horrible manner of his death and the anger we feel because he destroyed something we loved creates a cultural blood clot ..."

What are your memories of listening to Nirvana? Or, if you are too young, do you listen to the band now? Do you think they still have an impact?  Share in the comments.

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-- Whitney Friedlander

Photo: Kurt Cobain performs with his group, Nirvana, on "MTV Unplugged" in 1993. Credit: Frank Micelotta / Getty Images

Mike Starr, Alice in Chains bassist, dead at 44 in Salt Lake City

 

Mike Starr, the original bassist for Seattle metal band Alice in Chains who was found dead Tuesday in Salt Lake City, could well have arm-wrestled with Axl Rose and the members of Guns N’ Roses over who most deserved to call an album “Appetite for Destruction.”

Rose was a champion of the group’s debut album, “Facelift,” and when fame hit for the group, the members first reveled then struggled with all the fallout from all that had been laid at their feet.
Starr was friends with Aliice in Chains guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell before the band formed in 1987 with singer Layne Staley and drummer Sean Kinney. But it didn’t take long before Starr reached overload. He quit the band around the time its second album, “Dirt,” was released, a collection that went on to sell more than 4 million copies and which chronicled the dark path the group seemed to be on.

Rolling Stone magazine described that album as "a sustained, unflinching meditation on heroin addiction." Times staff writer Mike Boehm wrote in 1993 that “ ‘Dirt’ scrapes bottom with a litany of complaints sung from a deep pit of despair, self-loathing and never-ending woe.”

Shortly after taking up the bass post in the band in 1993 after Starr left, new member Mike Inez told The Times, “We're four young guys on the road with the whole world by the balls. We're like a pack. Whatever we want, we get. We wake up and we're like, 'What do we want today?' Whether it's food or girls or drugs or whatever, everything is there for you."

Having suddenly vaulted to multiplatinum success, Cantrell said at the time, "It's a weird feeling to go from nobody to everybody. You're known on a two-dimensional level. People yank on your hair, not realizing you're a real person."

Of “Dirt,” Cantrell said, "It’s a dark album, but it's not meant to be a bummer. Those five songs on the second side, from 'Junkhead' to 'Angry Chair,' are in sequence because it tells a story. It starts out with a really young, naive attitude in 'Junkhead,' like drugs are great, sex is great, rock 'n' roll, yeah! Then as it progresses, there's a little bit of realization of what it's about . . . and that ain't what it's about."

Staley died of an overdose in 2002 at age 34. Starr in recent years took his battle with addiction to the airwaves as a participant in the third season of VH1’s reality TV show “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew,” and spoke about shooting heroin with Staley and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. When Cantrell decided to resurrect Alice in Chains for another go-round several years ago, he tapped Inez rather than Starr to be in the reformed group. A cause of death was not immediately reported.

-- Randy Lewis

Courtney Love and Nirvana members unhappy with Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero

Courtney Love, the controversial rocker and widow of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, is blasting out angry messages on Twitter in response to her late husband's likeness being used in Guitar Hero 5. A character portraying Cobain shows up for the game's two Nirvana songs to sing and play guitar on a virtual stage.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, Cobain's former band mates, joined Love in their disapproval with the game character, saying they're "dismayed and very disappointed," according to a statement released by their publicist.

Bassist Novoselic and Grohl, Nirvana's drummer before becoming the front man for the Foo Fighters, say they knew the Cobain character would be shown during the Nirvana songs but were unaware that players could unlock him to be used in other songs by bands such as Bon Jovi and Bush.

"We urge Activision to do the right thing in 're-locking' Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future," the Novoselic and Grohl statement read. "It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better."

Novoselic and Grohl were quick to point out that they have no say in whether Cobain's likeness can ...