Everett True

My own interest in grunge music has been... delayed. I was probably a little too young for Nirvana to truly appreciate them "back in the day". I was 9 years old when "Nevermind" was released. I remember seeing a "big kid" wearing a t-shirt with the "Nevermind" album cover, and thinking that it was just mean. And then there's the fact that I come from the "opposite side of the train tracks" from Kurt Cobain. My parents were extremely stable, educated people. Democrats, for sure, and surely concerned for the plight of the poor and vulnerable in society. But I never had to deal with the desperation that was part of the lifestyle that Nirvana's music screamed bloody murder against. I was never spoiled (which I define as getting whatever you want whenever you want.... I've never understand how children can just point at a toy in a store and their parents will automatically buy it for them. If I ever did that, it would have entirely tanked my chances ever getting it. Instead I had to wait for Christmas or my birthday for a single $5 action figure....), but I was never in want for food or clean clothing or shelter. It's like what Jack Black says in "School of Rock": rock music is about whatever pisses you off. And at the age of 9, 10, 11, 12, there really wasn't anything that did piss me off because I was damned lucky to have the kind of responsible parents that every kid deserves. About the only thing that pissed me off were my asshole peers I had in middle school. What did they listen to? Nirvana. Everybody listened to Nirvana. I remember being asked several times who my favorite musicians were when I was in the sixth grade. My answer was always "Rogers and Hammerstein". Stupid response, I know (and I've long outgrown it), but it was my own hair-brained way of separating myself, or saying "Fuck you", to all the jerks I had to share class with. I don't know whose side Kurt Cobain would take if he had known what was going on. I doubt he had any patience for Rogers and Hammerstein's work, but he himself was an outsider as a teenager.

Then, years later as a college student in Tacoma, I began to listen to 107.7 The End, and I discovered that I actually loved Nirvana's music. Because of that, and my general interest in the Pacific Northwest, I decided to read this book, but it took me a while to get around to it. It's not exactly a "Cascadian" book, but Nirvana and the grunge scene of the late 80s and 90s are extremely important to the Pacific Northwest, so I decided to review it as a "Cascadian" book anyway.

The Northwest has always been a bit of an island away from the rest of North America. We have a sizeable population and plenty of development out here, yet we're a thousand-mile drive from San Francisco, Denver, or Minneapolis. The nearest big city outside our region is probably Calgary, itself an isolated locale. And the difference between the Northwest and California, in terms of settlement from colonial powers, is that while emigrants to California were more likely to be seeking huge fortune (the '49 gold rush, the entertainment industry in Hollywood, etc.), emigrants to the Northwest were more likely to be seeking a good life away from the rat races of the East Coast. Sooner or later, something interesting was going to happen artistically in this forgotten corner of the continent.

Enter the "grunge" music scene of Washington state in the eighties. Everett True was among the British punk music journalists who paid attention to what was happening out here, and came to know Kurt Cobain personally before Nirvana was ever known to the rest of the United States. Then, in 1991, Nirvana "hit the big time". The rest of the world unexpectedly descended on the Northwest, "discovering" a few of the other local punk and metal bands (Pearl Jam), singling out their regional idiosyncrasies (flannel shirts!), and converting them into commercially-viable products. Their very own success bewildered Nirvana, deeply confusing and disturbing Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide after completing only two major albums ("Bleach" is awesome, but it was still just a local release).

Everett True doesn't go into this much detail describing the Northwest, but what he does describe he mostly gets right (aside from the fact that he confuses the Kingdome with the Tacoma Dome). In all honesty, I couldn't imagine a better person to write a biography about Nirvana. He knew the members personally, covered them for several years while they were just a small-time band playing gigs with only ten people in the audience. While he counted Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love as friends, he still had his professional duties as a journalist, and could be critical when necessary. I imagine that much of the reason for the vitriol and low-ratings for this book is because it breaks with the conventional wisdom that music fans have regarding Nirvana. It would be a lie to suggest that Courtney Love wasn't a problem. But the mythology that has risen up around the band paints Love as a complete villain and Kurt Cobain as a complete martyr. Everett True does a more-than-competent job describing the intricacies and gray areas of the situation with reason and thoughtfulness, which for some who are seeking outright condemnation of Love and hero-worship of Cobain won't appreciate. People and relationships can be complicated, folks. Bitch that she may be, Love is also a legitimate artist. Brilliant as he could be, Cobain was still a junkie. There are probably lots of people out there who don't want to accept that, but it's true.

As others have noted, it's a huge book. 500 pages with small font printing. It took me two months to slog through it, but I enjoyed it the whole way. Part of the reason why it took me so long was because I would often stop to listen to music and watch the old music videos on YouTube. Everett True's book is well-written, rational, emotional, compelling, informative. It stoked my interest in several other grunge bands that I hadn't heard of before, namely Mudhoney and Tad, and I'd love to take on another book in the future that covers the Seattle and Olympia scenes outside of Nirvana in more depth.

Five stars. Initially wanted to give it four because of the Kingdome/Tacoma Dome fuckup, but I had to admit that the volume was too enjoyable to do to that.… (meer)

I read and wrote a review of a book called Ramones on November 26, 2013, so much of this is overlapping. With that in mind, I'm going to reprint some of that review here:

"Let me begin by saying I’ve liked the Ramones for a very long time. Since roughly 1980. And while I’ve enjoyed their music, I never thought they were musical geniuses or lyrical geniuses the way Lennon and McCartney were or even Trent Reznor. It was just fun, fast music. This book is about the music, but I’m downgrading it a couple of stars because the author thinks the Ramones are the world’s greatest band, for all intents and purposes. He’s a real fan boy. But since this is an authorized biography, I guess you would expect that.

The band started out in New York in 1974. Four disaffected young people who couldn’t play a musical instrument to save their lives. They couldn’t even imitate their musical heroes, the way Bowie or McCartney did. But they did get instruments and learn a chord. Their first show was a disaster, but soon the new club, CBGB’s, found them and nothing was ever the same again. They’d come on stage and rip through 17 songs in 15 minutes or 23 or 24 songs in 20 minutes. The object seemed to be to get through the songs as quickly as possible, with as much loudness as possible. The chiefs at Sire, a new outfit, heard their demo and signed them, and all of a sudden they had a record. And it got great reviews! All of a sudden, they were the founders and leaders of a new punk movement, and they influenced the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, and many, many other bands. They toured a lot and continued putting out records. That’s pretty much the book. A couple of lineup changes, the only one of which — when bassist and song writer Dee Dee quit — was big. There’s mention of drugs and alcohol, but just barely. This is a PG rated book, unlike other rock biographies I’ve read. A lot of the songs are quoted in the text, or snippets of songs, but it serves, in my opinion, to show just how insipid their lyrics were — not how great they were like the author asserts! While the Ramones never sold many records, they did tour a lot, and I guess that’s what prompted the author to write, “Everyone in the known universe loves the Ramones today.” Huh? They made $400 for their shows. Their albums sold in the 25,000 to 40,000 range. Obviously NOT everyone in the known universe loves the Ramones…."

Well, this book basically echoes that review, but instead of it being PG rated, it's R rated. We learn of Dee Dee's heroin addiction, of the band's affinity for sniffing glue when younger, of Marky's alcoholism, (and Joey's too, it seems), and Johnny's totalitarianism control freakishness and his Reagan/Bush loving Republican loving right wing politics (which is really weird). We learn how Johnny and Joey stopped talking to each other after about 10 years and spent the next 12 years communicating through others while still playing shows together year after year and still recording albums together. Part of that may have been because Johnny stole Joey's girlfriend and married her.

I used to like the guys, but this book made me feel icky about them. Joey's like this child-like, tall, skinny praying mantis who's always in a dream state and doesn't deal with reality well. Marky is an alcoholic in denial. Dee Dee is in a permanent state of being pissed off and is a drug addict. And Johnny is a right wing nut job penny pinching control freak. Tommy, the original drummer, is the only one who seemed normal. Maybe he got out at just the right time. CJ, Dee Dee's replacement on bass, seems fairly normal too, but he's never really viewed as one of the group.

We learn about how the band feels about music and their place in rock, as well as their views of other groups. We learn that they grew bitter about not selling records and not being recognized for starting punk or speed metal or whatever you want to call it (Johnny called it both). We learn that they seriously hated Styx, Foreigner, Boston, and Journey, as well as Yes and Pink Floyd. We learn that they kind of looked down their noses at the Sex Pistols. We learn that they liked AC/DC and Monster Magnet. We learn they hated goths, although they played a festival with Sisters of Mercy. We learn they hated traditional metal, opening for Black Sabbath and having bottles and cans thrown at them by the audience. We learn the author thinks they were bigger than the Stones in South America. Perhaps that's true, and perhaps it's true that they played to 50,000 people at a show there, but Queen played to 130,000 people there, so they don't have the record, sorry. (I like Queen more.) The Ramones wavered on liking The Who and The Stones. Sometimes they did; sometimes they didn't. They didn't think too much of Lou Reed. They liked Debbie Harry and Joan Jett, who partied with them.

It was weird reading about them dying at the end of the book. Except for Dee Dee, and perhaps to a certain extent before he got cleaned up, Marky, they didn't really live too hard. After shows, they wouldn't have traditional rock parties with groupies, etc. They'd go out in the clothes they wore at the concert and look for a 7-11 or a Burger King. Then go watch cartoons or monster movies.

As stated in the previous review, the author and many of the people he interviewed thinks the lyrics are genius. Personally, I think they're insipid. But I think that's part of the fun of the Ramones. You can't take them seriously. I don't think they took themselves seriously. How in the hell do you take Beat On The Brat or We're a Happy Family seriously? As to musicianship, many thought Johnny was the best guitarist ever. I think that's insane. (Jeff Beck is.) One person interviewed, however, said Johnny sucked, was horrible, couldn't play his way out of a box. The truth was he was probably somewhere in the middle. I doubt he created a genre, as so many claimed in this book, but he was decent.

Overall, I'm glad I read this book. It filled in a lot of details I didn't know and was entertaining. The only downside was, it lowered my respect for the band members a bit, which is unfortunate. Nonetheless, I'd still recommend this for fans. It's chock full of good info which you can't find elsewhere.… (meer)