the day grunge died

yes, 5th April is gonna go down as the day grunge died.. kurt cobain (Nirvana) supposedly pointed a shotgun to his forehead on this day in 1994.. and some eight years later in 2002, on the same day, layne staley (Alice In Chains) asphyxiated on a speedball and his body was only found days later. was it something in the season.. when the seattle winter refused to be sprung by Daylight Saving Time.. and two people who defined grunge as we know it offed themselves?? R.I.P.

kurt was the quintessential trailer trash kid.. strumming away his guitar to abstract rhymes.. and living under a bridge when the shit hit the fan.. he played a hundred and one bars before finally laying down some tracks on tape. this was the birth of Nevermind, the album that went on to blow all the pop-wannabes off MTV.. with the one single 'smells like teen spirit'. later on he stumbled from one gig to the next, then on to the recording studio.. with a deathwish drug-habit, and a desperate desire to prove (to himself??) that he had finally made it.

layne was the ying to jerry cantrell's yang. together, they created the melodic riffs and driving metal sounds that define most rock bands spawning after that uber-generation, grunge! layne and gang once actually got evicted cos they didn't have enough cash to pay rent! then the album Dirt happened.. and the energetic layne never looked back.. even touring with a broken leg in plaster! layne died still looking for himself, his lyrics showing the desperate scrawls of a man torn inside.

grunge represented all the angst, the desire, the rebelling, the ambition, the whatever-you-want-it-to-be, and the pitfalls too, of teenage.. and which is very surprising to find you don't ever outgrow. maybe it's just me, but i still listen to grunge, and get a totally different lesson each time. music rocks! :-)