Read 27: Kurt Cobain for Free Online Page B

England. This was the first of thirty-six shows in forty-two days. With eleven people jammed into a Fiat van it was almost impossibly claustrophobic, especially for someone claiming to suffer from a fear of confined spaces, as Kurt now was.
    The upside was that almost all of the dates were sold out –
Bleach
was in the Top 10 of the UK indie album chart – including the show in Berlin the day after the Berlin wall had come down. Six songs into that show, Kurt destroyed his instrument and stormed off. Exhaustion seemed to have led to feelings of melancholy followed by downright depression. In Rome Kurt clambered up the speakers, then onto the balcony, still strumming his guitar, hollering at the audience that he was going to jump and kill himself. (‘Jump!’ called the audience.) Backstage he smashed microphones and burst into tears. Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop was there. According to Kurt, as soon as he claimed to be leaving Nirvana, Poneman offered to sign him as a solo artist. But Bruce Pavitt and Poneman had made a major strategic error. They had arrived backstage at the Rome gig as a measure of support, flying in from Seattle. By thus indulging in long-distance air-travel, staying in hotels more luxurious than anything the band members had ever seen, they earned Kurt’s abiding enmity. ‘Though Nirvana would stay on Sub Pop for another year, in a progressively worsening marriage, Kurt had already emotionally jettisoned his label,’ said his biographer Charles R. Cross. [31]
    Kurt pulled himself together and the tour moved back to London for its final show, on 3 December, at London’s Astoria. Although
Melody Maker
, which had championed Nirvana, turned against them, Keith Cameron of
Sounds
proclaimed them ‘the most amazing band I’d ever seen.’
    The next day Nirvana recorded a session for John Peel, the revered BBC disc jockey and relentless champion of the underground.
    Back in the USA, Nirvana played some Californian dates, before another national tour. Now they were pulling in audiences of a few hundred. Despite the buzz of being championed by Sonic Youth, who had come to see them on the previous tour, the band played badly at their New York Pyramid Club show. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore were in the audience, along with Iggy Pop; and, significantly, Gary Gersh, an A&R man for the Geffen label.
    Despite their growing buzz, when Nirvana played a Seattle New Year’s Eve show at the end of 1989, only fifty people turned up. In the venue’s dressing room, Kurt wrote on a wall: ‘Do it again for another!’ – an expression of his altruism towards his fellow man. ‘He was so personable and so fucking cool,’ said his friend Amy Moon, who was there that night. ‘Kurt was totally a listener … One of the few people I’ve met who listened to what you said.’
    Back in Olympia, in March 1990 Kurt and his friend Damon Romero decided one night to rent a video, choosing Alex Cox’s
Straight to Hell
, a spaghetti thriller starring former Clash singer Joe Strummer. Although the film had been critically trounced, Kurt – unsurprisingly – liked it. He and Romero also noted the presence in the film of a girl they had noticed in a club in Portland, Oregon: Courtney Love.
    On 3 April 1990 Nirvana arrived at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, the premises of Butch Vig, not only a record producer but also a drummer. Kurt believed – correctly – that Vig could achieve the drum sound he felt was so absent from their recordings, and which increasingly he believed Chad was unable to deliver. In a week they recorded eight songs, including ‘In Bloom’, ‘Breed’ and ‘Pay to Play’. They were intended for the next Nirvana album, which Kurt had decided should be titled ‘Sheep’.
    As doors were opening professionally for Nirvana, others were closing emotionally for Kurt Cobain,