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Nirvana: The Biography ReviewOn page 131, our author states, "I used to say that the only goal I ever had with my writing was to make people jealous of me." That doesn't necessarily make our author a likeable character, and pretty much overshadowed my enjoyment of the book for about the first half. The chapter where he met Courtney, is a total waste of space. It has nothing to do with the band and he's just alluding to how close they supposedly got, like he's baiting us to care.Please don't take the 3 star review to mean this is not an enjoyable book. It is. I flew through its nearly 600 pages in a couple days and it was quite the page turner. But all of this "this is how it really was" talk seems kind of hard to believe. For starters, Mr. True was supposedly drunk all the time so it's hard to really believe he remembers facts from these events so long ago. Also, when Kurt and Courtney hook up, he takes on the annoying practice of referring to them as "Kurtney." The book doesn't mention Dave Grohl much at all, and a lot of his stories DO seem to be only to make you wish you were him. But hearing countless stories of waking up with vomit caked to your clothes, or being wasted everynight, or waking up naked in a strange apartment, really kind of kill that desire. He calls himself "the man who invented grunge" and a Legend.. and I have no love for such arrogance. In the introduction, he constantly gets off topic and then rights himself, saying "This is a book about Nirvana." I wish he did this DURING the book himself. Wasting countless pages on Calvin Johnson, Mudhoney, and Melvins worship.
Another problem with the book is the sheer amount of errors of things we could actually prove (events recorded for all to see.) Mistakes are that Lori Goldston played cello with the band on Saturday Night Live in '93. Mistakes are messing up the order of events for the Dallas 10-19-91 show. Or the setlist for numerous shows. He'll say a song was played 12th ("More than a Feeling/Teen Spirit") at Reading '92 when it was really 13th (14th if you count "The Rose.") Nothing huge, but why bother reporting 12th? He says they played "Floyd" 4-9-93 when they didn't. The order of songs for 7-23-93 are all messed up. There are mistakes for other shows, but others where Everett turned out to be correct.
You really get the feeling he is writing all of this from memory and not trying to track down the facts first. You get this impression because of the above errors (like saying "I Hate Myself and Want to Die" from the Beavis and Butt-head Compilation was from a Brazil session, when it wasn't.) You also get the impression because he quotes people a handful of times with his own British terminology thrown in. He has Kurt saying "postman" when Americans call him "mailman." Again, not a serious thing, but it's hard to believe he is actually "quoting" people when he'll admit not having the tape on during a 15-16 year old interview.
Everett says Nirvana were possibly late to Reading '92 because of a show the previous day in another country/area. It's easy to prove there was no such show. He doesn't correct people that make mistakes either. Jack Endino says at the late Oct '92 session he did with the band, that Frances Bean was 2-3 weeks old. In reality it was over 2 months. He said Kurt's mom put out the 'missing persons' report on him, but it was really Courtney using her name. He said MTV didn't even air Unplugged until after Kurt died, which isn't true. It was originally aired on 12-16-93. He said the controversy over "In Utero"'s commerciality ended when a few songs were mixed and some of the "noisier" songs "removed"!! I really wish I kept a list of thing like this throughout reading the book, because right now I'm drawing a blank on some others.
When it gets to Kurt's mysterious and controversial death, it doesn't pull the argument much one way or the other. Cali, the male nanny, has a much bigger role in this book. His relationship with Kurt and Courtney is more established and explained. It's strange, though, after 2-3 doctors at the rehab facility Kurt fled say they didn't find him suicidal, and one day (or later on the same day) that Cali's friend talks to him in a supposedly great mood, Kurt kills himself without much warning. The Rome "suicide" note is mentioned. Courtney's overall shadiness is discussed. Her affair with Billy Corgan is mentioned. Her demands on Kurt to make money and her inability to meet him in Europe until a few weeks late is troubling. Not to mention Kurt OD'ing in Rome the same night Courtney finally arrives. It also paints a picture of her as setting out to conquer Kurt. And how he went hardcore into heroin when she came upon the scene. A lot of time is spent on when Kurt and Courtney met. Where a few contradicting stories are told and nothing really established. He DOES point out Courtney's motive for saying she met him way earlier then she did.. being she didn't want to be seen as a golddigger or riding on his coattails. Well, she was.
Maybe this book IS the truth. Maybe Nirvana's story is this dark and unfortunate. How Kurt ever got it together to play a show after hearing all this, is truly something to wonder about. But little is talked about in regards to Kurt's relationship with his band members. Dave is almost non-existant, and it pretty much shows Krist having washed his hands of Kurt after the recording of "In Utero." Some stories make no sense and video evidence refutes a handful of these things. But I still recommend this book to all Nirvana fans who read the Azzerad and Cross books. It fills in holes and is probably closer to the truth than most. You just have to overlook Everett's placing of himself in many scenes and take the "quotes" with a grain of salt. It's a fun page turner that any fan of the band would love. This exposes more like on the darkness of Kurt's mind in reaction to fame and major lable committments, but you still feel like the complete story is still out there somewhere.Nirvana: The Biography Overview
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