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The release of Brett Morgen’s documentary Montage of Heck has inspired new discussions of the legacy of Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who upended popular music before committing suicide in 1994. Few artists have straddled the line between nonconformity and commercialism like Cobain. Consider the three-album arc of his band’s life: though Nirvana boasted of producing its debut album Bleach for $600, Cobain became a Generation X icon by releasing its follow-up, Nevermind, on a major label, and by having a hit single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” that dominated MTV.

The post Kurt Cobain, making comedy of commercialism appeared first on OUPblog.

Insight Editions will publish a companion book for the first authorized documentary about Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck will be released on April 7th. Rolling Stone reports that the book features extended transcripts from the interviews conducted for this film, animation stills, rare pictures, and other personal items.

Frances Bean Cobain, the only child of the Nirvana frontman (pictured, via) and rocker Courtney Love, served as an executive producer for this project. The premiere screening will take place at the Sundance Film Festival; HBO will air it on May 4th. Follow this link to watch the trailer.

Bluewater Productions has created a biographical comic book profiling legendary musician and songwriter, John Lennon.

Writer Marc Shapiro had this statement in the press release: “I approached writing Tribute: John Lennon as an exploration of a life full of potential and promise that was, sadly, cut short. We all know the importance of John Lennon as part of The Beatles. But I felt it was more important to concentrate on his post Beatles’ life and career, both good and bad, so that readers would get the clearest possible idea about who he was as a creative entity, husband and father.”

This new project, part of the Tribute series, features interior artwork by Luciano Kars and cover art by Graham Hill. Other recording artists who have been featured in this series include Queen lead vocalist Freddie Mercury, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, and more.

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Bluewater Productions has announced that the next issue of the Tribute series will profile legendary rocker Kurt Cobain.

Jayfri Hashim penned the story and created the artwork for this biographic comic. The book will be released on April 2nd to honor the 20th anniversary of Cobain’s passing.

Here’s more from the press release: “Nirvana front man’s life from his early days to his battle with overwhelming fame and the pain he suffers mentally and emotionally. Tortured by success and struggled with an addiction to drugs before his death at the age of 27 twenty years ago.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Eric Erlandson, the guitarist who founded Hole with Courtney Love and helped create hit albums like "Pretty on the Inside" and "Live Through This," will publish a book of his reflections on rock 'n' roll, drug abuse and the loss of Cobain called "Letters to Kurt."

As frequent visitors here know, music holds an important place in my creative life. I’m a listener. I don’t play, can’t carry a tune, but I’m fairly sure I loved songs long before I loved books, and the words of songs touched me in a such a way that I wanted to pick up a pen to face (and fill) a blank page of my own.

Today I’m inspired by the first song on the new Iron & Wine disk, Kiss Each Other Clean.

Sam Beam, AKA, Iron & Wine.

The song, “Walking Far from Home,” instantly reminded me of the imagery in the apocalyptic Dylan tune, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” I enjoy it when writers trod familiar ground, mine traditional forms, like tourists visiting the same old plots, where the structural restrictions require the artist to dig deeper for his reward.

Both songwriters in this case, Sam Beam and Bob Dylan, were working within what I’ll call (for lack of a more accurate term), The Peripatetic Structure. Or more colloquially, The Where You Been? Song. Simply: the narrator goes out walking and encounters a world that is broken, wounded. I went out and saw this and this and this and that. But the telling of the journey becomes something far more than a laundry list of observations. In the hands of a craftsman, the observed, exterior reality functions as a reflection of an interior (spiritual) state, where the objective and subjective meet in hallucinogenic clarity, where nothing and everything is real.

Here’s Sam Beam:

WALKING FAR FROM HOME

I was walking far from home
Where the names were not burned along the wall
Saw a building high as heaven
But the door was so small, door was so small

I saw rain clouds, little babies
And a bridge that had tumbled to the ground
I saw sinners making music
And I dreamt of that sound, dreamt of that sound

I was walking far from home
But I carried your letters all the while
I saw lovers in a window
Whisper “want me like time, want me like time”

I saw sickness bloom in fruit trees
I saw blood and a bit of it was mine
I saw children in a river
But their lips were still dry, lips were still dry

I was walking far from home
And I found your face mingled in the crowd
Saw a boat full of believers
Sail off talking too loud, talking too loud

I saw sunlight on the water
Saw a bird fall like a hammer from the sky
An old woman on the speed train
She was closing her eyes, closing her eyes

I saw flowers on a hillside
And a millionaire pissing on the lawn
Saw a prisoner take a pistol
And say “join me in song, join me song”

Saw a car crash in the country
Where the prayers run like weeds along the road
I saw strangers stealing kisses
Leaving only their clothes, only their clothes

Saw a white dog chase its tail
And a pair of hearts carved into a stone
I saw kindness and an angel
Crying take me back home, take me back home

Saw a highway, saw an ocean
I saw widows in the temple to the Lord
Naked dancers in the city
How they spoke for us all, sp

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