Stay in the shade
I’m reading Everett True’s fascinating insight into the muddled world of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana at the moment and what rings the loudest (apart from, no doubt, the ears of anyone who caught them play) is that the whole grunge thing exploded at just the right time – for the musicians, for the punters, and for the record labels. Heck, before Cobain and his cohorts came along we were being force-fed MC Hammer in balloon pants. In just the same way that Manchester and Liverpool and New York and Sheffield have spurned great eras in music – only for those eras to run their course and shift direction – so too did Seattle. Only with more volume. And more hair. For all his flaws (and like all of us, there were many), Cobain was a truly complicated character, a hybrid of ideas and ideals, tortured by success yet craving it nonetheless. Sure he’s been mythologized to a large extent but, then again, so have all of the ‘27′ club. Nirvana defined a movement. They gave the slacker generation a voice. And while Cobain’s lyrics apparently meant little to him at the time they were written. I’m sure Tori Amos, and countless others, would disagree with him now about their potency.
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Following on from Michael Lavine’s seminal portrait of Kurt and Courtney for the cover of Sassy! [pssst, he also took the photo for the Nevermind album cover], we got the inside word from British music journalist, and infamous Nirvana bedfellow (in the least literal sense of the word), Everett True on Kurt, Courtney, and those damn persistent rumors: ‘No, I don’t believe he was murdered. I don’t particularly go into this in my most recent Nirvana book — partly through lack of time, partly through lack of interest — but let’s view it this way. Examine any event that has happened in the past, however trivial, and discrepancies will appear. 9/11. John F Kennedy. The death of Princess Diana. The fact my cat had to be put down at the age of sixteen. Why I forgot to take my iPod to London this morning. All of these could be contested, violently and with real — and valid — opinion. That’s because history does not exist except in books. Suicide is particularly ripe for innuendo: after all, the only person who can tell you what really happened is — er — dead. Still. I have nothing against conspiracy theories, especially if they’re fun’. Read more
Thanks to our friends at Madman, we have eight copies of the Kurt Cobain documentary, About A Son, to give away to randomly selected Lost At E Minor subscribers. Read more
UK music journalist Everett True comes from the Nick Kent school of writing: live the life and hope to come out the other end with one hell of a story. And he has. In this case, the story of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. In this exclusive piece, he talks about his association with Seattle’s finest and his friendship with the perennially troublesome Courtney Love. Read more
Also by ZOLTON
Crimea X is the coming together of two offbeat, disparate characters, DJ Rocca (Ajello, Super Sonic Lovers, Maffia Sound System) and Jukka Reverberi from 90s Italian glam cult rockers, Giardini di Mirò, who have often have been compared with the sound of Mogwai, Arab Strap, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. We asked them about their favourite music and they started with The Smiths song, Ask [listen below] ‘I saw them playing live on Italian TV. It was during the 80s when I was extremely young, and I’ve never stopped listening to this song’. Read the rest of Crimea X’s Secret Playlist.
I love the curated selection of abandoned swimming pool photos on Feature Shoot today, featuring work by Carlo Van de Roer and Albert Jodar, amongst others.
Win a set of Sony personal audio prizes
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
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Richmond-based graffiti artist Chip7 has a style that is at once urban and also vaguely tribal with their crude lines and rich patterns. Read more
What is it with these big fake islands that look like things from the air? We’ve had palm trees, a map of the world, and now an island that looks like Russia! Read more
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Riffing on the idea that ‘eating was tending toward breathing’, Harvard professor David Edwards, in conjunction with design studio Le Laboratoire, has created Le Whif, the breathable chocolate. No chewing, no calories, and it comes in mint, rasberry, mango, and plain chocolate flavors. The product may just be a fancy scratch-and-sniff sticker, but it looks so sleek and design-y.
A survey of two thousand Britons has revealed the country’s perfect pet. Max is a bizarre hybrid that is part cat, part dog, part rabbit and part horse. Insurance firm More Than, which conducted the research, suggests that Max ‘has high energy levels, loves daily walks and sleeps for an average of nine hours 27 minutes a day’. Read more
This interview with James Lavelle gives a fascinating window into the making of the latest UNKLE opus, End Titles, Stories for Film.
The Presets are a Sydney-based electronic duo, consisting of Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes. In September 2005 they released their debut album, Beams, to positive critical response. That same year Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes also toured with The Dissociatives, which is co-fronted by Daniel Johns of Silverchair and Australian dance producer Paul Mac. Johns also played guitar on Presets single Cookie. Hamilton and Moyes are also members of Sydney instrumental group Prop.
Listen to The Presets song, My People.
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Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
T-post: the world’s first wearable magazine
So here’s the scoop. Every six weeks, T-post subscribers get a new t shirt issue in the mail, with a news story on the inside and an artist interpretation of that story on the front. Yes, we agree. It’s clever, clever. Read more
Italian-born, New York City-based photographer Paolo Ventura creates fairy-tale like pictures out of amazingly constructed, miniature dioramas that almost trick the eye into thinking he’s a tilt-shift photographer. Read more
Karen Caldicott’s clay head models
British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more
Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
The Offering t shirt by New York-based designer Ryan Sullivan is printed by hand, one at a time, using a dye-based print. Printed on cotton/poly blend tees. Size is true to fit. Read more
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