Crying rhymes for the dying times
If it’s time to die there’s nothing you can do
– Second Coming with Layne Staley, “It’s Coming After”

Kurt Cobain wasn’t the only musician from the early 90’s “Seattle Scene” to die at a young age.
In 2002, eight years after Cobain’s death, Layne Staley of Alice In Chains died, after years and
years of drug abuse.

Like Kurt, no one knows the exact date of his death for certain, and like Kurt, his death was
ruled to have happened on April 5. I’ve always wondered if the coroner or whoever chose that date
for some kind of symbolic reason.

Very much unlike Kurt, however, Layne didn’t suddenly and shockingly die at the height of his fame. Rather, everyone knew he was heading for a pine box for a number of years before it finally happened. A good number of his lyrics even seemed to evidence that Layne himself knew this. But while he was here, his voice coupled with Jerry Cantrell’s nuclear-blast music brought a heavy, sludgy, dark sound not like anything up to that point.

Layne had a couple of side projects, one of which was occasionally guest-singing with the band Second Coming. Another better known one was collaborating with members of Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees in the supergroup-of-sorts Mad Season. Anyone who knew Layne (aka “The Voice Of Doom”) only from AIC and thought his sole talent was screaming was thoroughly disabused of that notion.

From 1995, a full seven years before his death, but it sounded like he knew it was already over, didn’t he?

Layne could also play drums and was (I’m speculating here) a bit of  “Benny Hill” fan.

According to Wikipedia, “At Alice in Chains’ last concert with Staley on July 3, 1996, they
closed with ‘Man in the Box.'” How disturbingly appropriate.

Title is from this song, lyrics and music entirely by Layne as well as playing rhythm guitar… loudness warning, but it’s awesome –

Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

It’s 20 years today since Kurt Cobain died. There’s still argument over whether it was a suicide or not.

I didn’t get into Nirvana’s music right off the bat, but I did like “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and once I dived into alternative music, they were right up there. They were one of those bands where I hated some of there songs and loved others … not a lot of middle ground. At first, I thought they were going to be the next fad, maybe be a big name band. Like everyone else, I had NO idea just how big they were gonna be. I don’t think I’ve seen anything else quite like it in my lifetime.

People just could not get enough of that song. It was everywhere. I think it inspired more people to pick up guitars than anyone since the Beatles, or maybe even since Elvis.

I wasn’t one of them. I had wanted to play music since before that, and didnt pick up guitar until well after Kurt was dead. But Nirvana was definitely a strong influence. Some of the first songs I learned to play on guitar were Nirvana tunes. Let’s face it – solos aside, a lot of them aren’t that difficult once you master power and barre chords. They are, however, teriffically arranged power and barre chords.

Reportedly, Kurt claimed that he knew he had “made it” when Weird Al Yankovic parodied one of his songs. To hear Al himself tell it –

For whatever reason, my manager tried and tried and said he couldn’t get through [to Nirvana]. He contacted them again and again and they never got back to him. So he said, “If you want to do this parody, it’s on you. You’ve gotta talk to the band.” A friend of mine was in the cast of Saturday Night Live [UHF co-star Victoria Jackson]. I told her, if you ever get Kurt Cobain alone in a room, put him on the phone, because I’d love to talk to him — and she did! Directly! He was sweet and he got it in like five seconds and said, “Of course you can do a parody.” The famous quote from him was, “Is it going to be a song about food?” because at that point that’s primarily what I was known for. And I said, “Well, no, it’s going to be a song about how nobody can understand your lyrics.” And he said, “Oh, sure, of course, that’s funny.”

Yankovic also stated –

It was exceptionally hard shortly after Kurt passed. It was still my biggest hit at the time, and I couldn’t not do it because the fans would want to hear it, but at the same time, it was uncomfortable for me, especially. So for a long time after Kurt passed, I would always preface my performance of the song by doing a somber dedication to Kurt in his memory. The hardest one was doing Seattle, because I didn’t know if I should be doing that song in Seattle at the time. I didn’t know how people would take it. I asked a lot of journalists there, “Should I do this? Should I not do this?” And almost unanimously they said, “You should do this. It would be cathartic.” And it actually went over extremely well.

I don’t remember where I was when I found out Kurt had died or anything like that. I’m not a hardcore fan keeping vigils or whatever. But I have always been a bit fascinated by him and the band, and sometimes pick up the odd and random bit or piece of history I trip across.

Send me off to the morgue I’m ready to be buried away down in my bed
And I’m alone without the sun
Please just take one

And by the grace of god go I into the great unknown
Thing are gonna change in our favor
– For Squirrels, “Mighty K.C.”

“ KC stands for Kurt Cobain.   He’s dead.  The song is by a band called For Squirrels.  They’re dead, too.” – From here

 

I remember when I first heard the song “Mighty K.C.” It was September or October 1995 on the local alternative rock station. I didn’t know it was about Cobain’s death when I first heard it, but the lyrics did stand out, both morbid and hopeful at the same time.

The other thing I didn’t know was that two members of the band died in a traffic accident before the song was even released. They were traveling in a van that flipped over, killing founding members Jack Vigliatura and Bill White and tour manager Tim Bender. I heard a DJ explain this not long after the song hit the airwaves, casting an entirely different light on the verses.

The video sort of merged the original theme of the song with the death of the band members, showing home videos of the band projected onto the body of a Kurt Cobain lookalike. Rather clever, I suppose, as a tribute to both.

The band menbers were big R.E.M. fans, and you can hear it in this song. It almost resembles R.E.M.’s “Fall On Me” in places.