I didn't hear Smells Like Teen Spirit the way most people did. Which... honestly kind of sucks. I didn't have the "cool older brother" to tie me down and make me listen to the vinyl with the naked baby on the cover. I didn't first "discover" it over the radio, though there's no way I didn't hear it in the car before then. The first time I heard it and recognized it as Nirvana was off a laptop at the house of some dude I was only friends with for a summer before he became a rampant tool and, subsequently, a junkie and girlfriend-beater.
...Ya know, except for the laptop part, that sounded a lot more nineties when I actually wrote it. Probably even more nineties when I tell you I was "trying out" for his "band", which so far consisted of him playing open chords and singing like what people think John Mayers sings like, a guy who "drummed" on various found objects, and a pianist without a piano. And I was trying out on the harmonica. And they had me "audition" to a rendition of Ms. Jackson by OutKast.
Where was I? Yeah, laptop, stupid audition, guy who desperately wanted to be Kurt Cobain. Did I mention that? Well, he did, though you really couldn't tell by hearing him play. So he's all "Have you heard of Nirvana?" and I'm like "Yeah, but I don't think I've heard their stuff" and he's all like "WHAT?!" (for good reason), whips out his MacBook, and we sit against a radiator and hop on YouTube. Yeah, I wasn't enlightened until YouTube existed. First video he pulled up was a live version of Sliver. First experience with Nirvana that I knew as Nirvana and the first impression of them that would linger for probably about a year was "GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME". And I fucking loved it.
So that song ended. Then he says something like, "You have to have heard this one." I reply with "Yeah, probably. Lemme hear it."
If you've ever heard a mortar, there's this lull, a sort of sensation of sound and air being sucked out of the immediate vicinity that makes the ensuing explosion all the more jarring. When I heard those power chords and mute notes, being strummed clean, that's exactly what I felt.
And then the explosion... OH the fucking explosion. Sounds sexual? Well it is, goddammit. I can't properly illustrate everything I felt that first time I heard that song (again, I'd probably heard it before, but this is my first time paying attention). It's probably what defined the music I love and the music I (hope I) play from that moment forward: riff-powered, hook-filled mood-mash that blurs genre lines. I remember, in some form or another, this thought passed through my mind: "This is what music is supposed to be."
Hmm... I expected this to have more of an ending. Or at least a denouement of some kind. Well, thesis is, Smells Like Teen Spirit remains my all-time favorite song and it still kicks 5 minutes of ass, every time. That song alone, though my friendship with that guitarist would die, as would so many others I'd formed that summer, opened many a door for me and musical growth.
...Ya know, except for the laptop part, that sounded a lot more nineties when I actually wrote it. Probably even more nineties when I tell you I was "trying out" for his "band", which so far consisted of him playing open chords and singing like what people think John Mayers sings like, a guy who "drummed" on various found objects, and a pianist without a piano. And I was trying out on the harmonica. And they had me "audition" to a rendition of Ms. Jackson by OutKast.
Where was I? Yeah, laptop, stupid audition, guy who desperately wanted to be Kurt Cobain. Did I mention that? Well, he did, though you really couldn't tell by hearing him play. So he's all "Have you heard of Nirvana?" and I'm like "Yeah, but I don't think I've heard their stuff" and he's all like "WHAT?!" (for good reason), whips out his MacBook, and we sit against a radiator and hop on YouTube. Yeah, I wasn't enlightened until YouTube existed. First video he pulled up was a live version of Sliver. First experience with Nirvana that I knew as Nirvana and the first impression of them that would linger for probably about a year was "GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME, GRANDMA TAKE ME HOME". And I fucking loved it.
So that song ended. Then he says something like, "You have to have heard this one." I reply with "Yeah, probably. Lemme hear it."
If you've ever heard a mortar, there's this lull, a sort of sensation of sound and air being sucked out of the immediate vicinity that makes the ensuing explosion all the more jarring. When I heard those power chords and mute notes, being strummed clean, that's exactly what I felt.
And then the explosion... OH the fucking explosion. Sounds sexual? Well it is, goddammit. I can't properly illustrate everything I felt that first time I heard that song (again, I'd probably heard it before, but this is my first time paying attention). It's probably what defined the music I love and the music I (hope I) play from that moment forward: riff-powered, hook-filled mood-mash that blurs genre lines. I remember, in some form or another, this thought passed through my mind: "This is what music is supposed to be."
Hmm... I expected this to have more of an ending. Or at least a denouement of some kind. Well, thesis is, Smells Like Teen Spirit remains my all-time favorite song and it still kicks 5 minutes of ass, every time. That song alone, though my friendship with that guitarist would die, as would so many others I'd formed that summer, opened many a door for me and musical growth.
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