Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [145]
All of a sudden, Nirvana show up on the scene, and Kurt didn’t know who the blond woman I was fighting was—or maybe he recognized her, I don’t know. But he certainly knew who I was, and it was also equally apparent that the two of us were having more fun than the rest of the audience combined, so the most natural thing in the world was for him to race over to where we were fighting on the floor, jump on top of her, and join in the fight. And that’s how they met.
I had a blackout of about nine or 10 hours. About a year later, I was speaking to Kurt on the phone and he told me, “We were back at the apartment, it was about 2 or 3 in the morning, you just turned up, talking all about this woman Courtney Love: ‘Courtney Love! I’m gonna marry Courtney Love!’ ” I was saying that because I was so off my head. He said he ringed her up right there and then and asked her out on a date. I was like, “You did?” He’s like, “Yeah, I never showed up to it. I only did it to show off in front of you.”
That whole evening was incredibly complicated. I’m not sure that all of the stories have come out of it yet. I just remember waking up completely naked underneath a glass coffee table in Nirvana’s apartment in the Hills the next morning about 7 a.m.
MARK ARM My view towards Courtney changed when all those made-up stories about how they hooked up started coming out, like they met each other in Portland at the Satyricon. What’s the point of this fake backstory? I remember on that tour we did with Hole in ’91 she was asking about him; it seemed like she had her sights set on Kurt even then. Maybe she’s trying to make herself seem like she wasn’t a gold digger, and I don’t think she needed to do that. Because, clearly, they liked each other. Who cares when you met?
LORI BARBERO Kurt and Courtney? I pretty much introduced them. In 1991, when we did the movie The Year Punk Broke, I had already known them each at that point for like five years, and then I had known Dave when he was in Scream. Courtney showed up at that Reading Festival and she’s like, “Can you introduce me to Kurt?” Courtney was there because she was dating Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana was there, too. And she kept saying, “You need to introduce me to Kurt.” I’m like, “Okay, okay, whatever.”
DAVE MARKEY (1991: The Year Punk Broke documentary director) After Reading, in Rotterdam, Courtney came backstage and brought Billy Corgan to meet everybody. I specifically remember Sonic Youth and Nirvana and me in this sort of classroom that was doubling as a backstage room. The Smashing Pumpkins were getting huge at that time, and in walks Courtney with Billy Corgan, arm in arm.
I remember they left the room, and everyone was cracking jokes at Billy Corgan’s expense, like, “Oh, yeah, we met the rock star.” Cobain went up to the wall and wrote in Magic Marker, COURTNEY + GISH, Gish being the Smashing Pumpkins album at the time. I think that was pretty telling of where people’s attitudes were at that time. Everyone was making fun of the fact that Billy Corgan was already known as sort of an alternative-rock star. This is right before Nirvana would become the real rock stars that we were parodying in the film.
KAT BJELLAND (singer/guitarist for Minneapolis’s Babes in Toyland) I didn’t really know Nirvana when we played Reading. Courtney kept trying to introduce me to Kurt. She’s like, “You gotta meet him! You gotta meet him!” Of course, Courtney tried to get the limelight out of anything. When Babes in Toyland were doing interviews for MTV, she was jumping up and down in the back screaming, like a really weird little kid who can’t get enough attention.
PETER DAVIS (tour booker; Your Flesh zine editor in chief/publisher) Hole was a nightmare. Courtney Love. Really driven and brilliant in a lot of ways, but also very much a crazy person. Bookin’ tour dates and havin