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“Yeah.”

“What’d ya think?”

“Fuckin’ rockin’, man.”

He goes, “Cool. Thanks, man.” He shakes my hand and he goes, “Hey, what I do, you do,” and he said some sort of cosmic brotherhood of rock thing. I didn’t fully understand it myself at the time. It was kind of a musician buddy pat on the head. He was always wearing Melvins and Scratch Acid shirts—seemed to be highly aware of that which came before him. I’d never heard that kinda shit from him to me. I’d only met him very briefly before. It was flattering. And he goes, “Thank you, and please come back and have a drink and meet my wife.” I said, “I just met her a little while ago. She seems really nice.”

Half this group of people with him are standing there, tapping their toes, like, Let’s keep it movin’ here. It was only two or three minutes. He goes, “Cool, see you back there.” And then they’re all whoosh, goin’ down the hallway. Greg’s like, “What the fuck was that?” We go walkin’ back later, and Kurt and Courtney had split, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to them more.

A few months later, I bumped into Charles Peterson, a friend of Kurt’s. He gave me Kurt’s phone number and said, “Hey, Kurt said he saw you. He said it was really cool. He said you should call him sometime, go up to his house and chill out.” Kurt had bought a house in Duvall, up north. “It’s really beautiful and laid-back, and it would be cool if you guys could chill.”

“Yeah, neat.”

Two weeks later, three weeks later, I was laying in bed with a broken jaw and arm. Bicycle accident. Lost a bunch of teeth, had some pretty serious surgeries. Heavily medicated. Val, my girlfriend at the time, called me from work and said, “Turn on the radio! Turn on the radio! They found Kurt dead.”

“Kurt Cobain?”

“Turn on the radio!”

And that’s that.

An oral history is nothing without its voices. So first and foremost, a heartfelt thanks to all the people who were generous enough to share their grunge era memories with me. Obviously, it would have been impossible to put together a book of this nature without you. I’d like to give special thanks to a few interviewees who provided invaluable assistance over the course of the three years I spent working on this project: Mark Arm, Robert Scott Crane, Jeff Gilbert, Buzz Osborne, Susan Silver, and Kim Thayil.

I am deeply indebted to my agent, PJ Mark, who pitched me the idea of doing this book after reading my oral history of Sub Pop Records that ran in Blender magazine back in summer 2008. He’s been a tireless advocate for this project and patiently talked me down after many a book-related crisis. Also, huge thanks to my editor, Sean Desmond—who brought tremendous enthusiasm and a seemingly unflappable nature to this project and edited my manuscript with a light, deft touch—and everyone at Crown who rallied behind this book.

Much gratitude to my photo editor, Christine Reilly, for assembling the many rare and wonderful images in these pages. Thanks to all the photographers who provided images for the book, in particular Valerie Broatch, Paul Hernandez, and Alice Wheeler. High praise to my crack team of audio transcribers—Cynthia Colonna, Larry Fitzmaurice, Marissa Graziadio, Diana Salier, Megan Stride, Kate Thuma, and Jessica Vaysman—without whom I could not have done this.

All my love (and many apologies) to my incredible wife, Bonnie, who tolerated my taking Grunge as a mistress and supported me throughout the entire process. Thanks to my family—my father Jay and stepmother Marilyn, my brother Fred and his wife Andrea—for their love and support.

Many thanks to my former Blender editors in chief Craig Marks (for hiring me) and Joe Levy (for his guidance and support), plus my former colleagues David Carthas, Victoria De Silverio, Josh Eells, Chris “Goldteeth” Ehrmann, Lizzy Goodman, Tyler Gray, Rob Tannenbaum, and Rory Walsh for providing me with contacts and/or book-writing tips.

Thanks to fellow authors John Cook, David Peisner, Marc Spitz, Katherine Turman, Eric J. Weiner, and Jon Wiederhorn for their