Kurt Cobain documentary: Montage Of Heck

No mention of this on ILM so far? Gonna be interesting for sure.

Courtney Love was thanked profusely by the director for her trust. "I dare you to find someone else who'd hand you the keys to their storage facility," he cracked, "and say 'Go through all my shit, make a fucking movie and I'll see it when it's done.'"

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/sundance-2015-kurt-cobain-montage-of-heck-20150125?page=2

http://www.stereogum.com/1731471/kurt-cobain-montage-of-heck-has-unreleased-beatles-cover-not-dave-grohl/news/

I've always found Kurt Cobain a truly interesting guy, not really for his public persona, but for his obviously very rich and very insular inner life. This became especially apparent after reading his published journals, which were fascinating, funny, dark, and brilliant all at once-- but which also admittedly left me feeling like a very bad person for reading someone's private writings after their death. This movie maybe takes the exploitation even a step further... but I'm still going to see this. I can't help it. I think he's probably one of the last musicians I can honestly say I've felt was worth spending time learning more about. Maybe showing my age here, but I can't really think of anyone from the last decade that I think would warrant this kind of treatment, as we discussed in this thread.

yeah KC is a compelling person still.

i thought the vaults were scraped clean judging by the abysmal bonus content on the in utero and nevermind reissues. very excited to see/hear new stuff, especially the taped excerpts with david fricke for rolling stone, his last major interview...

have you heard rae sremmurd, poliopolice?

somebody on metafilter posted this about "olympia bros" and it made me imagine the pacific nw that kurt grew up in:

*This is a fairly unique species that should be studied by scientists or something. Equal parts frat boy, redneck/hick/rural kid, and eco hippie/bonghead. So like basketball jerseys, with hemp necklaces, and a lifted hot rodded truck that isn't just some brodozer with chrome wheels but obviously gets mudded and has some scars. Known to talk about water reclamation projects/living in sustainable housing and say "what up n****" to their white friends 10 seconds later. Way in to psychedelics AND playing madden. Rents an RV and buys 12 30 racks... to go to the oregon county faire or rainbow gathering.

that combination of rural redneck and heroin druggy dirtbag.

yeah, that's oly & demenses, woop

> have you heard rae sremmurd, poliopolice?

no, i have no idea what that random assortment of letters is

drummers ear?

>*This is a fairly unique species that should be studied by scientists or something. Equal parts frat boy, redneck/hick/rural kid, and eco hippie/bonghead. So like basketball jerseys, with hemp necklaces, and a lifted hot rodded truck that isn't just some brodozer with chrome wheels but obviously gets mudded and has some scars. Known to talk about water reclamation projects/living in sustainable housing and say "what up n****" to their white friends 10 seconds later. Way in to psychedelics AND playing madden. Rents an RV and buys 12 30 racks... to go to the oregon county faire or rainbow gathering.

or, to quote Chris Ott, the ultimate fuckin bro shit stoner lame-ass jam band battle of the bands music smith fucking stratocaster velvet fucking top hat fucking scarf-wearing paisley bullshit ever"

so happy that dave grohl's role in this will be small

i thought i read that it was only because of timing of Sundance festival that he wasn't included in the final cut much (interviews took place too close to submission date), but the director expects to add a lot more of him.

(for post-Sundance version)

shit i didnt read the "a lot more of him" anywhere. goddammit. w/e

well, more of him. more meaning, "more than zero"

damn

poliopolice otm re: cobain

seeing as we're doing 'people we hope don't come within a mile of this' then Charles R Cross. him.

Richard Lee

what's wrong with Charles R Cross? I thought Heavier Than Heaven was a good bio (i mean i've read it almost a dozen times since it's the only comprehensive KC book really)

i recall reading on here at some point that he wouldn't give Nirvana the time of day until after KC was dead but maybe that's not so. i'm sure it's a great bio i must read it as i know it's meant to be the best, most respected one.

i haven't read it in a long time so i don't know if it's aged well from a writing perspective, but i always thought the Azerrad book was pretty indespensible, if for no other reason than that he spent a lot of time with the band before it ended and then added to later editions after Kurt died, as opposed to the entire thing being written from an obituary-ish perspective like every other bio of Kurt/Nirvana.

LIKE MOST BABIES SMELL LIKE BUTTER

(xpost) Also read the Azerrad book a number of years ago, and even though I might quibble with a couple of his choices, thought it was excellent then, and suspect I wouldn't feel any different today.

I mentioned on the documentary thread that I have a ticket for the Cobain film in a couple of weeks. I don't, as of yet, get the unwieldy title at all.

Name of one of his early noise collage tapes I believe.

second only to Do Re Mi as the best posthumous Cobain crate find: https://vimeo.com/35576701

there's hilarious clip in this movie of KC doing a Chris Cornell impression

The Chris Cornell impression was hilarious. I liked this but I didnt love it. It's certainly well made but it doesnt reveal anything that I dont already know about the guy. There's a teenage anecdote that's straight out of Gummo, which I'd never heard before (and might possibly be a lie). Theres scenes of him nodding out with baby Frances in his hands which I found pretty disturbing. I still feel that theres something about the guy that this documentary failed to get at and it cant be explained as easily "troubled childhood+fame+ultra-sensitivity = Suicidal Kurt". I'm not sure what I thought about the abrupt ending skipping the circumstances of his suicide. Is it dignified not to mention it or is it a deliberate evasion so as not to make Courtney look bad?

My feeling was that the director just wanted to make an interesting clipshow/highlight reel but was forced by the documentary form to create some half-assed narrative arc, and his distaste for having to do that was fairly evident.

How come Krist Novoselic was in this and Grohl wasn't?

i heard they glossed over how courtney killed him

How come Krist Novoselic was in this and Grohl wasn't?

― tayto fan (Michael B), Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:18 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why wasn't Chad Channing in it? He was a drummer for Nirvana as long as DG was. Krist was a close friend of Kurt's, at least in the beginning - KC and DG were never close friends and I don't think he'd be able to give more insight than Chad.

Is this the only music documentary in history that doesn't have enough Dave Grohl in it

it already has too much DG in it just by association. dude should join one of those missions to Mars and talk about rock there

why wasn't Chad Channing in it? He was a drummer for Nirvana as long as DG was. Krist was a close friend of Kurt's, at least in the beginning - KC and DG were never close friends and I don't think he'd be able to give more insight than Chad.

― flappy bird, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was introduced to chad channing riding the winslow ferry in my first week in seattle when my friend peter flagged him down, iirc he had just split from nirvana like that month? Or maybe I am fudging my memory to make myself eyewitness to history and he had already been gone a bit. it must have been like... may? of 1990. Anyway peter was like 'that guy was drumming for this band nirvana, they're good'.

that is my only story of this sort other than that I killed biggie

what pct of this doc is interviewees? (not Kurdt)

After playing the "Teen Spirit" video for my class last week (anniversary of death), I wanted them to see the trailer for the documentary. I looked at it first at low volume, seemed basically fine. Missed the "getting laid" line. Oops...only one or two seemed to notice, and I quickly called their attention to something else.

lol @ the though of the "Teen Spirit" video being totally fine to show students, but not the phrase "getting laid"

lol @ the thought of dropping the 't'

Roughly 20% is interviews

I don't believe in the Courtney Killed Kurt conspiracy theory bullshit btw. Just thought it odd Grohl wasn't in it but yeah, fair enough he wasn't one of Kurt's closest confidants perhaps.

5 seconds of topless Courtney if anyone's interested. (who the fuck was shooting that scene though??)

ew

lol @ the thought of the "Teen Spirit" video being totally fine to show students, but not the phrase "getting laid"

I know what you mean, but that's the world we live in, right? What's powerful and disturbing about the "Teen Spirit" video (and the song) is allusive, ambiguous. Play it for a bunch of parents--and at this moment in time, I probably even have one or two who were fans--and I don't think they'd make a big fuss. (When I talk about the song/video, and how I interpret it, I probably come right up to the line of what I should and shouldn't be saying--with the out that I make sure to add, "This is what I think he believes; not me, of course.") Show a trailer with the phrase "getting laid" in it, that's a problem, even though I'm sure there are jokes far more graphic on a typical Family Guy.

i was watching this today and he seems so good! happy. healthy. or at least he looks healthy. less than a year away from killing himself. so sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe7q8yDPJFo

i had never seen this before today. just a couple of months before he dies. on a goofy t.v. show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKeqgqm269E

so crazy how fast the nirvana timeline is from nevermind to death. and how much footage/documentation there is for that period.

I remember seeing that first interview at the time--pretty sure it's MuchMusic's Erica Ehm (our Martha Quinn).

They sound really great on that Serve The Servants clip.

this is from another goofy talk show around the same time, this one is really disturbing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUb69RIqfO8&spfreload=10

I used to think so but now I'm not so sure

So Buzz was 3 years older than Kurt and is some authority on what Kurt was up to when Kurt was 14 and Buzz was 17? That's a massive age difference for teenagers and not the sort of thing you would go around telling everyone. Doesn't make the tapes "bullshit".

Krist being a closer friend also being involved makes me think it's more likely the stories were true.

Believing in Kurt being murdered is no different to thinking 911 was an inside job or man never landed on the moon.

thanks courtney

Just saw this. I kind of hated how mythicizing it was. He wasn't a troubled genius, he was going through puberty. The only genius thing he did was realize how to sell it.

It would have been interesting to know what path he would have chosen if he were still alive. The Grohl path of selling out while fading out, the Novoselic path of retiring quietly, the Courtney path of going batshit crazy or taking a hint from Sonic Youth and keep releasing experimental music with a steady underground fanbase.

dueting with Michael Stipe would seem to imply the Grohl path

but to survive he would have had to go through rehab and divorce Courtney so who knows how that would have played out aesthetically

“I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr,” Cobain told MTV News .

It could have gone either way really.

Ringo is anonymous much to his own chagrin. Dude is one of the busiest legacy touring artists there is.

Believing in Kurt being murdered is no different to thinking 911 was an inside job or man never landed on the moon.

― mickcsmith (micarl), Thursday, June 25, 2015 6:39 PM (1 hour ago)

that is ridiculous

it does strain credulity but by all means please summarize this convincing new evidence presented in Bleached

The film has exactly the same format as all the batshit crazy inside job type films. Not so crazy. What's ridiculous is thinking it's not possible he killed himself.

I heard Kurt killed himself as a dare

Buzz Osbourne did it

I heard Kurt killed himself as a dare
kind of like this theory

One of my friend's younger brother's friends said it when we were smoking weed about 14 years ago.
Never been able to shake it off since

the dude was so real he offed himself ... just cuz buzz osbourne dared him to do it.

Great example of internet trolling from 10th April 1994 here.

looks like a bro
http://prevettlaw.com/?page_id=5

haven't seen the film but ppl get murdered every day, kurt cobain being murdered is not a completely outlandish notion on the level of a moon landing hoax.

it doesn't exactly jibe with the evidence

a suicidal person, a suicide note, a crime scene that looks like a suicide etc.

evidence was from what i kind sort of remember:

-the shell casing was on the wrong side of the room
-he had so much heroin in him he should have been unconscious
-love carried around suspicious handwriting examples/practice
-love planted a story about kurt threatening suicide by writing to a paper as his mother
-they were in the process of getting a divorce and had signed a prenup so she would have gotten nothing
-police biased towards declaring suicide for junkies

all of that is incidental/circumstantial and none of it points to murder

something always seemed a little strange and off to me about that suicide note, it reads like a rambling farewell-to-showbiz screed up till the very end

things being odd, people having motives, small details not making sense /= evidence of commission of a crime. his fingerprints are on the gun, we know where the gun came from, he was a guy who clearly thought about killing himself a lot, was depressed/prone to self-loathing. I mean come on now.

bear in mind I find Courtney Love to be p loathsome, careerist to the point of insanity, etc. but that she would hire someone to kill him and get away with it strains credibility on so many fronts - she was a drug-addled famewhore do you really think she had the wherewithal to commission such a perfectly executed crime? And that she would pay a crazy nutjob like El Duce to do it, and that he would credibly pull it off? I mean, why wouldn't she just take the path of least resistance and engineer an OD? Or just tell Kurt to kill himself (he probably would've done it?) Did Kurt just let El Duce into his home, give him the gun he'd recently bought from Dylan Carlson, and then let El Duce kill him, leaving behind no sign of El Duce's presence or a struggle or anything? The whole scenario is ridiculous. Bloomfield's film is great because it mines just how crazy the intersection of the NW scene and celebrity was, he's good at lifting rocks and exposing ugliness and insanity - but it's clear by the end of the film he doesn't really buy any of the murder theory stuff, he was just following where the story led.

How do you know what this guy thought about?

telepathy

I don't believe any of the Cobain murder conspiracy theories at all, fwiw.

but seriously when someone talks - in their work, in their personal diaries, in public statements/interviews - about how unhappy they are, wanting to kill themselves, etc. idk I don't think that was all a constructed persona, dude had issues.

I wasn't saying the evidence points strongly to CL hiring someone to murder him. It just points strongly to him not being the one who pulled the trigger of the shotgun.

People get murdered and arranged to look like suicides all the time, it's not rare. Junkies even more so. Police departments also rush to declare deaths suicides all the time, for obvious reasons.

I am curious what evidence you have for this "junkies get murdered and arranged to look like suicides all the time" claim

Ok fine "apparently, according to criminologists and coroners" and not literally all the time

xpost I believe that the documentary points to the Cobain's babysitter Cali Dewitt as the murderer

Looking through the old archived posts from Usenet (alt.music.nirvana) in 1994 it would seem that Kurt Cobain murder conspiracy theories pretty much sprang up merely months after Kurt was found dead, but for every person putting a conspiracy theory forward, there seems to be many more deeming those conspiracy theories to be laughable.

Anyone who points to "oh, but he looked happy in this footage so he wouldn't have killed himself" is a fucking idiot who has no idea how mental health issues work, btw.

^^^^ this forever

it reads like a rambling farewell-to-showbiz screed up till the very end

It likely was. He psyched himself up to actually go through with it.

can we talk about beethoven's suicide note in comparison?

http://pitchfork.com/news/61395-kurt-cobain-solo-material-to-be-released-as-montage-of-heck-the-home-recordings/

i can't believe a tracklist hasn't been released for this yet, doesn't bode well

I loved the animated sequences in this.

Also wondered who was filming the often very intimate home movies a lot of the time.

his dealer

Eric Erlandson, apparently

Something something exploiting Kurt yet again.

I find it annoyingly calculated that every Nirvana product always comes out in November.

Finally! an 11-minute "Do Re Mi"!! yes!!!!

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-montage-of-heck-albums-trove-of-unreleased-kurt-cobain-20151007?page=4

1. "The Yodel Song"
2. "Been a Son (Early Demo)"
3. "What More Can I Say"
4. "1988 Capitol Lake Jam Commercial"
5. "The Happy Guitar"
6. "Montage of Kurt"
7. "Beans"
8. "Burn the Rain"
9. "Clean Up Before She Comes (Early Demo)"
10. "Reverb Experiment"
11. "Montage of Kurt II"
12. "Rehash"
13. "You Can’t Change Me/Burn My Britches/Something in the Way (Early Demo)
14. "Scoff (Early Demo)"
15. "Aberdeen"
16. "Bright Smile"
17. "Underground Celebritism"
18. "Retreat"
19. "Desire"
20. "And I Love Her"
21. "Sea Monkeys"
22. "Sappy (Early Demo)"
23. "Letters to Frances"
24. "Scream"
25. "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle (Demo)"
26. "Kurt Ambiance"
27. "She Only Lies"
28. "Kurt Audio Collage"
29 . "Poison's Gone"
30. "Rhesus Monkey"
31. "Do Re Mi (Medley)"

I want.

http://www.alternativenation.net/kurt-cobains-ex-girlfriend-courtney-love-threatened-to-cut-off-my-head-burn-down-my-house/