Courtney Love has threatened legal action against the video-game manufacturer Activision for using the image of her late husband Kurt Cobain in their Guitar Hero game. The game features an image of Cobain lip-synching to songs. Love angrily wrote on Twitter:
“[I] never signed off on the avatar, let alone this fucking feature!…There’s been four breaches of a very strict contract.”
Activision vice president Tim Riley counters Love’s claims, stating:
“Courtney supplied us with photos and videos. She picked the wardrobe and hairstyle, which turned out to be the ‘Teen Spirit’ look.”
Cobain’s bandmates in Nirvana, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, released a statement saying that they are “dismayed and very disappointed” at how Cobain’s image is used in the game.
For more on this story, see the article from XFM London.
Last week, the famous (or infamous, depending on your politics) cartoonist Ward Sutton did up a full page comic in the Village Voice in remembrance of Kurt Cobain’s death 15 years ago this April.
It basically pokes fun at stardom and fandom and (more importantly) stereotypes. Kurt thinks twice about killing himself, lives on and dies in the year 2051 listening to The Melvins. Along the way he becomes a diva ala Axl Rose (nice switch, Ward!) and recluse. His bandmate Dave Grohl becomes “the guy who killed Nirvana and a studio session hack — bassist Krist Novoselic becomes merely “destitute.” And Kurt honeybun, Courtney Love, has a critically-acclaimed career as the leader of Hole.
Then, yesterday, Sutton wrote an unneeded column for Huffington Post on Kurt’s death, and how it effected his life. The summary of his thoughts? Here ya go:
“… we can’t stop fantasizing about what died-in-their-prime rock stars would have accomplished if only they’d lived a full life.”
For an even more skewed and ignorant opinion on Kurt, listen to Axl Rose mouth-off on the Nirvana singer (got to wonder if Axl’s really expressing concerns about himself here):
(Note: Axl continues this ultra-trash talk to this day, even harshly dissing his former bandmates. What a douche. It’s hard for me to even listen to that guy anymore.)
But for some straight-forward insight into who Kurt Cobain was, watch Krist Novoselic explaining Kurt in the video below:
In this week’s edition of his weekly blog on the Seattle Weekly Web site, former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic discusses the famous incident with Axl Rose at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. He also writes about tossing his bass into the air and being hit by the bass as it came down at the same VMA show.
Novoselic relates the Axl Rose incident as follows:
I eventually made it to the food service area, where Kurt and Courtney were at a table with their newborn daughter, Frances. They told me that Axl Rose had walked by and Courtney started teasing him. She yelled, “Axl, Axl—you’re the godfather!” Upon hearing this, Axl apparently got very annoyed, walked over to Kurt, and demanded that he keep his woman in line. Kurt turned to Courtney and sarcastically asked his woman to keep in line and left it at that. Axl then split. Of course, Kurt and Courtney were musing over Axl’s response in the context of society’s patriarchal tendencies. My thought was that Rose shouldn’t have gotten bent out of shape. He should have walked over and asked to kiss the baby or something!
On the bass-tossing incident, Novoselic states:
I was now even more shook up. One should take the stage in a good frame of mind, but I wasn’t there. Nirvana gets introduced, and we start playing our prank, then switch into “Lithium.” I’m plugged into some awful bass rig that’s distorting terribly. I can barely hear what I’m playing, and the tone deteriorates into an inaudible mess. Fuck it—time for the bass-toss schtick. Up it goes!!!!! I always try to get good air—I bet I hit over 25 feet, easy! But no matter how high it went, I was not on my game— the only time I’ve ever dropped it was then in front of 300 million people. Ouch! I was fine, but I faked like I was knocked out, perhaps expressing my inner torment over a taxing evening. (Maybe I was just embarrassed.)
To read this week’s edition of Novoselic’s blog on SeattleWeekly.com, click here.
To read an article on the XFM London Web site about Novoselic’s blog, click here.
To watch Nirvana perform “Lithium” at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards (complete with the bass-throwing incident), click below:
I love the bit after the song where Dave Grohl breaks Axl Rose’s balls by saying, “Where’s Axl? Where’s Axl? Hi Axl! Hi Axl!”
To watch Dave Grohl discuss the bass-throwing incident and other topics in a 2001 interview with Dennis Miller, click below:
