Watching ‘Twenty’ – the Pearl Jam film last night on BBC4 reminded me of not only how amazingly carnal alternative music used to be but of a time far less serious – my teens!
Hearing bands like Nirvana, Sugar, Dinosaur Jr, Pearl Jam et al makes me long to be 16 again. Confident, unabashed & and in love, the world was my oyster / for the taking …all manor of soppy clichés. Sure I was cynical (I think I was born cynical and shall remain so till the day I die!!); but there was an underlying hopefulness underneath that lumberjack shirt & battered converse.
Of course my boyfriend at the time fitted the bill too! Clad always in a band T, hair like Keanu, a swagger like Mark Lanegan - he made THE greatest mix tapes – some of which I still have several years later!
Unlike now – all the music at the time made me v happy – which I guess in hindsight is slightly strange given the dark & bleak nature of it all. Hearing Kurt Cobain scream his way through ‘Negative Creep’ or Billy Corgan go crazy at the end of ‘Rhinoceros’; perving over Eddie Vedder or bowing down to the epitome of cool that was (and still is) Kim Gordon….life seemed good and no matter how it manifested itself, the future was there for the taking! Inspiring and wonderful times that had long been forgotten!
So thank you empty bank account – for making me stay in last night and taking me back to a time of greatness in my life…now where’s my copy of ‘Bleach’
You can still catch both Cameron Crowe’s ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’; along with The Late Show’s ‘No Nirvana’ featuring a selection of grunge’s finest on the BBC iplayer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
