Get This Scum Off the Streets Before She Kills Again
Courtney Love is facing a judge once again, for drugs this time - yawn! you might say. Indeed nothing she does is a surprise, except actually make an album once in awhile. I'm a little offended that the front cover of the album is on our new release section, but Tom Erlewine's delicious skewering of it inside is justice enough for me. I see Courtney as the woman who killed rock n' roll. A nation of fans in mourning for Kurt Cobain, and her vile, obscene reading of his "suicide note" at the memorial service in Seattle was a way of saying a nice big "F*ck You" to anyone who cared about Nirvana or their music. After that, you will witness the audience for real rock music in a progressive sense begin to decline. Indeed, how could it survive?
I've always suspected in the back of my mind that she also was at least partly responsible for Cobain's death itself, but had no idea in what way. I was working at Tower in Torrance when the news broke about Cobain, and was there also four days later when Hole's major label debut was racked up on the new release shelves. Needless to say we sold out of that crappy disc that very day - and at the time I felt it too close to be a coincidence, but it was no more than a suspicion.
We are regarded as the main authority on birth/death dates for most libraries, and I often check these for various artists to make sure we're up to speed. I decided to look into our entry for Kristen Pfaff, Hole's bassist whom I had remembered had died that same year, to make sure we had something for her. Actually nothing was listed, so I looked her up on the web. The news accounts on her death published in the LA papers were so short on content I never really learned how she died, so I started reading and noticed it sounded awfully familiar - sort of like the way Cobain may have died - no gunshot in Pfaff's case, but a fatal "hotshot," like what Cobain had in his system before the trigger was pulled, by him or whomever.
So I decided to look up the search terms "Kristen Pfaff" and "murder", and man - all this stuff came up. I didn't want to get locked into it at work, so I resumed this same search at home later. I had pilloried Courtney Love in interoffice email at one time because someone was sending around her piece about the evils of the music industry, which I immediately recognized as something that was cribbed, in spots verbatim, from something Steve Albini wrote for Maximum Rock 'n Roll back in the mid-90s. Okay, so she's a thief - anyone who heard "Live Through This" can tell she stole liberally from the work of her husband. But she's far worse than that.
Check out: http://www.cobaincase.com/events.htm
This is the best site on the topic, written by a detective that Love herself hired to look for Cobain when he jumped ship at the rehab clinic. There are other sites which deal with Cobain's death as well, some of which wander, frankly, into the realm of JFK-esque conspiracy theory which always tend to confuse the issue and actually to hinder serious investigation of questionable cases. But Tom Grant's reasoning is entirely sound, and Cobain's case, in addition to these others mentioned also connected to Love and her guitar-slinging, drug-toting goon squad, deserve re-examination by regular law enforcement.
My heart just sank as I read this stuff - there are so many people involved in the case that I either met or knew, beginning with Cobain himself. I had no idea Kat Bjellund was riding around with Courtney the day after Kurt was found dead. Kat was a friend - I wrote my song "Lunchbox" for her. (We had identical metal lunchboxes, one night they got switched; the song is about the trouble I had returning Kat's to her before she left on the next leg of that Babes tour). Being with Courtney at that time does not show good judgement on Kat's part - and their relationship has hardly been friendly since, nor was it before - why was she there?
El Duce I never met, but my friend Ted Rosenthal was drinking buddies with El Duce. Ted thought El Duce was a riot - El Duce was proud that his song "Anal Vapors" was considered so offensive that Al and Tipper Gore read it to Congress at the PMRC hearings. I'm sorry, but a big, ugly guy like El Duce doesn't wander drunk out onto the railroad tracks and get hit by a train. Yet according to the police that's the way it came off. I was saddened - I'd had no idea he'd died.
I can tell why the police don't want to investigate these crimes: embarassment at having handled the cases poorly in the first place, and besides - what does a cop care about these people? Two junkie rock stars, a drunken rock star who was a self-admitted sexual pervert and a DEA agent who had probably gone over to the other side. But add to that more than a 100 copycat suicides that have followed in the wake of the MTV fueled image of Kurt Cobain as a sad little crucified hippy rock Jesus man. When I think of this, I realize the smug sort of satisfaction Courtney Love must've felt while ranting and raving out the "suicide note" over the loudspeakers in Seattle - she was destroying the hopes of a generation with her angry words.
Make up your own mind about Courtney, but I agree with Tom Grant - she is a psychopathic criminal, a master manipulator of the media, and probably a mass-murderer. I don't know what, if anything, will get these cases re-opened, but we don't just "owe it to Kurt" to bring her to justice - she needs to be taken off the streets as a danger to society itself. Then she can make her records in prison, like Charlie Manson does.
Uncle Dave Lewis
Hey! No kidding- the cat ran across my keyboard and wrote this:
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