A couple of weeks after Kurt Cobain topped himself, on a regular Tuesday morning, I was going about my business in the record shop i managed in Aberdeen. Next thing a couple of geezers came in, a journo and photographer. They explained they were doing a feature for Select magazine (serious rock mag a la Mojo or Q) on the recent demise of the aforementioned KC.
As Nirvana came from a small town near Seattle called Aberdeen the idea of the piece was to get vox pops from punters in the American Aberdeen and the Scottish one with individual reactions to the sad news and asked if I would mind if they hung around the shop to talk to the customers.
No problem, except at 9,30 on a tuesday morning there was no-one about so after half an hour they got bored and did me instead. I was a bit gumpy as per usual in the morning so reeled of some flippant comment about KC being a bit of a twat who bough the whole rock'n'roll death trip blah blah. Photo taken and off they went.
Next month in Select theres the article with my pic and sarcy comment. Within hours the phone in the shop is going mad with angst ridden Nirvana fans offering death threats and the like to yours truly and the shop window is full of spotty faces with greasy hair ponting in at me going 'thats him..'. A couple of them started following me home so I had to do a detour through a few gardens to shake them off. I was also a club dj at the time, and fairly well known locally, so I had grand delusions of being assasinated in mid backspin on the decks, I was more concerned about which record i'd be playing as the shots rang out - it would have had to be something obscure and cool.
The spooky thing was on the next page of the article theres a Nirvana pic and the bass player, Kris Nobolisk or something, is my double! (except I'm slightly better looking). Needless to say for the next couple of months we didn't sell much Nirvana and other grunge type stuff as the pimply punkers gave the shop a wide berth.
And thats my Kurt Cobain story.
