Here we are, now entertain us – Live at Reading

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It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss with all these marbles in my mouth

Nirvana – Aneurysm (Live at Reading, 1992)

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Live at Reading, ’92)

Nirvana – The Money Will Roll Right In (Fang cover; Live at Reading)

Though as a tweeny teen, they used to be my favoritest band ever (ever [ever]), as an adult I’ve always been reluctant to canonize Nirvana (having felt tentative about Nevermind’s top-heaviness and beige-at-best production job) as the greatest thing since sliced Bread *. From an objective perspective, it always seemed that their deification was a product of album sales and the mythology bred, often consciously, by Cobain’s Algeresque career trajectory, his tortured relationship with the feeding hand of the mainstream, and his lifelong tendency towards self-termination. But there’s no denying that the man could write awesome oddball pop songs; for the record, In Utero is still one of the most morbidly fascinating artistic statements ever released on a major label (for me, second only to Alvin and the Chipmunks versus the Vietnam War, which’ll always be number one on my list of all-time top ten fucks ever fucked).

Anyways, apparently – perhaps in response to the Guitar Hero avatar, the corporate-cash-in major label box set, the Foo Fighting, and the brutally efficient one-woman credibility assassin known only as Courtney X – it’s time to ornament the myth in favor of the band. Last month saw the hotly anticipated release of Live at Reading, Nirvana’s legendary/furious/hilarious headlining appearance at Reading Fest ’92 – one of Cobain’s first gigs as both a rehab outpatient and a father of one. Put on your favorite flannel, find your mainline, and fire up your trusty, rusty internet tubes to check this out – in which, following some Sasquatch-speak from Krist Novoselic, Cobain is wheeled up to his microphone in an infirmary gown and a blonde wig, makes a scene of getting up and feebly singing “sssssome ssssay / llllaaaooove is a riiiiverrr,” and then collapses to the floor, “dead” in front of 50,000 hungry lobsterbacks (oh, how they adore their colonist rock). Those lyrics are from a Bette Midler song, “The Rose,” from a movie of the same name in which the main character, a singer, ends the film by kicking the bucket, onstage, veins constricted by the lethal combination of uppers, downers, smack, coke, and irony in her bloodstream**. Don’t worry, though, because unlike Bette, Cobain gets up. Eventually.

* DOUBTFUL given the ample evidence found here

** Want more? “The Money Will Roll Right In” is a cover of a song by 80s punkers Fang, whose singer, Sam McBride, was convicted and incarcerated for killing his wife in 1989 – crazy synchronicity given the whole Courtney-killed-Kurt diametric that I’m NOT EVEN GOING TO TALK ABOUT CREDIBLY but still enjoy thinking about, especially as an idea that reflects the amount of distrust and paranoia and establishment-revulsion that Cobain embodied for a whole generation of kids who would’ve had to pledge allegiance to Pearl Jam if he wasn’t around.