In some ways, you gotta respect Courtney Love for her outright bitchiness and defiance of convention (or common sense). I mean, she set out to become a famous “rockstar” and actually made it happen, despite the fact that she stepped on or bit off of plenty of more talented people along the way (Rozz Rezabak, Julian Cope, Jennifer Finch, Billy Corgan, obviously Kurt Cobain, the list goes on).
Love started Hole with the intentions of creating gusty grrrl rock. After a turbulent and troublesome childhood and a few transitory teenage/early-20s years involving herself in music scenes (by proxy) and also attempting to make it as an actress (she played a small role in Sid and Nancy), she moved to the West Coast and set her sights on situating herself in the underground music scene. Though Hole’s debut album, Pretty On The Inside, was well received in 1991, it was only after her romance with and eventual marriage to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain that Love and Hole received significant media attention.
With Cobain's help/influence, Hole's second LP, Live Through This, released in the pivotal year of 1994 (just four days after Cobain’s body was discovered in Seattle), proved to be an album with serious teeth. Feminine symbolism (flowers, babies, milk) juxtaposes gritty grunge-punk riffs and combative vocals (especially on “Gutless!”), which exude a masculine sense of power, sexuality, and confidence along with a feminist fuck-you attitude. Truly a triumph for Love and an inspiration to all real grrrls; the record to date has achieved worldwide double platinum status (having sold 2 millions copies).
My pal, Skater Bob, and I met on St Marks Place when St Marks was rad. Well, in all honesty, I missed out on the true radness of the artsy punk rock East Village era, but this meeting took place four years ago, and St Marks was a hell of a lot radder then than it is now.
Read more: No Alternative: NYC's Passion for the Garbage Cans
Alternative Amy here to introduce you to my column. I'll be ranting and raving and loving and listing all over this spot, so be sure to check it every week.For my first installment, I've decided to comment on concert etiquette.
Going absolutely bat-shit-crazy for the band/music is all well and good (actually, this is what you're supposed to be doing), but some people nowadays are ignorant in terms of their own behavior. The point of seeing a band is to have yourself a little moment, whether it's personal and emotional, or raucous and high-energy, and it's also to enjoy the communal experience of sharing this music with others who love it. In the past few years, I've been all-too-often surrounded by jerks who fail to obey simple rules of etiquette that I assumed were common concert-goer knowledge. Maybe people just don't attend many shows, and they're only interested in listening to the latest iTunes downloads on their pods. Maybe the loss of smaller venues and the popularity of big-budget stadium shows have caused fans to treat concerts like football games. Maybe people use concerts now as excuses to get drunk and lay-back, or get drunk and let out what I like to call male aggression. Maybe they feel more distanced from the music, or from the scene in which it exists, and since they don't seek out smaller shows, or feel connected to other fans, concerts become few and far between. Whatever the reason, everyone knows the notorious" Don't be that guy!" rule, as in, "don't wear the band's T-shirt," but there are plenty of more important, unwritten rules that ought to be followed:
