Kurt Cobain Biografi

Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

As the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain's musical success began in his twenties and was heightened when he formed the band Nirvana. Hits such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Heart Shaped Box" helped the group achieve international success.Cobain was born in Aberdeen, WA. Hyperactive as a youngster, he was given Ritalin to help him concentrate in school and sedatives to help him sleep at night. At the age of seven, his parents got divorced. He became so difficult to live with that his parents sent him to live with relatives. This period in his life is reflected in songs such as "Sliver." With a dislike for school, Cobain spent his time painting and singing. He listened to the Beatles and the Monkees, but changed to bands such as Kiss, Black Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash in 1979. On his 14th birthday, Cobain bought his first guitar and started experimenting with different musical styles. He also was a roadie for a Seattle group called the Melvins. He dropped out of high school a few weeks before graduation to get a job, but his efforts were unsuccessful because he couldn't hold a job for very long.In 1986 the group Nirvana was formed with Cobain on vocals and guitar, Krist Novaselic on bass guitar, and various drummers. Their first album, Bleach, was released in 1989. They toured the U.S. and had their first international concert in Newcastle, England. Their second single was unsuccessful, so they changed record companies. After signing with Geffen Records in 1991, and adding permanent drummer Dave Grohl, they produced their second album, Nevermind, which received rave reviews with the hits "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium." Their popularity grew after the group made appearances on MTV's Headbanger's Ball and NBC's Saturday Night Live. The success of the band was intimidating to Cobain, who liked the intimate setting of nightclubs; it was the money that guided them to do concerts and shows in the rock arena. It was in the early '90s that Cobain began doing heavy drugs such as morphine and heroin, but in 1992 his personal life brightened as he married Courtney Love in Hawaii, and their union brought a daughter, Frances Bean. With a wife and daughter, Cobain calmed a bit, and the group released Incesticide.Things took a turn for the worse in 1993 when Cobain overdosed on heroin. After seeking rehabilitation for a time in a center, he left without completing the program. During this time the band played on. In 1993 they released In Utero, their last studio-recorded album. Nirvana played an MTV unplugged concert and a concert in Munich in 1994. One week after the concert in Munich, Kurt Cobain was hospitalized in a coma. After waking up and leaving voluntarily, he was reported missing and was found three days later in his house, dead of a gunshot wound. As a rock legend, Cobain reached a demise similar to that of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. The songs and albums of Cobain and Nirvana continue to influence and encourage many young musicians.

Chris Cornell Biografi

Chris Cornell (Soundgarden)

Originally finding success as the singer/frontman of Seattle's Soundgarden, Chris Cornell also forged a successful solo career after the band's 1997 demise. Born in Seattle on July 20, 1964, Cornell's music career didn't take shape until he was a teenager, playing drums in bands that mixed punk/new wave (the Police) and metal (AC/DC) covers. Although he spent most of his teenage years withdrawn and as a loner, rock music helped Cornell overcome his uneasiness around others. After dropping out of high school and working as a cook, Cornell formed a band that, with a few lineup changes, would become the great and influential Soundgarden by the mid-'80s. Cornell switched to vocals around the time of the band's formation, with friend Hiro Yamamoto on bass, Kim Thayil on guitar, and eventually, Matt Cameron on drums. Along with the Melvins, Soundgarden was one of the first rock bands to slow down punk's youthful energy to a Black Sabbath-like crawl. First issuing a few releases on independent labels (Sub Pop's Screaming Life and Fopp EPs, SST's Ultramega OK), Soundgarden was one of the first bands of the late-'80s Seattle underground to sign with a major label, A&M, which issued Louder Than Love in 1989. After the album's release, however, Yamamoto left and was first replaced by ex-Nirvana member Jason Everman, and eventually permanently by Ben Shepherd. With Soundgarden's quintessential lineup in place, the band rightfully became one of rock's most popular bands on the strength of such albums as 1991's Badmotorfinger, 1994's Superunknown, and 1996's Down on the Upside. With each album, Cornell's singing grew stronger and stronger and farther away from the heavy metal screaming of the band's early work and more toward a true singing style. Cornell also showed a great talent for lyric-writing; while his lyrics wouldn't make sense if read without the music, they evoked all kinds of images when he put the two together. Besides Cornell's vast talents displayed with Soundgarden, he organized a tribute for late Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood in the form of 1990's Temple of the Dog project, which was far more stripped-down. Cornell's first officially released solo composition, the acoustic "Seasons," was the highlight of the 1992 motion picture soundtrack Singles. His bluesy voice also worked amazingly well on a superb cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" on the 1993 Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix compilation (under the pseudonym MACC). He also found time to pen songs for other acts, such as Flotsam & Jetsam and Alice Cooper, as well as producing the Screaming Trees' 1991 release Uncle Anesthesia. After Soundgarden's demise in April of 1997, Cornell slowly but surely began to put a solo album together with his friends from the band Eleven. Finally issued in 1999, Euphoria Morning was a departure from his former band's sound, as it was in a more singer/songwriter mold, which focused more on Cornell's vocals and lyrics than meaty guitar riffs. Shortly after its release, Cornell launched his first solo tour, mixing songs from all eras of his career. After wrapping up the aforementioned tour in early 2000, a tepid remix of the Euphoria Morning track "Mission" (retitled "Mission 2000") was included on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack. It appeared as though Cornell would take a break from music for a while, as his wife gave birth to the couple's first child in June of the same year, but by late 2000, Cornell found himself involved in a project that promised to be a classic hard rock collaboration. Rage Against the Machine decided not to break up after longtime vocalist Zack de la Rocha left the band that winter, but rather they would find another singer and carry on under a different name. Cornell accepted an invitation to jam and pen a few songs (which former Rage guitarist Tom Morello described as "really groundbreaking") and, shortly thereafter, officially joined forces with the former Rage members under the moniker Audioslave. Produced by Rick Rubin, the band's self-titled debut arrived in November 2002 and went multi-platinum. The follow-up, 2005's Out of Exile, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and was followed by the platinum-selling Revelations in 2006. Cornell left the band that same year, citing the usual "irreconcilable differences," and began work on his second solo record, 2007's Carry On, a topical, biographical, and musically confused whirlwind featuring a cover version of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" and "You Know My Name" from the Bond movie Casino Royale.

Eddie Vedder Biografi

Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)

Along with Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder reluctantly became a celebrity and an alt-rock spokesman when his band, Pearl Jam, hit the big time in the early '90s. But things didn't come easy for Vedder. With a tumultuous home life as a youngster, he turned to surfing and rock music as a teenager — most notably such classic rockers as the Who, Neil Young, and the Doors, as well as such punk bands as the Clash and Minor Threat. His residence alternated between Chicago and San Diego, as he formed his first real band in his twenties, Bad Radio. With the band not breaking out of local status, Vedder befriended ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, who in turn gave Eddie a demo tape some of his friends had given him (in hopes of finding a singer). Vedder quickly put lyrics and vocals to the tape, and mailed it back to Seattle (it turned out the band consisted of ex-members of the Seattle-based Mother Love Bone, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament).Gossard and Ament were floored with the results, immediately inviting Vedder up to Seattle, where he soon landed the gig. Shortly after lead guitarist Mike McCready joined the band (plus a revolving door of assorted drummers), the band signed with Epic Records. Originally called Mookie Blaylock, the group changed its name to Pearl Jam, and their debut, Ten, followed in the fall of 1991. With the Seattle scene (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, et al.) exploding on the charts, airwaves, and media, Pearl Jam picked the perfect time to issue their debut, which eventually outsold all other Seattle bands, and made Pearl Jam one of the biggest groups of the '90s (other hit albums followed: Vs., Vitalogy, No Code, Yield, and Binaural).Vedder also became involved in numerous politically charged causes — his band took Ticketmaster to court over high ticket prices, and he supported presidential candidate Ralph Nader, environmental causes, and his pro-choice stance. He also made special appearances at numerous concerts of bands he admirers (Bob Dylan's 50th B-day bash at Madison Square Garden, the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Who/Pete Townshend gigs, etc.), and played drums at live shows with the band Hovercraft (his wife's band). With his hard-hitting and often confessional lyrical style and Jim Morrison-esque baritone, Vedder also became one of the most copied lead singers in all of rock. Despite all the accolades, it wasn't until 2007 that Vedder released his first solo album, Into the Wild, the soundtrack to the Sean Penn film of the same time.

Layne Staley Biografi

Layne Staley (Alice In Chains)

Few rock vocalists created such a dark and eerie body of work as Alice in Chains' Layne Staley. Born in Kirkland, WA, on August 22, 1967, Staley showed musical talent at an early age, and took up the drums. But upon joining garage bands and discovering rock music as a teenager (Black Sabbath, the Doors, etc.), Staley switched to singing. He met guitarist Jerry Cantrell shortly thereafter, and both formed a Van Halen/Guns N' Roses-esque glam metal band, Alice N' Chaynz (along with drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr). Taking a hint from fellow Seattle bands (Soundgarden, Melvins, Screaming Trees, etc.), the group rejected their early showy direction in favor of a more straight-ahead approach both musically and visually, and ultimately changed the spelling of their name to Alice in Chains. Staley was quickly creating an original vocal style — borrowing the creepiness of such metal vocalists as Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper, and merging it with the such classic rockers as Jim Morrison, as the group's sound slowed down to a Sabbath-like crawl. Signed to Columbia Records in the late '80s, AIC issued their first album, Facelift, in 1990. Hardcore touring built a fan base, but it wasn't until the summer of 1991 that the single/video "Man in the Box" became a hit and broke the band to the big-time. Further releases (the hard rock full-lengths Dirt and Alice in Chains, as well as the acoustic EPs Sap and Jar of Flies) garnered more attention and huge sales, solidifying the group as one of Seattle's finest and earning Staley the respect as one of rock's most original frontmen. Indeed, Staley's influence permeated much of the late-'90s alt metal landscape, as such singers as Scott Stapp (Creed), Travis Meeks (Days of the New), and Sully Erna (Godsmack), clearly contained elements of the Alice in Chains frontman's vocal style in their delivery.Despite all the success, things were going wrong behind the scenes. Rumors that Staley had developed into a hardcore drug user began spreading by the mid-'90s, and the speculation only grew louder when the band refused to mount any substantial tours after an appearance on Lollapalooza 1993. By the late '90s, the group was on hiatus, as a best of (Nothing Safe), a box set (Music Bank), and an in-concert set (Live) appeared, but no new album was planned. Staley had appeared as part of the one-off Seattle supergroup Mad Season (1995's Above), as well as on the motion picture soundtrack for The Faculty (a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall - Part 2").But the sporadic work eventually ground to a halt, as Staley seemed more interested in feeding his drug habit than pursuing music. His life took a turn for the worst in 1996 when his fiancée died from drugs, which friends say made the former Alice in Chains frontman blot out the pain with further drug abuse. During the last few years of his life, Staley rarely left his Seattle condominium, and refused to answer the door or phone when former bandmates or friends came around to check on the singer's condition (which had supposedly deteriorated to the point that he had lost most of his teeth and had abscesses all over his arms). Although it shouldn't have come as quite a surprise, the rock music world was shocked when Staley's dead body was found on a sofa in his condo, the victim of a lethal overdose of heroin and cocaine. Since the body had been in the apartment for two weeks and had begun to decompose, it was hard to determine at first the exact date of Staley's passing. Eventually, a date was determined, which proved to be eerie — April 5, 2002 — exactly eight years to the day that another leading figure of the early '90s Seattle rock scene also took his life, Kurt Cobain.

Grunge N' Criminal? Why?

Ada apa dengan Grunge?
Kenapa harus Criminal?
Kenapa?
Bingung deh?
Aduh, maksudnya apa sih?
Pasti penulisnya ganteng..
Bikin penasaran deh..
Gue milih mati daripada ga tau maksud Grunge & Criminal..!!!
dll.

Pertanyaan-pertanyaan seperti diatas pasti berkelebat secara liar di otak pembaca blog sampah ini. Pembaca pasti bertanya-tanya, kenapa penulis (Yzii OzoR@) harus menggunakan istilah 'Grunge' & 'Criminal'? apa tidak ada istilah yang lebih sopan lainnya? apa penulis adalah orang aneh yang gemar membaca novel fiksi karangan Tatang S? atau pelajar culun yang gemar menabung? Tenang saja pembaca, karena semua pertanyaan itu akan terjawab secara ekslusif, ekspansif dan eksploratif detik ini juga. Dijawab langsung & tuntas oleh penulis asli Sunda keturunan Skotlandia, Yzii Otto Sebastian Arthur OzoR@.

Apakah kalian tahu apa itu Grunge? Banyak yang mendefinisikan Grunge adalah sebuah aliran musik. Tapi sebagian lainnya mengatakan bahwa Grunge adalah gaya hidup. Mana yang benar, Only God Knows Why. Yang pasti, kepopuleran Grunge sesuai dengan teori Gunung Di Permukaan Laut yang diperkenalkan oleh ahli metafisika (Dukun) terkenal asal Zimbabwe bernama Joe Patutukupululubinulukuwarangkabay. Teori itu berbunyi : "ketenaran akan nampak dari ujung paling kecil namun runcing, yang terlihat di permukaan laut. Setelahnya barulah orang akan melihat kebawah, dan bagian lain yang lebih besar dari ujung runcing itu akan terekspos oleh masyarakat, walaupun ada di dalam laut" (Joe, 1671 : 388). Jika difreleksikan dengan dunia Grunge, ketenaran Grunge dimulai saat sebuah band asal Seattle bernama Nirvana meluncurkan album bertitel Nevermind. Itu adalah ujung runcingnya. Setelah itu, bagian besar di bawah laut ikut terekspos karena bantuan Nirvana. Bagian itu adalah grup-grup lain dari kota Seattle, seperti Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, dan Alice In Chains. Bahkan mereka semua dianggap sebagai Big Four of Grunge.

Lalu kenapa? Apa itu penting?
Ya, itu penting, karena berkat Nirvana, penulis jadi getol belajar gitar..
Semua dimulai saat penulis masih kelas 1 SMP. Saat itu Nirvana sedang nge-trend dengan lagu 'Smells Like Teen Spirits'. Karena pengen ikut ngeband dengan teman-teman sebaya, akhirnya penulis belajar main gitar, dan lagu pertama yang penulis pelajari dengan gitar adalah : Fade To Black (Metallica), lalu lagu kedua Don't Cry (Guns N' Roses).
Lalu Smells Like Teen Spirit yang keberapa? Itu adalah lagu ke .. duh lupa.. ke .. arrggh, keberapa ya? duh, lupa.. lupa.. SIALAN!!!
Well, yang pasti karena ga terlalu jago maen gitar (parah), akhirnya penulis memutuskan beralih ke drum. Tapi karena maen drum juga ga jago-jago banget (ancur), penulis jadi frustasi dan akhirnya penulis memutuskan mundur sementara dari dunia musik sambil mencoba belajar gitar lagi..
Uups, kenapa jadi bicarakan masa lalu penulis ya? Padahal itu kan privacy penulis. Pembaca sih mancing-mancing penulis tuk bercerita, jadi aja tulisannya jadi ngalor ngidul gini.. Yah, kita lanjut aja ke topik awal. Setuju? Bagus.

Jadi, penulis tuh dulu pernah suka sama temen SMP. Namanya, ada deh.. dia tu cantik. Tadinya sih yang suka ma tu cewe adalah sahabat penulis, tapi ga tau kenapa seiring berjalannya waktu, penulis jadi suka juga ma tu cewe. Nah, tau-taunya, tu cewe nembak penulis lewat surat (waktu tu masih jaman surat-suratan, maklum masih awal 1872-an lah). Nah, karena ga enak sama sahabat, akhirnya penulis tolak tu cewe. Ampe detik ini penulis masih menyesal ma keputusan itu.

Oke, udah jelas kan? Kalo ada pertanyaan, jangan sungkan-sungkan kirim surat dengan amplop tertutup ke alamat rumah penulis. Jangan lupa sertakan prangko balasan, karena mungkin saja suratmu akan dibalas secara langsung oleh penulis (bukan oleh manajer).

Jika ada kekhilafan dalam tulisan ini, penulis Mohon Mangap sebesar-besarnya.
Gud Bray..