This week marked the 17th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s passing, or as I would like to call it, the 17th anniversary of the day one Seattle musician went from man to mythical grunge-god. How it all happened will not be discussed, but the legend behind Kurt Cobain’s influence is indisputable.

Whether or not his musical prevalence over the last decade and a half was escalated due to his life becoming legendary I cannot completely attest to. What can be noted is the undeniable hand Nirvana’s final studio recordings have had in the effect and outcome of music over the span of years since Cobain’s death.

In the fall of 1993 Cobain released In Utero with Nirvana bandmates, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoslic, and had he stuck around Kurt would be watching the record count down its last few months as a minor — playing on into its 18th year.

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“You’re bad now but you were eating an ice cream cone and I saw you. That’s the shit you can’t hide! Ice cream eating motherfucker. That’s what you are.”

At my first real punk show in the summer of 1991, Fugazi leveled me. I’d never seen a band so intense; so fucking aggressive and massive sounding…but without being macho or even “heavy.” Their careening, dynamic songs blew my little punk rock mind as did the locked-on musicianship and frenetic movements that defined their live shows. And the fact that they’d just called about 50 tough-guy skinheads (who were punchmoshing away everyone’s good time) “ice cream eating motherfuckers” was one of the most audacious and hilarious things I’d ever seen a band do in a live setting. The next day I bought 13 Songs, Repeater +3 Songs, and Steady Diet Of Nothing. I loved (and still love) all of those records, but I felt like none of them quite captured what I’d witnessed.

I saw Fugazi play as much as possible, and growing up outside of Washington, DC meant that I was able to see them a lot. Their shows were always incendiary. I saw them a few more times before In On The Kill Taker came out, and I started recognizing songs that weren’t on the records I already owned. These songs expertly realized every element I loved (and still love) about great punk rock: Driving, punctuated rhythms; howling incandescent melodies, and vocals that immediately communicate the singer’s urgent need to GET THIS SHIT OUT – but executed in a way I just couldn’t fathom back then. I asked the owner of my local record store to find the release date for the next Fugazi record. He did and I was there as soon as I got off of work that day. I bought the record and listened to it non-stop for weeks.

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Judas Priest’s 1979 live album, Unleashed In The East, was their KISS Alive! Like Kiss, their studio recordings hadn’t come close to matching the band’s live ferocity and, also like Kiss, they remedied the situation by releasing a live album that seemed to have been mostly re-dubbed in the studio.

I have no idea how that approach worked, but it worked like a motherfucker. Originals like “Sinner,” “Ripper,” and “Victim Of Changes” that came off timid in their original form just about rip your head off here. Most impressive is the 1-2 punch of their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)” followed by a tender, heartfelt and tremendously ballsy version of hippie Joan Baez’s “Diamonds And Rust.” Rob Halford’s vocals on both tracks are stunning, but equally jaw-dropping are the lead guitars of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. From the alternating solos on “Green Manalishi” to the lead answering Halford’s vocals on the bridge and final verse of “Diamonds And Rust,” this is some of the best metal guitar playing ever put to tape. But it’s almost pointless to single out the best moments; the whole album absolutely smokes.

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I’m very excited for this next chapter of the Record (Re)Collection. David “Space Beaver” Guillas, guitarist for Propagandhi, talks about Nomeansno’s 0+2=1 a. Propagandhi’s new record Supporting Caste hits the stores on March 10th. Any self-respecting punk rocker already has the date marked down, I’m sure. Enjoy the read.

I was born in 1979, which means I was a rambunctious pre-pube teenager when all those melodic “punk” bands exploded out of California in the early-to-mid ’90s. To my puny, undeveloped brain these bands were the shit–I could not get enough. But as a year or two passed I started to feel like that scene was getting stale. I yearned for music from bands that progressed–that didn’t stagnate in order to accommodate a temporary craze fueled by dollar bills. Just when it seemed that punk music had nothing left to offer, a friend introduced me to Nomeansno–more specifically to their album from 1991 0+2=1. The fire was rekindled.

Read more after the jump.

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I was reading Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad and I came to The Minutemen chapter. They’re a fantastic band and the title of the book even comes from one of their songs of all things. You’d be surprised at how big an influence the band have had on indie music, probably just as much, if not more so, than other “big” independent underground bands.

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