Kurt Cobain died!

I think it was a Saturday afternoon in April 1994 and I decided to head into the city and just check out the sights, maybe go to the mall and just wander. I liked to do that when I was young and still do very much to this day, just wander, get lost for a little while, discover, do some people watching, take in the city and its sounds, its smells, its people. And I don’t mind doing it alone either.  And that is what I was doing on this particular day, heading into Central, Hong Kong alone on the 6a bus from the bustling Stanley Village on the southside of Hong Kong Island to the metropolis of the city and its many skyscrapers, hotels, apartment buildings, vibrant neon street signs and people, LOTS of people…. 

 I put my money, some loose change into the bus driver’s cash slot to pay for my fare, it was definitely not the correct fare amount, I usually just threw a whole load of random pennies and change (making it seem like a lot more than it was) and hope that the bus driver wouldn’t realise I hadn’t paid the right amount. And usually they didn’t realise or at least they never said anything. The 6a was relatively quiet today and I headed up to the top of the double decker bus and to the back of the bus and sat down. I went to get out my yellow Sony Walkman and listen to music at full blast, I was listening to my cassette tape of Nirvana’s Never Mind, one of my very favourite music albums. I noticed there was a newspaper in the seat in front of me, that day’s South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s biggest newspaper. I picked it up and started to look at the front page and I saw the headline “Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain DEAD…” 

 I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading, this was the first time I had really felt this kind of emotion when hearing of someone famous dying, especially someone like Kurt Cobain who was so young, who apparently had the world at his feet and whose art and music had meant a lot to me so far in my young life, it was quite surreal, really. I started to look at the liner notes/booklet of my Never Mind album cassette tape and I just started to listen to the album start to finish, though I do remember starting on the song Drain You (track number 8 on the album) first and I just listened to the album full blast and was staring at Kurt Cobain’s face in the pictures and looking at the headline in the South China Morning Post and I just went a little numb for a while, staring into his eyes, daydreaming and just wondering, thinking what could’ve been going on in this man’s mind and life. Sad, just sad…. 

 Needless to say Kurt Cobain and Nirvana’s music will always be a huge part of my life and my life’s soundtrack...

ps; I just re-created that same moment just now upon the date of publishing this post (Tuesday 8th December 2020, the 40th anniversary of the day John Lennon was murdered), listening to "Drain You" (posted below) and looking at the very same image below, I was back there on the 6a bus in Hong Kong 26 years ago once more and I felt it again, deeply....
 

When I was a wannabee teen rock star

Me (in early 1994), as a 13 year old wannabee teen rock star Greig "Axl" Stott in Hong Kong​ being interviewed (with an American accent) in a short mocumentary I made with some of my old band mates and childhood friends.


ME: "Mick Wall, right.  He BLETHERS a lotta shit about us in Kerrang!​  You ever read it!?"

Paul MacDonald​ (interviewer): "No. I haven't..."

ME: "It's a really CRAP magazine.  Mick Wall, he's always talkin' bout Metallica​ being the best and Guns N' Roses being the real crap, y'know?" (in this instance, I dropped my right arm down to the ground, as if to illustrate how lowly Mick Wall ranked the band...)


There was no real script as such, I had an idea of what I wanted everyone to do, but I wanted it all to come across as natural, as if we were right there in the moment being interviewed, not knowing what questions were coming our way.  It was all improvised - I thought it worked and it was hilarious and amazing fun, we couldn't stop laughing watching it back over and over again.

This was all shot on my family's first ever HI-8 camcorder and I just loved carrying it around with me, capturing memories, sometimes to the annoyance of others, but it is what I just loved to do.

Me in Hong Kong as a 13 year old

The old VHS of this, I did have it and (touch wood) I pray that it is not lost forever and it turns up again one day (it's my own fault if I have lost it).  I do remember that I had it in my VHS/DVD combi in my parents' caravan, that was the last I remember of seeing it, just over 3 years ago.  I do wish we still had all the master tapes, but sadly we tended to record over the master tapes each time we used them again (I know, I know...), be it on a family trip or event etc...

Stanely Fort - family apartment blocks.  We lived on upper level, the smaller 3rd block from left

Though I have memorised the interviews, word for word!  I will maybe write down a wee transcript (while it is still etched in the brain), just so I have the memoirs at least.  The video featured the interviews, out takes and also us performing/miming a live version of the Guns N' Roses song "Don't Cry" in one of the play parks in our old stomping ground of Stanely Fort, Hong Kong - a military base where we lived on the south side of Hong Kong Island.

We even had some extras in the background, with two of our girl friends standing up beside a lamp post, lit up by the beam, as if they were ladies of the night.

Memories - perhaps the greatest gift that one person can give to another.

Thanks to all those involved on this particular evening including;

• Kevin Stott (would be dancing drummer, "Matt")
• Gary Keith (Guitar, "Slash")
• Scott Cameron (Guitar, "Gilby")
• Paul Laing (would be acoustic guitarist/bass, "Duff")
• Andrew Waddell (steady cameraman)
• Paul MacDonald (Interviewer)
• Ashley Stephen and Kelly Laing (our "bitches" and ladies of the night)

Will share many more memories real soon....


**By the way, Stanley Fort is also where they filmed scenes from the Jean Claude Van Damme classic Bloodsport (1987) and popular British TV drama Soldier Soldier Season 2 (1992) among others.

Military and training sequences were filmed for Bloodsport at Stanely Fort (1987).