"In Utero," or: What Motivated Me to Actually Play My Damn Guitar

I love Nirvana.

Although I may go through times where Kurt Cobain's trashy guitar just isn't exactly what I had in mind, or Krist Novoselic's loose and thumpy bass sound doesn't wet my whistle, you'll never hear me say that I dislike Nirvana. You might hear me criticize some of the songs from "Nevermind," the album that everyone and their brother has owned at some point in their life, but I chalk that up to how I came into listening to Nirvana.

Sometime in my sophomore year in high school, I came across an article on the band, and specifically their third and final album, "In Utero." Obviously I was familiar with the name of the band and had heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit," more times than I could count, but something about this article peaked my interest in the band. It wasn't until one day that summer, spending the afternoon watching TV at my grandparent's house, that I came across a "Loaded" episode of Nirvana, which was one of the programs on the Fuse network that would run half - hour blocks of a single artist's music videos. I came into it just as the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit," was ending and I contemplated changing the channel, but thankfully I decided to expose myself to something unfamiliar. 

And I'm glad I did.

"Heart-Shaped Box" was the next video up on the list, and from the first few seconds I was captivated. The video alone was so bizarre and outlandish, even more so than the Slipknot videos I had been hooked on since freshman year. But even more bizarre than the video was the song itself. It starts out with a quiet riff on the guitar, which didn't hold my attention at first, but the last little chord Cobain plays was so deep, somewhat unpleasant sounding, but more than anything else,...

Unique.

That night I convinced my mom to drive me to Best Buy so I could spend what little money I had on a copy of "In Utero," and waited until the bus ride to school to dig in, and from the opening chord of the opening track "Serve the Servants," I knew that my musical taste would never be the same. The entire song structure was so strange to me at the time (most of the song revolves around a bluesy sounding chord progression consisting of nothing but dominant 7 chords, making it sound like a heroin-fueled Hendrix jam), and still amazes me to this day. 

Towards the end of the summer, when my family went down to Wildwood, NJ like we did every year, I visited the same music store where I bought my first guitar (Mr. J's Music Shop in Cape May, NJ), and found a copy of the "In Utero" tablature book. Although some of those tabs were waaaaaaaaaaay off, I spent the last few months of 2007, and the first few of 2008 studying that book, eventually teaching myself how to play "Serve the Servants," which I proudly half - assed each and every time I visited my local Guitar Center.

My whole experience with Nirvana is one of the reasons I came up with the idea to focus on music with my blog. I find it remarkable that something as stupid as a three and a half minute song can change the way we not only think, but live, and that something so small can shape our personalities in such under-appreciated ways.

Here's to Memories,

Dan