Load up on guns and bring your friends. On Oct. 1, as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, a rotating cast of local and national celebrities, including members of Fucked Up, Tokyo Police Club and The Flatliners, will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, by playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" 144 consecutive times.
The event, titled "A Brief History of Rebellion," will take place at the Toronto Underground Cinema and will invite audience participation: Kurt, Layne and Eddie wannabes who fill out a signup sheet will be able to join in. We're a little scared to even write this piece — has the statute of limitations on Kurt Cobain jokes expired yet? If Republican presidential long shot Jon Huntsman can get himself into an electoral jam just by saying his name aloud in a debate, how bad will this get for us?
Commenters over at Exclaim don't seem particularly pleased. One anonymous Negative Nancy calls it "stunt art," and another points out it'll get boring pretty fast, but it seems pretty obvious to us that the point of repeating this already-repetitive song so many times is to allow the maximum number of passers-by to witness it over the course of the night. Surely, nobody would actually stand there and listen to "Teen Spirit" 144 times; doing so would almost certainly result in your wanting to… uh, you know what, nevermind.
In honor of this somewhat dubious occasion, here's one hundred and forty-four fun facts about the song.
1. The title of the song was the result of a misunderstanding. At the time of the song's writing, Kurt was dating (though really, if you read between the biographical lines, trying to date seems like the more accurate characterization) Tobi Vail, member of riot grrrl (read: feminist punk rock) pioneers Bikini Kill. In the midst of what one can only imagine to have been a truly insufferable conversation about anarcho-punk ideology, Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna spray painted "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on his wall. Cobain thought it was a political statement; what she meant, apparently, was that Kurt smelled like Tobi's deodorant because they were sleeping together. Postmodern!
2. Kurt wanted "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to sound like the Pixies. Make of this what you will. The loud-quiet-loud dynamic and minimalist soloing of songs like "Monkey's Gone to Heaven," we suppose? The similarity between the videos for "Monkey" and "Teen Spirit" is interesting too; notice that in both videos the band isn't actually playing the song.
3. The lyrics probably mean bupkis. Cobain's lyrical "style" was notoriously scattershot, relying on self-contradiction and abrupt non-sequitur to shock the audience into paying attention. He'd eventually chalk this space cadet mentality up to reading William S. Burroughs (also famous for his love of opiates), leading to maniacally nonsensical collaborations like this one. According to Dave Grohl, though, Kurt would often write lyrics minutes before doing his vocal takes. Postmodern!
4. The song bears more than a passing resemblance to Boston's "More Than a Feeling," and it doesn't really matter. Some people are pretty obsessed with reminding you of rock n' roll's derivative nature. Remember when people got upset at The Red Hot Chili Peppers for using a Tom Petty riff in "Dani California," and Tom Petty was all like, "C'mon, guys, I'm really busy sleeping on a bed of money over here, leave me alone?" This is one of those.
A Brief History of Rebellion, Toronto Underground Cinema, Oct. 1
