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David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • shoomonfoo

    Reminds me of a short story in Jean Toomer’s Cane.

  • ChickieD

    When Kurt Cobain ODed, the media were all, “The voice of a generation is dead. The Gen Xers are weeping tears like our parents shed when John Lennon was murdered,” and I was all “Kurt who?” But now as a Gen Xer I have dabbled in Nirvana and I have to say, DAMN YOU KURT COBAIN FOR FUCKING KILLING YOURSELF WITH THAT CRAP! You were our only hope!! I love you man! I love you!! Happy birthday. (sheds tear like when John Lennon was murdered)

    • Wisconsin Platt

      Just for accuracy, he OD’d on a shotgun.

      I will say, its one of those “I remember where I was moments…” (On a bus somewhere between TX and MS, heard it on a radio station I was listening to on my Walkman)

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-Lee/100001074475538 Christopher Lee

         To be completely fair, there isn’t really, like, a recommended daily allowance for shotguns.

        • ChickieD

          LOL. I seriously thought he ODed on heroin. I guess I am not a true fan. But I still love that guy.

          • ImmutableMichael

            Confusion understandable.  From memory he’d had some sort of OD a few months before he died.

          • Cornan_KotW

             For quite a while the safe assumption was that Kurt was extremely high when he decided to kill himself. Rumors abound though so who freakin’ knows.

    • Katey Corrigan

       This makes me feel so much better about my I Dream of Genie gaffe the other day…

  • Benjamin Palmer

    I love the Nirvana Unplugged session so very much. So did our music/chorus teacher in my school, she’d play it very often. Many times that would be all we would do for the day in class, watch that from start to finish, move on to the next period. 

    • ocker3

      Hey, she was educating you about important music

  • http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

    The Unplugged years were dark times indeed

  • xzzy

    I want to thank him for ushering 80′s music out of the building. 

    I do wonder what the 90′s would have been like without Nirvana.. I’m sure “alternative” music would have still thrived in some form, but it’s hard to argue that Nirvana really kicked the whole thing off. My favorite thing to point out is the style of songs that won MTV awards.. the change in character from 1991 to 1993 is pretty staggering.

    • ChickieD

      I was so SICK of the same old standards by then. I found a station that played Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana and such and even though I couldn’t understand a single word anyone was singing, I listened until I liked it because I wanted something new so badly.

  • http://twitter.com/MadelineAshby Madeline Ashby

    My first ever published short story (that Cory bought, for an anthology) featured this song. Loved it then. Love it now.

  • JoshP

    He was an angel…  Seeing them perform was more life changing than having my first dial-up.

  • DJBudSonic

    Watch the entire show and rejoice in the appearance of the mighty Meat Puppets, without whom, Kurt said, Nirvana would not have existed.  The listen to some more Meat Puppets and hear why he said that.

    • Jack_Walker

      Love the Meat Puppets. We got so much shit for liking them in the early ’80′s — the weren’t hard enough. We saw an epic show in Charlottesville in the mid ’80′s. Meat Puppets II is great, Meat Puppets I is very good indeed, and Confusion Fog from Mirage is just a great great great song.

    • elusis

       Thanks for reminding me of that – it’s been a long while since I watched that show and now I’m dying to do so again.  LOVED the Meat Puppets and their appearance.

  • spejic

    Maybe Cobain’s fatal search for The Real might have been soothed if he knew that Lead Belly was a fake.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1177098042 Erik Denning

      Most historians agree Lead Belly existed.

  • http://www.peterbagge.com/ Buddy Bradley

    It’s a damn good cover, no question.

    I can see how punk rock types would be attracted to Lead Belly. Not just because of his story as a con (or rather, murderer) but because he sounds total bad-ass. I’ve always thought “Rock Island Line” is really proto-punk
    http://youtu.be/7iJEVOUqepo

  • http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford

    Way to rock the turtleneck, Dave.  I remember watching this in awe the first time it aired, in my dorm room.  Good grief I am getting old. 

    • elusis

      You shut up, because I watched it in my dorm too.

  • Slartibartfatsdomino

    I was into much more political/hardcore punk back in the day and generally scoffed at Nirvana (and remain somewhat annoyed at the disproportionate attention they got when there were/are lots of great bands getting largely ignored), but I remember the first time I heard this it gave me chills and allowed me to like Nirvana a little more, although they still haven’t ever cracked my top ten, or even 20.  

  • Cornan_KotW

    This particular performance was what made a 15 year old me want to learn to play guitar. The entire Unplugged set was amazing but this specific song hit me deep in the feels.