Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “The 90’s Edition,” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore psychedelic tunes from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Hole, Violet. Album: Live Through This (1994)

When Live Through This was released in 1994 the music world was in mourning over the loss of Kurt Cobain who had just died and everyone was still reeling from the fact that the leader of the alt rock movement’s body was still warm in the ground. It was therefore not the greatest timing for Hole’s latest album to hit the shelves a mere four days after Cobain’s body was discovered, but the release couldn’t be avoided due to the slow turning wheels of the record label. Many associated the poor timing with their already skewed opinions against Courtney Love.

There were conspiracy theorists claiming Courtney Love may have masterminded her husbands death.

Sources close to Courtney say she strongly believed that Kurt was having an extramarital affair with Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff. During the last few days leading up to Kurts death she had been extremely paranoid about it after discovering Kurt purchased two airline tickets for himself and an unknown female companion.

Two months after her husband, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide, tragedy continues to cling to flamboyant Hole frontwoman Courtney Love. On June 16, Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff, 27, was found dead in the bathtub of her Seattle apartment, the apparent victim of a heroin overdose. ”This is all the more tragic because [Pfaff] was in the process of moving back to Minneapolis to be with old friends until the Hole tour resumed.”

Pfaff’s mother explained how her daughter took the death of Kurt Cobain extremely hard and she fell into a deep depressive state not leaving her room for weeks following. The details of Faffs’s death are very suspicious.

The police found drug paraphernalia in her apartment so officially her death was ruled an accidental overdose, but once again, things don’t exactly add up. First, Kristen had just completed drug rehab, wanted to start over and had decided to move to Minneapolis with Paul Erickson, Holes guitarist and Pfaff’s boyfriend; a packed Uhaul was even ready outside. She was fed up with Courtney Love and she wanted to leave Seattle’s drug scene, a very sane decision for an ex-heroin addict. But was it a relapse nevertheless?

Other quotes from Love to Pfaff such as ‘You fuck my guitar player, constantly make eyes at my husband and now you’re telling me how to sing. Just don’t fuck with me because you’ll regret it forever’, reveal a harsh tension between the two women.

After Kristen’s death, her mother discovered that pages out of her diary had been ripped out, and the pages missing were the ones corresponding to the week when Kurt Cobain was missing, just two months before her death. And to add to the story, Kurt and Kristen were very close friends and Kurt once said to Dylan Carlson ‘She’s a fucking talented musician, she’s also a beautiful soul. I think she’s so beautiful, but if I ever told her that, and Courtney found out, it would be hell’

Kristen’s autopsy was conveniently performed by Dr. Nicholas Hartshorne, Love’s long time friend, who had already done the autopsy on Kurt and had declared it was a ‘classic suicide’.

There is much more info circulating around websites and message boards about this very fishy story,… What did Erlandson exactly do this evening? Even more troubling, C. Love declared this to Rolling Stone in December 1994,: ‘I had to go over there and get Eric away from the body. Kristen had been his lover for a really long time. He’d already broken down the bathroom door after bathroom door for her.’ Why was she there with Erlandson if it was Paul Erickson who discovered Kristen’s body?

Despite her often turbulent marriage, conspiracy theories and criticism, what was undeniable was that Live Through This was a masterpiece. Melodic and tender; rocking and terrifying, it was a staggering statement in a decade of brilliant records and stands as a defining and inspirational album for women musicians and women in general. ‘Violet’ stands as a signature in an album full of brilliance and no matter what crazy shit Courtney does next or what crazy rumors abound, We’ll always have this gem to look back on. Then again its the wild tales of rock star excess that attract all of us to them, right?