My history with Courtney Love

I watched the VH1 Behind the Music with Courtney Love, and it got me thinking about my history with Hole and the sometimes described, cockroach of rock music, Courtney Love. She is sober now and talked openly about her decade of screw-ups and her marriage to one of the greatest songwriters of our generation, Kurt Cobain.

While Kurt Cobain is still loved and revered by many, his widow has one of the worst reputations of any rock star, and definitely the worst if you add the modifier female. Courtney Love is a phenomenon, her own worst enemy, narcissistic, an addict, and also so charismatic on stage you barely realize there is a band behind her. In short, she’s the perfect rock star, which by definition, means not the best person, and definitely not the best mother.

But think about it, do you know many rock star dads who are great role models? Why would we expect the female ones to be any different? I mean if our musicians are meant to be upstanding citizens who abstain from all that is unholy, they wouldn’t be much fun to listen to or watch.

I was a fan of Hole back in the riot grrrl days, which mixed punk and feminism. While my friends were Hole fans, plenty of my peers were not, based largely not on the music, but on the antics of Courtney Love. And while I also questioned the actions of Hole’s frontwoman as a young feminist, I couldn’t help but LOVE her band. Pretty on the Inside is a GREAT punk record. Loud, angry, and totally on-point lyrically. Live Through This is an incredible rock record. The songs are melodic, catchy, and again the lyrics are smart and poignant. Violet, Doll Parts, and Olympia are seriously good songs. When I saw Hole play on Saturday Night Live in 1994, I literally grabbed my guitar to learn how to play Violet.

Hole – Violet (Live)

Alisha | MySpace Video

Here’s the dirty truth about girls and music: if we want teenage girls to want to do something other than fuck the band, we need to see instruments played by women. Does Jimmy Page inspire me to be a better guitarist? Absolutely. But Courtney Love gave me the confidence to even pick up the fucking thing in the first place.

me, circa 1994

As a young musician, I needed to see a woman play guitar with gusto, anger, and femininity to get me playing. I was in awe of her and her bravado. She and Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Heavens to Betsy got me screaming in my garage. But there was an obvious rift between the riot grrrl trend and the Hole bandwagon. While Kathleen Hanna and the like were feminists in the purest sense, Courtney Love was a clusterfuck of ideologies.

She was punk rock, but a fame whore. She was badass, but self-loathing. She was a feminist, but constantly taking her clothes off. Add on top of this, the Yoko Ono complex, and the fact that she is a druggie mom, and you have the worst reputation in rock culture.

Most of my guy friends hated Hole and despised Courtney Love. They called her a talentless, druggie, slut who was single-handedly responsible for the death of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. Their disgust made me question my own opinion of her. Here I was trying to be a really good guitarist, and everyone I knew who was a good musician hated her. And it wasn’t an “I just don’t care for her band” kind of dislike; it was personal. They not only thought her band sucked, they objected to her morally.

I get it, except I don’t. Let’s just think about a few rock star dads who were/are either addicts or slutty or the winning combination of both.
Jimmy Page aka my beloved (had a 14 year old girlfriend in his late 20s…)
Ozzy Osbourne
Gene Simmons (not a druggie, but definitely a slut)
Eric Clapton
Kurt Cobain
Bob Marley (had 11 kids with several women and barely saw any of them)
Pretty much all the psychedelic bands of the 60s
Pretty much all the classic rock bands of the 70s
Pretty much all the metal bands of the 80s
Pretty much all the grunge bands of the 90s

And the holier-than-thou punk scene from which I was spawned is not above any of these recreational activities either, so why the intense hatred for Ms. Love? Last time I checked, rock stars aren’t supposed to be role models. And as long as women are on stage, we shouldn’t expect them to be on their best behavior. These are not politicians or preachers: these are rock musicians.

But, when it comes to rock musicians, we like our boys to be bad, don’t we? And we like our girls to be, what, exactly? Sassy, but not pissed? Sexy, but not slutty? Buzzed, but not wasted? PTA moms who play shows on the weekends? (Okay, that’s more my style, but I’m not a signed musician…)

And yes, I want my daughter to see female musicians who are talented like Annie Clark, Kim and Kelly Deal, Violet Clark, and Kim Gordon, who are interesting and beautiful and not disrobing on stage. But I also have a thing for punk and rock musicians in the traditional sense, the ones who drink and smoke and cuss on stage, like Josh Homme of Them Crooked Vultures and QOTSA, who by the way, is also a father.

I still like fuck-you musicianship that is arrogant, loud, and not necessarily politically correct. Music is primitive, and it should be authentic or it’s not worth doing. This is why I have a hard time with bands that are too surface or even too pop; I like my bands like I like my friends, raw, unspun, and with a dirty sense of humor.

So, despite the major character flaws Courtney has displayed over the years, from drug use to exploiting Nirvana’s legacy to punching Kathleen Hanna in the face, I’m still drawn to her as a musician, as a woman, and even as a mother. I think there is still a place for Courtney Love in the music world, and by the looks of her tour attendance, I’m not the only one.

Hole is playing at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on June 30. I don’t think Courtney will be stage-diving half-naked like the old days, but it would still be good to see a woman rock out in the good old fashion way, with complete and total abandon.