Prefer the feast of friends to the giant family...

I remember one of the things that I most liked about Kurt Cobain was that he was always putting me on to great bands that had influenced him from the Melvins through to the Vaselines and the Meat Puppets and even all the way to Leadbelly. Through Nirvana thirteen-year-old ears were ploughing a rich vein of great music. And the shotgun didn't kill that either.

Last night I'm watching 'About A Son' and listening to Kurt talk about his own background and the place where he grew up and not only am I drawing some vivid comparisons with Belfast (rain, isolation, boredom), again I'm hearing songs I've never heard and breaking my Tarantino only ritual of pausing the end credits, looking for track names. People talk about the band that changed their life, Nirvana in a small way are still changing mine.

And so it's nice when you see someone at the top of their game take the time to salute those still in the trenches, clawing their way towards the light. Am I comparing Gary Lightbody to Kurt Cobain? Fuck no, and he'd be unhappy if I did. But still these

http://www.snowpatrol.com/blog/default.aspx?did=1214

are the words of a man who cares, across continents...