Aberdeen, Washington is a working class town just over an hours drive South West of Seattle. It's a coastal town, known for fishing, forestry and acts as a gateway to tourism in and around the Olympic National Park. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic grew up here, there's a memorial park where Kurt used to hang out and that's why we stopped here.
Welcome to Aberdeen, "Gateway to the Olympics" Referring to mount Olympia and Olympic National Park. And, "Come as You Are" The name of one of Nirvana's most famous songs. Growing up, I listened to a lot of Nirvana, so as we were passing through this town we couldn't help but stop at the memorial park.
As anyone would expect who knew about Nirvana or Grunge Music, this park and much of the town are best described as a shithole. No offense. Grunge means dirt or a dirty person and the environment Kurt grew up in had a serious impact on his music and lifestyle.
"Watch out for needles", it's no joke, Kurt and his pals did a lot of hard drugs. Locals and tourists alike probably come here to shoot up in memory of Kurt or because there isn't much else to do in this town. Surprisingly, for a town of just over 15,000 there are a fair amount of notable people from Aberdeen, including a Nobel prize winner, Douglas Osheroff, and Peter Norton who Norton Anti-Virus was named after.
"The Hellhole of the Pacific" was a nickname of this town for the longest time. A Serial Killer called Billy Gohl was thought to have killed up to 140 people dumping their bodies in the Wishkah river. The town has been through hard times and still appears to be to this day.
"From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" is a memorial album released by Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl sometime after Kurt shot himself. It features live performances of some of Nirvana's best songs. I owned this album (along with Nirvana's three other main albums) and almost every single song on it is great. Some of Nirvana's songs were recollections of Kurt's youth hanging out in this park, he lived nearby.
There is no denying that Kurt wrote most of his songs and poured his life into them. Compare this to many modern musicians who use co-writers or worse, ghost writers. You can 100% tell Nirvana are not posers.
Normally we don't do this sort of tourism, but I'm glad to have stopped by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Park. Back in the day, I had an undercut and used to love alternative music, especially Nirvana. My favourite Song of Kurt's is Drain You
One baby to another says: "I'm lucky to have met you"
I don't care what you think unless it is about me
All Photos Taken with an S22 or iPhone 15 pro
