Mayor says Cobain celebration not in City hands

Despite the city of Aberdeen’s declaration of Kurt Cobain Day on Feb. 20 last year, there was no official celebration to be found on what would have been Cobain’s 48th birthday on Friday.

A year ago, Mayor Bill Simpson offered a proclamation calling for an annual citywide celebration. Hundreds turned out to celebrate Aberdeen’s most famous rocker and founder of Nirvana on his birthday. He committed suicide in Seattle in 1994.

Simpson, who hosted last year’s event, said this week that the celebration has since changed hands, and is now under the direction of Troy Richart of Boomtown Records. The record store on Wishkah Street, Simpson said, asked late last year to host the celebration.

“Go for it”

“It was hard last year to put it together in the matter of a week, week and a half,” Simpson said Thursday. “When Boomtown suggested they would like to do it, and have a street dance, I said, ‘Hey, go for it.’”

A Boomtown Records employee said Thursday that a celebration is in the works for later this summer. Richart, the store’s owner, was not available for comment.

For years, many suspected the city had avoided celebrating Cobain’s memory due to the star’s history of drug abuse, but plaques in the downtown area, a mural, a museum exhibit and a landing on the Wishkah River all commemorating Cobain have been installed in recent years. Simpson said he’d like to see the observance of Cobain’s and Nirvana’s place in music kept alive.

“I just hope that we can keep celebrating it,” Simpson said. “It’s important not for just Kurt Cobain’s birthday but for Nirvana and what they’ve done as far as music goes.”

Kyle Mittan, 360-537-3932, kmittan@thedailyworld.com. Twitter: @KyleMittan