The Bad Penny (beta)

At a memorial ceremony for Kurt Cobain held April 12, 1994, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic delivered a brief eulogy that continues to resonate with great potency today.

“No band is special, no player royalty. But if you’ve got a guitar and a lot of soul, just bang something out and mean it. You’re the superstar,” he said. “Heck, use your guitar as a drum, just catch the groove and let it flow out of your heart.”

Not too many years after that, a kid named Evan Blaine in Daytona, Florida, was given his first CD, Nirvana’s In Utero, from his brother. Some of the songs were already familiar to him, as Blaine’s brother and father used a guitar tablature book to learn how to play tunes from Nirvana Unplugged in the family living room.

Absorbing Nirvana’s music “opens up a world for somebody that’s like 12 or 13, thinking about writing songs,” Blaine reflects. “Kurt Cobain was one of the biggest songwriters of all time, and yet he didn’t have his shit all figured out. He just put pen to paper and let whatever happen, happen. That’s pretty empowering.” 

And it’s in that spirit that Blaine began playing music regularly, eventually heading up punk-rock band Porch Coffin in Orlando. The band just put out its third EP, Dogs Bite, in mid-November, after which The Bad Penny connected with Blaine to talk about it and his band – but mostly over our mutual affection for the best rock band of the 1990s.

If you live in Florida, don’t miss Porch Coffin’s concert, dubbed “Get Me the Fuck Out of Florida,” to be held Jan. 3 at Wills Pub in Orlando. Other bands on the bill include Bad Luck, Northbound and Camp Trash. Tickets are for sale here.

For more on Porch Coffin, go to their Bandcamp page.

For more Nirvana posts, check out:

• Nirvana’s 10 Best Videos, Ranked
• Labyrinth: The History Of Nirvana
• Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’: The Heart-Shaped Album That Married Mainstream and Indie Rock
• Nirvana’s In Utero: Un Vínculo Progresivo Entre Los Mundos Del Rock Mainstream Y Rock Independiente
• The 20 Best ’90s American Grunge Bands of All Time

This entry was posted on 12/22/2025 at 8:25 am and is filed under Interviews, Videos with tags Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, Porch Coffin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.