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‘Don’t Have a Gun’: A Definitive Account of Nirvana’s Hit Song ‘Come as You Are”

Posted in Essays with tags , , , on 10/06/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Last time around, we rolled out a rather comprehensive history of Nirvana’s biggest hit song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” This time, we trace the lineage of the second single from Nirvana’s Nevermind – an aquatic, forlorn song that incorporates guns and early video special effects.

With a dreary mood that put even most major grunge songs to shame, “Come as You Are” is a downbeat tune that doesn’t exactly qualify musically as a ballad but had the sad thematic content to make it one of sorts. Like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” before it, “Come as You Are” also contains unsavory references, some of which are downright eerie decades after Kurt Cobain used a gun to commit suicide.

At the time of his death, Cobain apparently had heroin in his system; bleach, which is used in the injection process of the drug, also makes a (perhaps prescient) appearance in the words he sang on this tune.

Read The Bad Penny‘s full reflection on the song courtesy of AllMusic.

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‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’: A Definitive Account of Nirvana’s Blistering, Biggest Hit

Posted in Essays, Interviews, Videos with tags , , , on 10/05/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Despite a litany of posthumous releases – pricey box sets, “super deluxe edition” reissues, unreleased songs and more – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” will always remain Nirvana’s most enduring song. Not only did it reach the top spot on countless charts in dozens of countries, it became so ubiquitous in mainstream culture that it cemented Nirvana as one of the greatest rock bands ever and legitimized alternative music as the quintessential music genre of the 1990s.

Read more of my thesis on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on AllMusic.

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Queens of the Stone Age’s and Foo Fighters’ New Albums Are Abysmal. The Only Question Is Which One Sucks More.

Posted in Album Reviews, Essays, Reviews with tags , , , , , on 09/19/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Breaking the third wall here a bit, if there still is one …

Over the course of my 30 years as a music journalist, Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters are among the top five bands about which I’ve written the most. I still rank QOTSA as my third-favorite band of all time (Nirvana and the Jesus Lizard will probably forever occupy those #1 and #2 spots, respectively). And I continue to regard Dave Grohl as my ultimate rock idol, it gives me no pleasure to report that the new QOTSA record, Perfecth (due October 30), is – from the few spins I’ve given it thus far – not just the worst record in the band’s catalog, by a long shot, it’s utterly perplexing that the band would even put its name on it.

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The Stooges, Death, New York Dolls and Patti Smith Set the Table for Punk: A Brief History Lesson

Posted in Essays with tags , , , , on 09/15/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

“Punk” music didn’t start in 1976 or 1977, with Ramones’ self-titled album or Leave Home, which came out in those years, respectively. Sex Pistols didn’t launch the genre with the four singles and album (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols) the British band released in those same years. 

The same goes for The Clash’s self-titled debut, released in 1977; The Damned’s Damned Damned Damned and Music for Pleasure, both issued in 1977; or albums by the Buzzcocks, Black Flag or MC5. Rather, the seeds of punk – a term coined by the godfather of rock-music journalism, Lester Bangs – were planted many years earlier, not by bands but by an attitude and a sound that cropped up in scattered pockets of the Western world.

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Wildest Concert Ever: mr.phylzzz Drummer Will Never Forget David Yow Pulling Out His Dong at Jesus Lizard Gig

Posted in Concert Reviews, Essays, Interviews, Reviews with tags , , , , , , on 08/21/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

(This recollection of a classic Jesus Lizard concert is brought to you by Danny Sein, drummer for self-described trashy grunge band mr.phylzzz from Chicago.)

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The most unforgettable show I ever attended featured the Jesus Lizard performing at the Metro in Chicago on December 9, 2017.

There’s a reason I have a tattoo. The Jesus Lizard has been a consistent band in the soundtrack of my life from the time I first heard them at 18. I didn’t like their music when I first heard it, but like most things I end up obsessing over, it grew on me with a few oddly persistent listens. I went [to the show] with my buddies Allen and Donny. I was 22.

When Allen came to pick us up, he was already blasting Goat at a deafening volume. It was frigid and snowing on the drive from Grand Rapids to Chicago, and the highway was icy with a heap of snow already on the ground. We hit 131 South and “Mouth Breather” started. Likely because of the song, Allen had a bit of a lead foot in the Crown Vic, so we fishtailed into a ditch. Donny and I pushed it back up onto the highway. We were up to our calves in snow. As soon as Allen resumed driving, he said, “Where were we?” And he started “Mouth Breather” over again from the beginning.

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Thank You, Bad Penny Readers!

Posted in Essays, News with tags on 08/18/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Thank you to the devoted readers of this unconventional, iconoclastic and oftentimes just plain nutty music website – and also to those who just happened to stumble across it – for making Aug. 18, 2026, the most highly traffic day since The Bad Penny launched November 25, 2009. Traffic is not the be-all, end-all of this website, but it’s also worth noting that we surpassed our total numbers for the entire year of 2025 early last month.

Every single prop (that’s what the cool kids say nowadays instead of “all the props,” so get onboard, yo) goes to the readers who have consumed (we prefer “ingested”) one or more of our tens of thousands of posts, whether they be the multitudinous stories on The Jesus Lizard – who we are proud to say is the most popular band on The Bad Penny – to our invaluable (which is to say, value-less) post on the Best Albums of 1909.

Every day till all this goes away, we’ll continue to try to both educate and entertain you, turn Bad Penny readers on to good music, steer them away from crapola, buck trends, go against the grain, reject social media (except YouTube, which is our guilty-pleasure equivalent of Obama sneaking out for a cig), protecting all of us in this space from AI infiltration and, most importantly, adhere to what we consider to be our values as best we can.

If you ever have any valuable feedback, ideas worth sharing, rad bands you’d like to see get more coverage and that are a good fit for this website, don’t not never hesitate to contact me directly at korzeck at gee male dot calm. (Apologies for the tortured language; such are the rules on the battlefield in the war against the bots.)

Long live great music, great people with great character (we gotta get around to working on that someday) and great animals. And, lest it need be said, down with tyranny.

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Favorite Films: If You Loved ‘Backrooms,’ You’ll Probably Dig ‘The Cell’ Too

Posted in Essays, Favorite Films, Features with tags , , , , , , , , , on 07/28/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

To the surprise of no one, the summer blockbuster to beat is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey which, based on the reactions of critics and average-joe moviegoers alike, seems to be the best movie of all time ever made ever in the history of all times. But there’s still a curious mid-card match taking place far more unexpectedly: the jostling between two very low-budget psychological horror flicks, Obsession and Backrooms. Both are very unnerving, mostly sparing in the use of violence, and tap into Americans’ widespread fear these days of psychological insanity and not knowing what’s real (cough, MAGA, cough) versus physical violence.

The Bad Penny highly recommends both films – and one more, although it dates back 26 years. The Cell was a thoroughly original horror movie (more so than sci-fi, the genre in which it was primarily marketed and classified). It starred Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn and Vincent D’Onofrio, who didn’t make for the strongest acting ensemble, but that issue was mitigated by the fact that visionary Indian director Tarsem Singh helmed The Cell.

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Mastodon’s Release of a Heart-Wrenching Video About the Death of Ex-Bandmate Brent Hinds Was a Tragic Mistake

Posted in Essays with tags , , , , on 07/19/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

(I don’t typically break the third wall on The Bad Penny, because my grandmother taught me it was rude to use the word “I,” it creates distance with the reader, and the goal of this website is to focus on bands and not a hack journalist like me. But in this instance, as Mastodon are responsible for deeply enriching my love of heavy music – and because I don’t want to suggest the opinion I’m about to set forth is held by anyone other than myself – I’m breaking my rule.)

Mastodon are the most important heavy band of the 21st century. (Queens of the Stone Age ceded the throne with their softer, but no less righteous, “Matador trilogy.”) When I first saw them in concert – at Knitting Factory Hollywood in February 2004, in support of their Remission debut – the 300-person venue seemed on the verge of spontaneous combustion during their entire set. There was no need – or ability – to cut a rug; the floor was shaking with such force that those of us who didn’t intend to jump up and down in place didn’t have the option to do so.

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The Who Sell Out – Again. This Time to Walmart. And for What?

Posted in Essays with tags , , , on 06/28/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

The Who is the greatest rock and roll band of all time that has consistently made itself hard to like. Or easy to hate, depending on your point of view. A band that should be easily considered one of the top three or five rock groups of all time are, as the years go on, struggling to stay in the top 25 because they continue to make bad decision after bad decision. All for the sake of snatching up another buck or two.

And we’re not even talking about Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, and for good measure Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Paul McCartney – all of whom are older then Donald Trump – releasing new music. There’s no need to go there. It’s too easy a target. But of course we will: All the geriatric rock legends are guilty of continuing to poop out new music that should’ve remained a lump in their diapers but instead crawled its way, like some sentient glob animated by the special effects team of John Carpenter’s The Thing, onto our screens in the form of advertisements and ubiquitous purchase options.

It’s The Rolling Stones who are for some reason dead-set on claiming the throne of releasing awful music until the bitter end and perhaps using the unsold copies to insulate their mausoleum for heat. Their new album, Foreign Tongues, is due July 10 and should be the only non-American entity that the courts allow Trump to lock up in an undisclosed detention center.

But back to The Who and the pressing question that warranted this diatribe: What the fuck, man? Pete? Rog?

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Edge of Sanity Frontman Dan Swanö Reveals 10 Swedish Bands That Made Their Way Into His Musical DNA

Posted in Essays, Lists with tags , , , , , , , , , on 06/23/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

It’s a preeeeety safe bet to say that Dan Swanö belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Swedish melodic death-metal musicians. Not only did he help engender the extreme-metal genre with his bands Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, Unicorn, Pan-Thy-Monium and about two dozen more (see for yourself), his knowledge of the musical strain is unparalleled. To put it simply, without Dan Swanö, there probably wouldn’t be melodic death metal (and all its latter-year torchbearers, like At the Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and the like).

We connected with Dan “The Man” Swanö after publishing our 20 Best Scandinavian Melodic Death Metal Bands of All Time feature in mid-December. Little did we know that posting the piece would result in a reaping of dividends like communicating and collaborating with some of the most revered musicians in the metal underground, not to mention other enthusiasts concocting their own best-of lists and sending them to The Bad Penny so we could, in turn, share them with you. (After finishing this read, check out some of the other submissions from true, authentic metal musicians like Swanö. They’re listed at the end of the article.)

Swanö was so generous in providing us with loads of memories, thoughts and commentary about how he fell in love with music, his coming-of-rage years and how he became so well-versed in Sweden’s distinct brand of metal that we will likely run a sequel story in the not-too-distant-future. (So long as you engage in the conversation with us by submitting comments, sending in your own lists and the like, that is.)

And with that, let’s hear from the immortal Dan Swanö about the bands and songs that helped make him the metal god that he became and continues to be to this day.

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