While radio stations nationwide pumped out non-stop Nirvana music this weekend as a tribute to Nirvana rock band member Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide last Friday, student and Philadelphia rock musicians shook their heads over the "stupidity" of his suicide. "He was in a bad mood," said Kurt Heasly, a member of the Lilies, a Philadelphia rock band. "There's a really nasty side effect to sticking a shot gun in your mouth." Heasly added that before Cobain "pulled the trigger," he had the choice of "should I die or go for a sandwich?" "Personally, I would go for the sandwich," he said. College senior Aron Katz, a member of the campus band The Lidds, said he "didn't buy" the explanation offered in Cobain's suicide note that Cobain killed himself because he "couldn't handle commercial success." "Oh, I pity the poor guy," Katz said sarcastically. Joey Sweeney, a singer for the Barnabys, a rock band whose first album, "Augustus Loop" recently went on sale, did not share Katz's cynicism. "[Cobain] seemed like he possessed a lot of humility -- he wasn't into the rock star trip to begin with," he said. Sweeney said Cobain committed suicide because he "couldn't deal with the gift he was dealt." "There's a hazard that comes with putting art out because it's part of you," he said. Sweeney added that he thought disc jockeys at WDRE and other local radio stations "cheapened" Cobain's death by commenting on his motive for suicide. "They said it was a 'selfish thing to do,' " he said. "Well, yeah, suicide's like that -- they should just shut their fucking mouth and play the music. "[The disc jockey] was trying to make sense of it -- you can't make sense of death or suicide," Sweeney said. Engineering sophomore and Daily Pennsylvanian artist Adam Matta, who plays for Thumper, a student band, said Cobain's suicide is "the kind of thing the media blows out of proportion." Because Nirvana was one of the groups to initiate the "grunge movement" in Seattle, Wash., many media commentators have now declared that "grunge is dead" as a result of Cobain's suicide, Matta said. According to Sweeney, Cobain will be "a lot more respected" by Americans than if he had lived to be 50, because his suicide "freezes time --it makes Kurt Cobain this static thing that existed."
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