"Hit So Hard"

The first time I heard the words “I am the girl you know can’t look you in the eye” my life changed I walked home from school and asked a fellow classmate if she liked that song because I had heard it on the radio that morning and she said, “that kind of music is for weird people”. That comment and those lyrics changed my life. Not only did I want to listen to this weird music even more but I needed to learn more about the people behind it.

Hole is my favorite band. Yep really, Hole is my favorite band. The story that surrounds Courtney Love, grunge, Kurt Cobain and the 90’s has always fascinated me. I have watched all of the documentaries, About a Son, Kurt and Courtney, and I have studied MTV Unplugged for a sign of what was behind the man that created so much of the music that I love. I realize now, 20 years later, the story has already been told. Kurt died at 27 years old and Nirvana will live on forever as a symbol of what grunge was to the nineties. But, when he died it did not mean that the era ended. It simply meant that it changed. Those that were around Kurt, including his band mates, friends, and the people he lived with, still had to move on with life and learn to live in a world where grunge became part of pop culture and Kurt became the icon of a generation of confused kids.

Patty Schemel was one of those people in the inner circle during this time in history. She was almost the drummer for Nirvana but instead became the backbone of Hole. She joined the band in 1992, lived with Kurt and Courtney during the birth of their daughter and the writing of "In Utero" and went on the famous "Live Through This" tour with Hole shortly after Kurt’s death. She moved in with her friends late in 1992 and she began filming her life, not for any particular reason, but because she had a little money and thought that carrying a camera around and filming what her and friends did would be fun. She took at home, personal videos of the Cobain’s playing with Francis, of herself high on drugs and of the roller coaster life that it was being a drug addict in a band that was really, really famous. 

"Hit so Hard - The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel" is not a new look at the story of grunge and the Cobain’s, but instead a look at the life of someone who had to pick herself up and move on when one of her best friends killed himself at 27 years old. A life of someone who was asked not to play drums on the live recording of Celebrity Skin and could not deal with the pressure that put on her. The life of a recovering addict who took years to kick the demon’s that haunted her and find her place in this world.

Here is the trailer for the movie:

I really enjoyed this documentary and wanted to share it with you. Put this in your Netflix cue and give it a watch. It made me remember the way I felt when I looked at these people 20 years ago. My heroes were not perfect, but dammit, they changed the world and music as we know it forever. 

~S