Josh, my older stepbrother’s friend. He would come to our house after school and hangout, allowing me to hang out in their room against my stepbrother’s wishes. One day he brought over Nevermind and I worshipped them like I worshipped him.

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I dated Dave (left), bassist of Oklahoma City’s Captain Eyeball. He introduced me to a number of my favorite bands and labels, mostly 4AD and Sub Pop, The Pixies, Tones On Tail, Sonic Youth… it was from him that I first heard Bleach and liked it right away.

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Mike…my stepdad Mike pretty much Introduced me to all music. I remember finding Nevermind in his private CD collection.

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Dave was my cover boyfriend in high school. He introduced me to Nirvana and mushrooms. He carved my name into his arm with a razor blade and when I tried to break up with him, he read me a love poem over the phone that I later recognized as a song from Dark Side Of The Moon with my name inserted at significant moments.

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I was married to Gary in 1991 when Nevermind came out. He was a bassist in a Boston area band called The Box. Immediately, he was convinced Nirvana would permanently change music, and we listened to our new Nevermind cassette over and over driving from Boston toward Poughkeepsie, NY. It was on this drive we were struck by a drunk driver and Gary sadly did not survive.

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Max introduced me to Nevermind. I am on the left, he is in the middle. Soon after this picture was taken, we formed a band called 18 Dimensions Of Love. We had loud guitars. We opened for Low at their first show. We were a pretty good high school band.

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My uncle used to fly me out to Los Angeles as a kid. He was my early introduction to music, epecially the Ramones andj Joy Division. He paid me $100 to coat check his parties at eight years old. I listened to Nevermind for the first time with him, straight through at the kitchen table. I lost him to AIDS in 1994.

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Ryan, my older brother (left). He played them all the time while he babysat me. I was eight and he was 15. When I was a bit older he’d always include them on mixtapes he made me.

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My daughter Caitlin introduced me to Nirvana. I took this picture of her in the Caribbean in 1994. In the week after this picture was taken, she broke her back and spent the next six years in rehabilitation. I remember clearly Cobain’s voice as the soundtrack of this time when she lost so much.

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Here is my best friend from high school, Lindsay, with Wes in the background at a Christian camp in southern Oklahoma. Lindsay and I met in high school but we met Wes at camp. I can’t not think about her without thinking of Nirvana. Both her parents were alcoholics so if we weren’t taking refuge in her room we were driving around smoking pot or going to a local show at the Armory in Edmond. Oklahoma had a pretty good punk scene that I am so thankful for.

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My older brother Raf. He would drive me around the forest preserves in North Chicago playing music in his Honda Civic hatchback. He played stuff like Kraftwerk and Black Sabbath. I heard Bleach for the first time with him.

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Mikey, my mom’s second husband, introduced me to Nirvana’s Nevermind record. He was around until I was 13.

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This is my good friend Sitthisack Viraphong from Laos (left) & me at my 24th birthday. Sitthi Introduced me to Nirvana at about this time. I was actually full-on in my house music/rave period. We are high as kites in this photo.

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This is my friend Bob who introduced me to Nirvana. We used to smoke weed in his basement through blow tubes. Soon after he started a band called Chronic Persuasion and got kicked out a month later.

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Jared, behind me, let me crash in his dorm room when my roommate was screwing his girlfriend in our dorm room. On this night, we couldn’t score any drugs and ended up smoking resin. It was in his room he played Incesticide and Bleach for me.

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In 7th grade, my class had a sleep-over weekend in my parent’s attic. My friend Andrea came but she wasn’t really into the whole class spirit thing since she had recently turned into a grunger, later a real punk with dyed hair, a rat and everything, while everyone else was literally still playing boardgames. Her dad was one of the first ones I knew to have a CD-burner, which is how she introduced me to Nirvana.

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My friend Phil (left) introduced me (right) to Nevermind when we were 14. He got everything from his older sister Laura.

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Trinity, the girl I lost my virginity to and a die hard Kurt fan, Introduced me to Nirvana on the tape playing boombox in her bedroom.

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Nick and I went to the same montessori school in Minneapolis. On a field trip to Wisconsin, Nick introduced me to Nevermind. He had, through his father, access to a very large collection of classic and current rock. He got me into weed, we smoke by the Lake of the Isles. We started playing guitar at the same time.

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Here are Jeff and I in the suburbs of Chicago. He gave me my first cigarette and taught me ‘Come As You Are’ on guitar. He was the rebel of our group, obsessed with Cobain. I haven’t been able to track him down for years.

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BELOW:

Jason Lazarus
‘Nirvana’

Here Press
240 x 170mm, 32pp French folds
23 photographs
Text & photographs collected by Jason Lazarus
Offset lithoprint on uncoated recycled paper
Japanese binding with cold melt glue
Hand-painted spine in black
Edition of 400

ISBN: 978-0-9574724-2-6
https://www.herepress.org/books-prints/nirvana/