† NillaMora †

The legend of Nirvana began with Kurt Cobain idolizing and often helping set up equipment for a band called The Melvins. It’s a time-honored show-biz tradition: The capable understudy leaves to do his or her own thing. With that in mind, meet Outformation. Started by the longtime guitar tech of Widespread Panic, Sam Holt, Outformation is anything but Widespread Junior. Instead, Outformation plays rock ‘n’ roll with a decidedly southern sound and a laid-back feel reminiscent of The Allman Brothers. But the comparisons to Widespread Panic still are abundant, something that some artists would consider a burden. Not Holt.

“It’s a way to get people to pay attention for a second. Then hopefully, they’ll pay attention to our music and not what they’ve read. But I spent a lot of time on the road with (Widespread Panic) that it’s a lot of who I am. I’ve got no problem at all,”…

AJ Schnack’s new film Kurt Cobain About a Son, and its soundtrack co-written and produced by Nirvana producer Steve Fisk and Death Cab for Cutie’s lead singer Benjamin Gibbard, serves as period piece for Cobain’s life as he rose to fame and at the height of his popularity. Songs from such varied artists as Iggy Pop and Arlo Guthrie are punctuated by interviews and excerpts of Cobain himself as he discusses everything from punk rock to hearing his music on the radio for the first time.

“Banned in DC” by Bad Brains and “Touch Me I’m Sick,” by Mudhoney trudge along for the rowdier bits of the soundtrack, while “Overture,” which was, in fact, composed by Fisk and Gibbard, introduces a mellow tone, as do gems like Mark Lanegan’s “Museum” and REM’s “New Orleans Instrumental No.1.”

With an artist whose life is as heavily…

THEY live fast and die young, believing that it's better to burn out than fade away.

Now, for the first time, medical scientists have found that rock stars live life in deadly fashion.

Adding weight to The Who's lyric "Hope I die before I get old", a study of more than 1000 US and British rock stars found they were up to three times more likely to die early than other people of the same age.

Researchers from Britain's Liverpool John Moores University found that 100 stars died prematurely between 1956 and 1999.

Drug and alcohol abuse accounted for more than one in four deaths, while car accidents, heart disease, suicide and violence were also big killers.

The average age of death for American rockers was 42 — the age Elvis was when he died of a heart attack — and 35 for European stars.

Published in the

By Kevin Johnson

Never count out Seattle's classic grunge — no matter how many ravages it has seen over the years, from the breakup of Soundgarden to the deaths of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Alice in Chains' Layne Staley.

Singer Staley's overdose death in 2002 may have greatly shaken up Alice in Chains, but several years later the grunge legends are still proving themselves a live force, as seen at its sold-out concert Saturday night at the Pageant.

Currently on tour with Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains is using a few of its off days to headline what it has dubbed the Acoustic Hour, featuring the band performing some of its biggest songs unplugged (they're veterans of this format, having done an MTV Unplugged a decade ago). St. Louis is the second of only four Acoustic Hour shows scheduled, and the shows are reportedly being recorded for…