May 23, 2023

The “One Playing Guitar” for Nirvana Can’t Join Andrew Yang’s Party. He’s Dead.

The bassist for Nirvana joins Forward.

Jeff Kravitz/Getty

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This morning, Andrew Yang announced that Krist Novoselic of Nirvana joined Forward—his political party that is “not left,” “not right,” but “FORWARD” (and pretty hard to take seriously).

Yang is famous for running unsuccessfully for president and for mayor of New York City. He has staked his claim on the technocratic, centrist dream that problems can be solved by, as his hat said, “Math.”

Krist Novoselic is famous for being the bassist in Nirvana. (He also played with the band Flipper in the 2000s, an underrated no-wave rock outfit.) There are other things Novoselic has done—including political activism as an independent after breaking away from the Democrat party, and some not-great comments on “law and order”—but if you had to say one thing he’s known for, it’d be: That guy is the bassist in Nirvana.

And yet, in the announcement, written by Yang (at least according to the byline), amid a lot of mentions that Novoselic is very tall, is this: “Krist co-founded Nirvana with Kurt Cobain—he’s the tall, good-looking one playing guitar near the back.” (My emphasis added.) Hmm. Guitar? I don’t think you get on a Discogs list of “The Greatest Rock Bassists of All Time” made by anavrin3 playing guitar. You do it by playing bass.

Is this just an elision? Does Andrew Yang mean playing “bass guitar” in the back?

Well, either way, I guess Yang’s claim that Krist Novoselic is the guy playing guitar is fitting in one way. It’s like his claim the Forward is a political party. Technically true. But also: “A denial, a denial, a denial.”

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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