Melissa Auf der Maur’s Chronicle of Nineties Rock

Thirty-two years ago, in the summer of 1994, Courtney Love staged a remarkable comeback. Earlier that year, her band, Hole, had released a furious and galvanizing album called “Live Through This,” but it had arrived in shops only four days after Love’s husband, Kurt Cobain, had been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A few months after that, Hole’s bass player, Kristen Pfaff, died from a heroin overdose. And so, when Love appeared onstage at the Reading Festival, in August, no one knew what to expect. “Oh, yeah, I’m so goddam brave,” Love sneered. (She seemed to be preëmptively making fun of anyone who would make fun of her.) And then she introduced the band’s new member. “That’s Melissa, fuckin’, last name is French,” she said, turning toward the bass player. “What is it?”

“Auf der Maur,” came the phlegmatic reply. “ ‘On the wall,’ in German.”

“Auf der Maur,” Love repeated. “ ‘Off the wall,’ in German.” Like a number of Love’s utterances, this one seemed accidentally perfect. Her new bandmate, who only a few weeks before had been observing the American alternative-rock explosion from afar, in Montreal, was no longer above the fray—she was in it.