Courtney Love and Jennifer Finch were instant friends from the moment they met in the early Eighties, and remained close until Finch’s untimely death at age 59 in July. Before Finch joined the influential punk-metal band L7 and long before Love formed Hole, the women made music together in a band called Sugar Babydoll (or Sugar Babylon, depending on the year) alongside future Babes in Toyland frontwoman Kat Bjelland. They remained close as their careers took off, which is a difficult prospect for touring musicians.
The friends supported each other throughout the years. When Love’s husband, Kurt Cobain, died in 1994, Finch was her rock. And in June, when Love learned that Finch had been diagnosed with brain cancer, she traveled to be by her side and support her until the end.
Finch chronicled her friendship with Love in a memoir, “Shooting Up and Making Out: A Memoir of My Life in LA and L7,” which she co-wrote with Jeff Alulis and completed shortly before her death. It will be released via Da Capo on Jan. 19.
Here, Love pays tribute to her friend who shaped her life in her own words.
I hitchhiked to Hollywood from San Francisco in 1983. I wanted to go to Hollywood more than anything.
I met Jennifer at her father’s home. I’m a feral person. Growing up in foster care didn’t give me much likability or infrastructure for knowing how to relate to people. She had all that, and she covered for me. I’d only met three other people who liked me at that point in life. Jennifer was the most important.
Jennifer took to me immediately, and she never stopped protecting me from the summer of 1983 onwards. When you come to Hollywood and have no means, Jennifer’s house always had a couch. Her dad always had cheese and Cap’n Crunch. A safe couch. And she always had records. We spent thousands of hours listening to them and learning them.
That house is the closest thing to a home I’ll ever have.
I’d come from Dublin, England, Portland, and New Zealand. My musical taste ran from [the Birthday Party’s] Drunk on the Pope’s Blood to U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen. This new SST hardcore scared me, but she made me see the wit in it. The George Clinton in the Chili Peppers, which I still find funny, and the depth.
She dragged me to shows. There wasn’t a day she didn’t stand by the strange girl from up north. We had guitars and taught each other to play. The Runaways were our Sex Pistols.
She introduced me to Pat Smear. Without a doubt, Pat is who I told Kurt he should ask to be in Nirvana when he was depressed that his bandmates made him sad. He wanted a happy bandmate. I called Pat.
In 1988, when nobody in L.A. would have wagered on me, Jennifer cosigned me to Flea. Flea said yes, and we had the Chili Peppers’ rehearsal space, which is why there is Hole.
Courtesy of Jennifer Precious Finch’s archive
Courtesy of Jennifer Finch’s Archive
In my 62 years, I can think of nobody more loyal or honourable. A true friend, who also gave me the security of having one house where I was safe.
It’s worth noting that she was clean and sober for 37 years [at the time of her death]. She joined L7 in 1986 and helped make it the force it became, doing all that grunge without once getting high.
Jennifer was a teenage terror. She ran the tables on all the Dogtown Betties and all the Hollywood street girls. She was queen boss. She ruled the roost of the teenage gangs. Back then, the LAPD more than once tossed us into dumpsters or shoved us around. She was fearless with them.
When Kurt died, Jennifer was the general in Seattle. She guarded my door like an armed soldier. She confronted and stopped Kurt’s managers and a suit from trying to leave our house with a Flipper album and a Bunnymen album. The joke was on that guy. Clearly not a Kurt lover.
Kurt adored Jennifer, and she was one of the few people he spoke to a few times a week. She got me through that horrible month and didn’t leave my side.
On June 10, when I entered that house, I saw terror and entrapment drowning in her eyes. For five weeks, my only job was to help make sure she had the best possible end-of-life care, until July 18.
There are people here who stood up and showed real heroism.
There were no means, no money, and no access to the men I know with power, but my manager said, “Who cares if there’s no money? She was in one of the most important bands ever.” That gave my heart the dignity Jennifer deserved.
When it was finally undeniable that she was dying, my job was to make sure she was surrounded by love in a safe place, while her medical team kept her comfortable.
Jennifer Precious Finch was 10,000 levels of funny. She could not have written her chaotic ending better herself.
More than 100 people were fighting to get in, arguing that they were on the list as if it were a club, because she had more than 100 passionate friends who would hock their houses for her. There were bouncers rotating at the door, people arguing about playlists and almost fist-fighting, duvets from the Chateau Marmont, a Sikh saint with his crystal xylophone, robes and slippers, Apple Pan and Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. The tired, the sick, the hungry, the famous and tons of ex-boyfriends, all regretting their wrongs. She loved it. Everyone remembering her with love and sobbing.
At 4 in the morning, when her body shut down and the medical staff said it was time, I heard someone say, “But we ordered breakfast for 8, and Flea’s coming at 9.”
I laughed.
It was an Andy Kaufman, Carrie Fisher exit. It was Steve Jobs saying, “Oh wow,” as he saw whatever was on the other side and left all of us guessing until it’s our turn.
It was funny as hell. Chaotic, like her. Going out in the world’s most glamorous hospital wing — the Billy Wilder wing where Elizabeth Taylor died — named after the director of Marilyn’s best movie [Some Like It Hot] and, consequently, the best movie about an all-girl band ever, with the greatest last line in cinema history: “Nobody’s perfect.”
Waiting for craft services, our favourite trumpet player and her medical team keeping her comfortable is the most Jennifer Finch thing ever.
And you can take that to the bank.
