LOCAL ANGLES: ROCK SINGER'S EXIT LEAVES NO TIME FOR ENCORE

Jim Morrison is dead, but his voice sounded very much alive at The River's Edge the other night.

The Edge is a local watering hole that hugs the Mississippi and apparently the interest of more than a few routine customers. This night, The River's Edge was rocking to the sounds of a Cape Girardeau band that goes by the name of Papa Aborigine.

I heard that this band was good, but no one told me that the lead singer, Billy Keys, was gifted enough to resurrect the signature sound of "The Doors" with such depth and breath-taking accuracy, one had to blink to make sure it wasn't an illusion. Was it live or was it Memorex? I wanted to move in closer to make sure.

Here was this cherubic-faced singer wearing a baseball cap and uncommon music talent, captivating the audience with a voice that seemed too deep and rich to belong to someone so young and innocent looking.

And yet, if I had closed my eyes, I would have thought that Morrison was on stage filling the room with the strains of "Riders On The Storm." I left my card with Keys, and we agreed, after a brief chat, to get together at a future date to do a story on this band.

Although I was obviously fascinated with this group, there was plenty of news to chase the next day to divert my attention away from Morrison's promising disciple.

Somehow the memory of that night came into sharp focus once again, however, when I learned that Kurt Cobain, lead singer for the rock `n' roll band Nirvana, committed suicide.

Cobain left a disturbing note behind. Somewhere in the note Cobain used the phrase, "It's better to burn out than fade away." That was taken from a Neil Young song.

Cobain's note, which was read by his wife Courtney Love during a vigil at the Seattle Center, contained yet another interesting message: "I haven't felt the excitement for so many years. The fact is I can't fool you, any one of you. The worst crime is faking it," wrote Cobain.

Love interrupted her narrative to add, "No, the worst crime is leaving."

No matter what you think of a 27-year-old singer who would end his life so abruptly, this was someone talented enough to touch a generation of devout listeners and make them feel like they had someone who understood their troubles.

Nirvana, which was founded in 1987, burst onto the rock `n' roll scene with the album "Smells Like Teen Spirit," a sarcastic and somewhat cynical work that found a following looking for something or someone to connect with.

Cobain's pain was in his lyrics. Perhaps he never bothered to consider how his angst was his art, his talent too powerful to make him fade away. Hopefully his followers, this Generation X, will understand that Morrison and Jimi Hendrix didn't make their music immortal by succumbing to suicide. It was the memory of their ability and the work they left behind that lived on, still perpetuated by people like Billy Keys.

Hendrix and Cobain should have known that their final act has no comeback, no encore, only an entertainer's worst nightmare.

When Papa Aborigine abandoned its equipment and started to move slowly off stage, their gig officially over, there were those in the crowd enthusiastically urging them to play on. You don't see this in a local club every day.

Keys and his cohorts had their backs to us when the prompting was going on, but I'd bet they loved that feedback. Hopefully that's what gifted musicians dream of: the warm glow from audience feedback rather than the possibility of a cold, dark conclusion that promises nothing but heartache and more pain for families and followers.

Whatever Cobain thought his suicide signified, it will certainly be nothing close to a dramatic exit now that he has no chance to feel the feedback or try to soften the pain.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.