The band name is Snow Bud and the Flower People. Snow Bud is two words. It is not Snowbud and it is definitely not Sno-Bud. I will tell you how I know this. I asked Chris.
It’s understandable how one would make the mistake of calling the band Snowbud (one word) in part because Chris’ font choices sometimes made it look like one word – and in fact maybe there were times he wrote the band name as one word on his cassettes as he was forming the band – which he really didn’t take that seriously. But this whole “Sno-Bud” think is taking liberties. I see this band listed as “Sno-Bud” a lot – for example, on Satyricon calendars. Where you don’t see it is in Chris’ own work. At least I never have seen him write the band name that way, and like I said – when I asked him – he told me what his band was called, and how it was spelled.
It may have been done in part as a play off of “Sho-Bud” – a type of pedal steel guitar. But whatever the idea was behind this, it seems to have come from Jan Celt, not Chris. And Chris clearly didn’t raise a stink over it, as he tended not to assert himself over these kinds of things. However, had he been asked, he would have told Jan – or anyone who asked – what his band was called.
I don’t think this was really a mistake. I think it was a demonstration of how Chris could be manipulated.
Inconstancies like this can cause confusion and problems in databases.
Chris Newman and his hand-painted guitar 1987 – photo by Denis Jones
As part of an effort to preserve and when appropriate and possible, re-release Napalm Beach albums, I’ve been working on parsing out Napalm Beach’s history 1980-87. There seems to have been a number of turning points in Napalm Beach’s history that, the deeper you get into it, look more and more like pre-planned set ups, secretly spinning the band around like a blindfolded child trying to hit a birthday party piñata. These turning points seem to occur every three years or so (give or take) and often they seemed to involve processes that take about three years to work through. This kind of thing can actually be seen as a repeated motif throughout Chris’ life history, I’d say going back to 1964 and the Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan. In fact, it would be an interesting experiment to tell Chris’ life story that way – as a series of three-year increments starting with February 1964.
For now, however, I want to explore something I noticed yesterday, while working on the history of Napalm Beach during the period of time they were most closely paired Greg Sage and the Wipers, as well as teenage Courtney Love. I’d been creating a zine-style document to use as an incentive for a fundraising effort, and within this zine, trying to summarize the history around what I consider to be Napalm Beach’s first four albums – Rock & Roll Hell (1984 cassette), Pugsley (1985 cassette), Teen Dream (1985 cassette 1986 LP), and Moving To And Fro (1986 cassette 1988 LP). In doing so, I’ve found myself regularly going back to the draft memoir Chris composed, mostly in 2010, for details. Gradually, things start to come into focus with regards to the clubs Napalm Beach played most frequently, and the band’s professional progress (and lack thereof).
I will say right now that I’ve started writing this blog with only a vague idea of where it’s going to end up. This is a thinking through of patterns and puzzle pieces that seem to fit together.
Portland Met (closed Jan 1, 1983) and Seattle Met (March 1983 – March 6, 1984)
I do not think it is an accident that there was a club in Portland called The Metropolis aka The Met which closed on New Years Day 1983 (Wipers and Napalm Beach having played the last show there together on New Years Eve 1982) – and a club in Seattle that opened under the same name (Metropolis/Met) four months later, then closed after almost exactly one year in March 1984. Nor do I think it’s an accident that the last show at the Seattle Met – a club that featured almost entirely local punk/alternative bands with some punk/alternative touring acts, almost always from the US* – was Alien Sex Fiend, a band from England. Nor do I think that it was an accident that the Seattle Met closed almost exactly the same time Satyricon started up in Portland. Nor do I think it was an accident that I was told by several people in the early 2000s that the “favorite song” on Satyricon juke box was Alien Sex Fiend “I Walk The Line” – a song I would describe as hypnotic, possibly trance-inducing.
Seattle Met was founded by Hughes Piottin, a French immigrant who had moved to Seattle (either from Alaska or after fishing in Alaska) in 1982. In a 2014 article, Countercultural Seattle Remembers: May 13, 1983: The Metropolis, Piottin (Loser 1996) and Bruce Pavitt (in an undated “later” Seattle Post-Intelligencer article) both describe the Settle Met in ways that to me, sounded a lot like how George Touhouliotis described Satyricon. In some ways, the Seattle Met sounds a bit like a combination between all ages community spaces and Satyricon.
Marti Wyman, Courtney Love, Ursula Wehr, Robin Barbur (Bradbury) – Satyricon, 1987
One of the things that Chris mentioned in describing the Portland club was that “Courtney Love and her friends Robin and Ursula were the femme fatales of the underage side of the Met.” If you look online, you may find photos of Courtney Love, Robin, and Ursula as early as the Met days, but having been researching this history off and on for a few years now, I’ve noticed these photos often tend to vanish or become difficult to find. I have a photo of the three of them, plus Venarays singer Marti Wyman, at a Napalm Beach show at Satyricon, in 1987, after Courtney had her film roles in Straight To Hell and Sid and Nancy, and probably wasn’t living in Portland.
I find it’s an interesting thing to think about, because the early 1980s was a period of time when it seems Courtney Love was just getting into music on all different levels – writing about music, playing music, becoming romantically involved with musicians – and it’s also a period of time that she was traveling a lot. In 1981, after a stint hanging out in Portland and house-sharing with Napalm Beach – she went to Ireland and the UK – apparently with her dad and Robin. And there are photos that occasionally surface online of Courtney, Robin, and Courtney’s father Hank Harrison at a 1981 photoshoot in San Francisco.
Robin and Chris Newman stayed in touch. Robin has always been friendly to us. Robin is one of the people whom Chris chose to sign as a witness on his will. When that time came, Robin arrived with a plywood cutout of a guitar, that I think she said came from Germany, that she asked Chris to sign.
I’m including this detail only because it suggests there might be a link between Robin Barbur and Germany. There definitely is an ongoing link between Robin and Courtney.
Cutouts, LSD, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, Berlin
One of the patterns that I see with Courtney Love is the whole time I have known Chris, she almost never has communicated with him directly – key word being almost. Every so often she would sneak in and make an exception to the rule – but never long enough to establish any kind of relationship or meaningful communication. Meanwhile, it seems like she has proxies everywhere. I doubt that Rozz Rezabek ever lost touch with Courtney Love. And there are things that suggest she’s had links to people I didn’t ever realized she’d really been linked to, like Monica Nelson.
The more I study this time period with Chris, also, the more I realize how important San Francisco and Los Angeles were.
With regards to Minneapolis, I’ve already seen that in 1988, while I was living in St Paul, Minnesota; Courtney Love was in Minneapolis and had contact with Erika Schlaeger, who was close to me. And I have detected a pattern of teenage honey trapping linked to Courtney and/or someone handling her. And I have noticed proximity links to LSD.
Now I’m noticing more things. I’m noticing lots of movement between San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle – with lots of different people. Maybe this isn’t so strange, or maybe there’s something special about San Francisco (and I will say I think there’s something special about San Francisco). San José, Oakland, San Francisco, Marin – are all part of the San Francisco Bay Area. People who seemed to travel frequently to San Francisco included Rozz Rezabek, Courtney Love, Chris Newman and his band mates Sam Henry and Dave Minick, and the guys in Mudhoney (who IIRC had a party pad across the street from Rozz’s) and Melvins (Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover circa 1988). Chris met Valarie through Sam in San Francisco, 1983, a few weeks after recording Rock & Roll Hell.
Back to Minneapolis – I started college in St Paul in late August 1987 – and I already knew Erika Schlaeger going back to 1985 (at that time Schlaeger had already been to Germany and I think England at least once) – so of course when I got to the Twin Cities, she’s one of the first people I contacted. I feel like, one of the first things she did was play me a cassette of Babes In Toyland – but maybe that didn’t happen until later. She talked about them like they were all friends of hers, and I guess she did know everyone in the band. And it’s interesting to speculate how Babes In Toyland got together, because I think that Kat Bjelland had moved to Minneapolis in 1987. Bjelland’s Portland band, The Venarays, seem to have been playing fairly frequently, mostly in Portland, at least at Satyricon, in 1986-87.
I can currently find very little history online about the Venarays, especially as far as dates are concerned. There is no existing Wikipedia page for Venarays. My recollection is there used to be a little more information online about this band, for example, who the other players were, when they started and ended, and any line up changes. Right now I’m finding most searches on the band lead to Kat Bjelland’s Wikipedia page, which I believe is informationally problematic. Did Kat Bjelland move to Minneapolis in 1985? If so, was she traveling back to Portland to play in the Venarays? It’s possible that she was no longer in the Venarays after 1985 – but I don’t think so.
I find it odd that it’s so difficult to find specific information about the Venarays – a band that actually wrote and performed songs – versus a “band” like Pagan Babies (and its previous/subsequent forms) which most of the time wasn’t a band that actually wrote and performed music.
It is possible that Erika Schlaeger, Kat Bjelland, and Courtney Love form a trio of links that extend out into different areas. Courtney Love travelled all over throughout the 1980s. Erika Schlaeger also often travelled to Europe and South America. Of course Bjelland and Love both travelled a lot in the 1990s, as they were both in successful touring bands. In 1988, when I was in St Paul/Minneapolis, and apparently Courtney Love was also traveling the same circles in Minneapolis, Erika Schlaeger travelled to places like New York, Chicago, Berlin. Berlin was her big destination spot at that time.
Chris Newman became linked to Berlin through a very small label called “Love’s Simple Dreams” aka LSD Records. He was put in touch with them through Henk Van Dreumel, a Düsseldorf-based German man who was working the door at Satyricon. Or at least, Chris understood Henk to be German – however his name is Dutch and Düsseldorf is very close to the border with The Netherlands. Henke’s girlfriend at the time was named Heike and I believe she went on to be an international booking agent. I do recall Mark Lanegan having known her. It was Henk and/or Heike who set Chris up with this Berlin label “LSD.” Henk then went on to form his own small label out of Düsseldorf which he ultimately called Satyricon Records. A test pressing of Napalm Beach’s LP Moving To And Fro, was sent to Chris, via Satyricon, with Henk Van Dreumel’s Düsseldorf return address under the name “Positive Sinking Records.”
The Berlin-based Loves Simple Dreams record label, according to Chris’ memoir was run by the owner of the Ecstasy club. Here is what Chris wrote about that club:
The Ecstasy club was a huge building. It housed apartments on top, four bars, and at the least five stages. It was run by Thomas and his beautiful wife Petra. We were extremely excited about playing there. The aprtments were covered in entertaining graffitti. Bands from everywhere had witty scrawlings, and drawings. I had to contribute. I saw a message from Mudhoney. It was a syringe dripping blood, and it said,’Hello Napalm Beach.’
This would most likely have been November 1989. Mudhoney had played the Ecstasy on April 1, 1989, and they had also played there on October 10, 1988. Of the 1988 show, Mudhoney tour book notes “This festival (Berlin Independence Days Music Festival) was sponsored by the former government of East Germany, which also featured a performance by French band, Les Thugs.” This show stands out for a number of reasons. First – the bizarre mention of the “former government of East Germany.” What does that even mean? The fall of the Berlin Wall didn’t happen until the following year, November 1989 (a month when Tad, Nirvana, and Napalm Beach were all first touring Europe, and playing Berlin) and East Germany was still a nation until October 1990. Another strange thing about this show, is it appear to be the only show Mudhoney played in Europe in 1988. Mudhoney had actually only existed as a band since April 1988, Green River having officially broken up in October 1987, and it appears to me that the 10/10/88 show at the Ecstasy club was their one and only European date that year – and very likely the very first Sub Pop linked European show. Both Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman were there. This show was followed by Mudhoney’s first US tour. Mudhoney then returned for a European tour the following spring, 1989. You could say they hit the ground running. As for shows played in the first six months of their existence (April – October 1988) , Mudhoney played Seattle’s Vogue five times, Portland’s Satyricon four times, Seattle’s Central Tavern and Squid Row once. The last show they played before flying to Germany was Portland’s Pine Street Theatre, October 2. Ten days after their Berlin gig, on October 20, 1988, they played with a band called Toadstool at Minneapolis’ Uptown Bar – a favorite haunt of Erika Schlaeger. This about a month before Mike Payne left Minneapolis and I essentially never saw him again. Payne would soon end up at Western Washington University in Bellingham and eventually settle in Tacoma, just south of Seattle.
It would be interesting to look further into this and figure out how big this government – or possibly government to government – connection actually is. Mark “Arm” McLaughlin, the lead singer for Mudhoney, is the son of a German-born mother and Air Force veteran father, and he grew up in Bellevue, the same Seattle suburb where my grandparents had lived since the 1960s. Bizarrely, on April 9, 1994, one day after Cobain’s body was “discovered,” Mudhoney and Pearl Jam were both in Washington D.C. with the Pearl Jam meeting and taking a photo with President Clinton.
Everett True links to Olympia and Seattle
It’s worth remembering that June 27, 1988 is the date that Sub Pop Sundays ended and Bret Bowman, while high on LSD, was hit by a car. He would then remain in a coma for about 15 years. The situation with Bret is a link to medical malfeasance and financed FBI files. It’s also worth remembering that Bret was on his way to Oregon meet a mutual classmate of ours – Scott Gear, who at least by the end of 1988, had a job in Seattle with Sub Pop as a driver for the English rock critic Everett True. I do believe Scott ultimately worked for Sub Pop for several years.
The standard story about the global grunge explosion is that it was ignited by a story or a series of stories in the UK music magazine Melody Maker written by Everett True. That Sub Pop had the brilliant idea to finance True’s trip to Seattle to steward around town and show him there was an exciting music scene happening. What is less clear is what the roots of the connection were between Sub Pop (especially Olympia and Portland linked Bruce Pavitt) and Everett True, for example, at his prior job with New Music Express, where he was known as The Legend! – actually an interesting parallel Rozz Rezabek’s self-appointed tile years later “Punk Legend” – a title possibly spun off of one of Rozz’s self released albums “Lover Legend Liar” – which itself is an interesting title when you think about potential links between Rozz Rezabek, Courtney Love, and Everett True.
What I’m trying to say is, I think that Everett True’s links to Olympia, and K Records (from which Sub Pop essentially spawned) goes back years earlier. In his 2006 book Nirvana: The True Story Everett True says that he first became aware of Beat Happening in 1985. He mentioned specifically the cat in a spaceship album cover on the Beat Happening self-titled debut, which was a riff off of Wipers’ Greg Sage’s 1981 Trap Sampler that featured both the Bruce Pavitt managed band Pell Mell, and Napalm Beach. Both Trap Sampler and Beat Happening were recorded by Greg Sage. If True was dialed into Beat Happening, he was likely dialed into the Wipers and Bruce Pavitt as well. Did True have direct contact with Pavitt, Calvin Johnson, Tobi Vail, or others linked to this scene before 1988? I think he did. But again, this is rarely mentioned.
Trap Sampler 1981Beat Happening 1985Two albums engineered by Greg Sage – one in Portland, one in Olympia – notice the similar cover designs
Coming back again to February 1988, that is the postmark on the test pressing of Moving To And Fro.
In other words, Napalm Beach’s fourth album (second album on vinyl), Moving To And Fro, was being pressed as Mudhoney was being formed, and it just so happens that the first European show Mudhoney ever played was at the club owned by the guy who was pressing Napalm Beach’s album, Moving To And Fro. And it also just so happens that this is the same period of time that I was living in the Midway district of St Paul Minnesota, and Courtney Love was about to arrive in Minneapolis to intersect with Erika Schlaeger, who was traveling back and forth from Minneapolis to Berlin. If I recall correctly, Erika S often flew first to New York, and then from New York to Berlin. And it also just so happens that the town where I’d gone to school in Germany 1984-85 (Kamp Lindfort) was about 30 miles from Düsseldorf, where Henk had been centered. These kinds of things are why, even though it would seem that Chris and I had different kinds of lives, we also had a lot in common. It also seems increasingly like these weren’t just non consequential coincidences. There were manipulations happening to me as well as to Chris, including manipulations intended specifically to sabotage my dreams of living in Olympia or Seattle and being in a rock band – both of which I’d wanted to do in the 1980s.
Moving To And Fro test pressing mailed to Chris Newman c/o Club Satyricon – postmarked 23 February 1988
At one point in his memoir, Chris abbreviated the Berlin club name as “XTC.” In fact, this period of time does seem to mark a turning point in an “X” – which the band Napalm Beach was sent down, and other bands like Mudhoney – but especially Nirvana – were sent up (crossing paths about this time – 1989-1991). Generally speaking, it looks to me very much like Napalm Beach and Nirvana were picked out ahead of time to parallel each other in a rise and fall kind of way, but that the intent was always to destroy both bands and their artist bandleaders – Chris Newman and Kurt Cobain.
German labels – L.S.D. and Satyricon Records
It appears that both Love’s Simple Dreams / L.S.D. and Henk Van Dreumel’s Satyricon records released a total of 18 items each, according to current information on discogs.com. LSD records released 18 titles between 1986 and 1990 (Moving To And Fro LP being number 7) – (in fact the number of unique releases seems to be closer to 14, others being the same title in different formats). Satyricon records (1988-94) released five Napalm Beach titles, at least two of which should never have seen light of day for reasons that would be obvious to anyone listening to them or understanding under what conditions they were released, and in fact, being as Napalm Beach’s contracts with Flying Heart were fraudulent, I think could easily be argued that most or all of these releases on Satyricon should have never happened. Chris has said he was reaching a point in the late 1980s and early 1990s when all that mattered to him was survival and drug money – and it’s clear that his choices for publishing were unduly limited – but from my perspective, that doesn’t make it ok to exploit an artist, regardless if you’re the record label or the alleged “manager.” By “exploit” I mean to take advantage of the person in a way that is clearly harmful to that person. I do suspect that a confidence game was being played here. By the time the really ugly recordings came out, Napalm was about to be, or had already been frozen out of touring for good.
In retrospect I think it has to be asked whether either one of these labels ever was truly intended to succeed as a label, or if they were not also constructed as a type of trap. They seemed to have worked out deals with Flying Heart on behalf of Chris – for example the addition of Snow Bud songs – songs to which Jan coercively stolen publishing rights – on Moving To And Fro – without asking Chris first. There were times when Chris could easily be manipulated simply by someone he saw as a person in a position of authority telling him “this is how we’re going to do it.”
All of these things of course were done under the guise of friendly and supportive relationships. The whole thing is complicated by that, and by the fact that Chris was increasingly blacklisted, meaning that by 1988 any record deal looked like a good deal to him. Chris didn’t understand when beginning in 1990, he was having to open for bands like Dead Moon, who had previously opened for him. This is epitomized I think by Nirvana playing Napalm Beach’s usual New Years Eve spot, headlining at Satyricon – while Napalm were in Berlin – at the Ecstasy Club – opening for Dead Moon.
New Zealand 1992Fred and Toody – probably a photo from around 2010 – found on my hard drive
On most articles I write, I leave the comment fields off, because first of all, no one ever comments on my blogs, and second of all, should someone decide to comment, I don’t want some random Kurt Cobain / Courtney Love conspiracy theories or shaggy dog tales.
I think, however, I will leave the comment field open on this particular article, and here is why – I’ve covered a lot of ground, made a lot of connections, and mentioned a lot of names. I want to give people the opportunity – especially if their name has been mentioned – to explain, clarify, counter, or rebut. My intent is never to shut down dissent, to insulate myself from justifiable criticism, falsely accuse, or twist facts. So if anyone feels I’ve done any of these things, and has a countering viewpoint to offer want to make sure they have that opportunity. I don’t have a problem with debate. I do have a problem with people who object to things I say, but refuse to do so directly to me. How, exactly, is that helpful?
I said at the beginning of this article that I didn’t know where it was going. To me, I feel like where I ended up was at the idea that Napalm Beach (and their mirrors, Nirvana, Mudhoney et al) was at the center of an international conspiracy and confidence game linked not just to different branches of the music business, but possibly to a number of government entities both foreign and domestic. I mean, I feel like that’s basically what I have just described. And that the proto-Satyricon Records name “Positive Sinking Records” – was far more than a German accent joke.
* One of the other few instances of a non-US act playing at Seattle Met was John Cale with a band called Memory, and Napalm Beach on August 6, 1983.
Recently I wrote about my Napalm Beach bandcamp account being accessed, songs going missing from the Rock and Roll Hell album, and the digital distribution through CD Baby having been ended for some reason, it turns out way back in September 2013, shortly after I’d published the Napalm Beach article. Right around that time (Sept 2013-Jan 2014) every single one of my social media sites had been hacked. It might have been done then, and I never noticed because things were never the same after that.
Then I couldn’t find the master CD with my others, and I got pretty upset. Since then I realized there was another potential location, and I found the CD, so that is another crisis averted. I will be able to put the songs back into digital distribution. However there was something a bit odd about this – which is, the CD I needed – an album that was engineered and released by Greg Sage on Zeno Records – was in a binder that was in turn in a tote bag, and shoved into the bag, outside of the binder, was another Greg Sage recording – a CD version of 10-29-79. This is the album with a collage-type cover depicting a city (I’ve always assumed it was Portland, since all the bands were Portland bands) being attacked by a swarm of disc-shaped UFOs – but if you look closer you see that the UFOs are actually vinyl records. And then, if you look even closer, you see that there’s one person in the crowd just smiling, not running a way – and that is Portland car dealer Tom Peterson, the same guy on Kurt Cobain’s watch.
One thing that’s interesting about this album to me is it was recorded just a few months before Chris and his band The Goners moved to Portland.
Originally I thought this was just an entertaining 1950s horror movie cover, but now I see more in it – because now I know that record deals are made based on people willing to file defamatory reports with the FBI, and that people are harmed and killed by radiation weapons on starlike drones in the sky (UFOs, basically) – and all of this is financed – and it’s linked to the recording industry, and it’s linked to cars.
From this perspective, it looks really good for Greg Sage that he released his own music (mostly) on his own label.
One thing that’s kind of interesting about this image is it kind of links to the cover Chris painted six years later for Land Of The Lost in which he imagined Portland as a city ruined by some apocalyptic event, with the streets taken over by jungle plants and brightly colored dinosaurs.
Wipers – Land of the Lost (1986) reissue – cover art by Chris Newman
One of the things I’m now doing with this blog is thinking things through, by writing them out. There are a lot of things I’m seeking to understand. There has been a tremendous amount of effort and energy exerted in manipulating us to think, feel, and act in one way or another, and it’s never been to our benefit. It’s generally been very exploitative. This blog has become an effort to break free of that.
I have decided that I am not going to modify, moderate, or modulate my speech or attitude based on this idea that I can behave my way into being treated fairly or justly by the community, the government, or the music industry. I have decided that the truth must prevail, regardless how how it makes people feel.
I have asserted that when it comes to Pacific Northwest music – both historical and contemporary – there is a script, and there are script keepers. The script is classic disinformation – bits of truth sprinkled with fiction, wrapped in misdirection, and full of holes. For this kind of script to be maintained, especially in an environment where there is continued interest in the history, it’s necessary for script keepers to guard the fortress gates lest the “wrong” stories – or the “wrong” angle on a story – be told.
Recently I had an interesting run in – or several run ins – with script keepers of Seattle that I think sheds a bit of light on how this operation works. I wrote about the bizarre experiences I had on a Facebook group called Pacific Northwest Music Archives. There are actually several posts about this and I should probably create a list of them.
This Facebook group is both run and frequented by script keepers. Script keepers who run the group (Matthew Ward and Karl Braun) elevate the voices script keepers within the group (James Burdyshaw et al) and shut down voices (Erika Meyer) who deviate from the script. This process happens all over the place – it’s going on in Portland groups of a similar nature as well. In each case, the script is slightly shifted depending on what specific truths they’re trying to hide and control – but in fact, the primary truths these groups are hiding are the same in Portland and Seattle – and these are the truths – that Chris Newman was corralled, deceived, defrauded, and deliberately kept from the light – and that there is a decades-long ongoing murder for hire scheme via FBI reporting – that all of these folks are involved with – and more specifically – that Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Elliott Smith Chris Cornell, Andrew Loomis and many other artists have fallen victim to this scheme. And that the finance for this endeavor is coming in from around the globe.
By the way, you will notice if you look close enough that the two admins I mentioned – Karl Braun and Matthew Ward – both have international connections – Braun to Ethiopia and Ward to Japan.
Over the past several years I’ve experienced numerous burglaries and disruptions to my personal belongings and files, both paper and electronic. One of the items that’s gone missing and then was returned to a different location was, as I’ve mentioned, a CD with image files from the January 6, 1989 Mudhoney and Nirvana show at Satyricon. In the past I’d published a few of these images on behalf of the photographer, David Ackerman, at a reduced size, most of them labeled with text. I don’t believe I ever even downloaded the entire full size image set, and I don’t think David has a copy of the CD (he has the original negatives). About two weeks ago I noticed that what appeared to be all of the Nirvana images had been published on a Nirvana archive site. I couldn’t think of any reasonable way that would have happened, except for they were taken from that CD I had in my possession. I contacted the site that published the Nirvana photos to let them know the photos had been stolen, and I contacted David who said he had not given the photos to anyone. The admins for the Nirvana archive site were very responsive – they didn’t know where the images had come from originally, they said. They offered to take them down, but David said that it was ok, as long as they weren’t making money from them, they could leave them up.
Then I also noticed an image from that set, the one with Courtney Love, had been published at full resolution on Reddit. Looking into it a bit further, it was pretty clear that the person who posted the photo – “Braunnoser” – was Karl Braun from the Pacific Northwest Music Archives site – the site that had deleted and blocked me, apparently for my “famous blue raincoat” post. I say this because “Braunnoser” was posting other things on reddit linked to Seattle, and historical archiving.
This name Braunnoser actually should be dissected a bit – there’s a classic meaning for it (a kiss up) – but there are two other meanings I see here – one is the idea of a “nose” as being the way that you sniff something out or detect it. It’s basically another word for a spy (or snitch, or defamation agent) – except with the emphasis on “smelling” (nose) something rather than “seeing” it (eyes). And then there’s another meaning, and that has to do with directed energy weapons attacks focused on the tip of the nose. This is something that’s been done to me a lot over the years – I wake up with a brown spot on the tip of my nose after being attacked with directed energy weapons at night. I think this is actually something that’s been done to a lot of people. My daughter has a cousin with a mole right at the tip of her nose. I learned that moles tend to form during puberty and my daughter ended up with a lot of moles on her face around the time I also started to get marks put onto my face, arms, hands. I think all of us have been subjected to directed energy attacks of this type. So if Braun intended that meaning as I think he did, it means he has fairly deep links in the world of covert creepy directed-energy weapons wielding goons (black bag ops).
But! I always try to give the benefit of the doubt until it’s no longer warranted. Ten days ago I sent a Facebook message to Braun with basically the same content and gist as the one I’d sent to the Nirvana website – letting him know that the image seemed to be from a set stolen from a CD that had been physically removed from my possession – and asking him if he could let me know where he got the image and/or what the original file name was. He didn’t respond. I prodded him a couple more times just to make sure he was stonewalling me, and he was.
What do I think this means? I suspect that Braun – admin for the Pacific Northwest Music archives Facebook group – has a direct connection to whoever it is that stole those images in the first place, and that he is protecting that person or entity. If it is the FBI – then it means that Braun has direct connections to the black bag ops that are basically raping, pillaging, injuring, murdering people (and animals, fwiw) across this region.
Folks play this like a game, while innocent people are literally losing their lives.
Another question might be why Braun bothered posting the image to reddit. I imagine it was just part of controlling focus – making this an endless – and pointless – conversation about when Kurt and Courtney met – when the real issue is Courtney being a serial CIA-linked honeytrapper and Cobain being a target for elevation, then – via FBI files, medical malfeasance, and black bag ops – destruction.
The philosophy seems to be if you are playing both sides, you can’t lose. It’s the same reason why wealthy donors fund both Democratic and Republican candidates in the same races. No matter who wins, you’ve already bought influence.
With regards to the music industry, the infiltration is through the underground. The most visible underground acts are industry and/or CIA linked. Punk rock was a vanguard of the music industry. The rebellion was faux. Of course there were those of us who bought what was being sold, to whom these things were meaningful – but all that seems to have done was set us up for a fall as – with a few exceptions – the supportive community we thought we had dissolved with the first influx of corruption cash. Many of them turned out to be completely enmeshed in the occult and much of this community support had always been an illusion. The culture was that of backstabbing – not because people are inherently evil, but because this is how it was set up by the industry who wants to never stop the life of crime.
In our families, infiltration was achieved through intermarriage and multigenerational brainwashing, as well as through financial means.
Thus, again, with a few key exceptions – everything that meant everything to us was coopted and destroyed, including some of the the most fundamental relationships, husband and wife, parent and child. And people are taught to excuse, enjoy, revel in, and even celebrate this predatory behavior.
With a few exceptions.
Every time I reach out for support, I’m reaching for the exceptional.
I know we contributed a lot to our communities in a number of different ways. I saw Chris do a lot of things for people – play benefits, play weddings, play Napalm Beach shows long after he swore he would never do it again, because it was someone’s birthday. And I’ve spent a huge portion of my life volunteering in a number of different capacities. When we were slogging through the club circuit – and yes, beginning around 2011 it started to become a slog from my point of view, because we weren’t progressing as we should have been, all things considered – we thought we were working towards something. In fact, what seems to have been going on was the community was booking us into gigs in order to get us enmeshed in various set ups, and to put us in contact with other bands specifically so they could file false reports with the FBI.
The entire music industry, enmeshed with the FBI and CIA in this way – is a fabrication of a playing field. Everything that is being achieved, it seems, is being achieved via corrupt back room deals, with a performance on the outside, making it look like these scenes are naturally springing up from creative engaged communitites.
What I find really sad is that the city of Portland seems to have essentially agreed to this deal where Seattle would get to have their day in the sun, and Portland would just settle for the dregs and backroom dollar deals. Worse, they decided they’d kill each other off with cancer. “Dialing for dollars.” It’s weird to think this is the only kind of life some people know.
It’s really tempting to fall down into one of these endless occult rabbit holes especially when the Grateful Dead (aka Courtney Love, Whitey Bulger, and various motorcycle gangs) gets involved. That’s the tar pit trap, the light falling like sticky honey, the amber (waves of grain) and all that jazz.
The reality is the crime. The occult is part of the confusion, brainwashing, cover up.
I finished writing two blog entries about this, under duress (because while I don’t like giving it attention, ignoring the occult parts of this doesn’t make it go away), and then turned toward the ceaseless business of saving Chris’ music from the relentless wiping machine. Immediately once I started to do that, my cat Roxy began to suffer terribly from directed energy attacks, shaking her head, twitching, screaming in pain. She’s still suffering. Her ears, scabbed over again and again, are freshly bleeding. I’m livid.
The facts really point to the big deal being the theft and destruction wrought by the recording industry (and secondarily other industries) and their weaponization of the forces of state to this end – the FBI and CIA.
This adds more fuel to this scheme built around honeytrap Courtney Love and her involvement in the take down of Kurt Cobain being a sort of insurance policy for the recording industry (and CIA). The reason is that Kurt and Courtney were married when he died, and she inherited the money he made. Yes, she’s since passed most of it on to their daughter, almost certainly as a means to protect it should Courtney be sued for damages for some of the offenses she’s been involved in. A secondary reason for Courtney to hold on to this system of theft and protection is she can avoid facing accountability for her role in these murder for hire schemes.
Courtney positioned herself as a controller in an occult system. In order to do this, it appears that she had to claim some special role regarding Chris Newman, is what I think. Maybe she had to claim some sexual relationship?
The reason I think this is because the honeytraps I dated seem to have gained a lot of power with regards to me, almost like ownership roles. This whole thing is so ridiculous and depraved it almost makes me choke trying to even talk about it. It’s disgusting, frankly. Anyone who truly buys into this is probably basically in a cult and thinking in a cultlike manner, meaning they’ll swallow almost anything. And that is dangerous.
I have decided to put some attention into Napalm Beach’s first four albums – before Chris began to sign – on the advice of “friends” and other around him – horrible, fraudulent deals with Flying Heart Records (a honeytrap label). To this end, I began to create some promotional materials in an attempt to fundraise to get some important work done. I was working on Adobe Creative Cloud, saving files to the cloud. Suddenly everything started to hang, then my computer restarted, seemingly all on its own. After it rebooted – hours of saved work was gone from the cloud accounts.
Also, yesterday, I discovered evidence my bandcamp accounts had been compromised. The album Rock and Roll Hell has two missing songs. I went to CD Baby, where we do digital distribution, and found the album had been cancelled from digital distribution. I did not cancel this album. I then went back to my archives, and found the original CD is also missing. This is evidence of the music industry weaponizing the FBI, because I believe it is the FBI and/or CIA who regularly enters my apartment, hacks my online accounts, harms me physically, and tortures my cat.
Before this, for days on end, this song has been in my head, which turns out to be from Rock n’ Roll Hell, called “Never Forgive.” I’m not sure what the reason is for this song coming to me, but one of the lines that I kept thinking of was “remember down in New Orleans, you ran around with the dogs.” The two songs that were missing from that album were “Down In New Orleans” and “Too Much Fun.”
“Never Forgive” was a song that Chris wrote aimed at his child molesting boy scout leader Uncle Arnold.
