Going through images I just found these screenshots I made from viewing a post shared through Chris’ Facebook account back in March of 2019. The original post was made on January 28, 2018. Courtney Love has had a habit of popping into Satyricon related Facebook accounts, leaving a couple comments, then disappearing for a few more years. In this case, she comments about Napalm Beach letting her “sleep on their couch” with what looks like maybe an implied comment to Chuck Arjavac. Reading that, Chris commented to me that actually she lived in the band house and had her own room (1981). I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this but elsewhere I’ve read there was someone in the 1980s Portland punk scene named Eric Couch.
I count three people in this thread who were fine when it was posted and have since died of cancer: Matt Loomis, Chris Newman, Sam Henry.
When I used to work part time at the sign shop, I would take an hour lunch at my buds house, Greg Slyter. Slyter was a real character. He reminded me of Dennis Hopper or Ed Norton the goofy neighbor on the Honeymooners. Slyter was a jazz nut, and a Hendrix buff. He played guitar and he always had the best pot in town. He wasn’t a dealer, but he would help out close friends. We got to be close. He didn’t hang with the chicks, ever. He camped, jet skied, and did moto cross racing, until he busted his jaw.
We had the Jam for Lunch Bunch, and others would join us too. We even became room mates for a while, but Kim couldn’t be trusted. The first week she was fucking my drummer Tim Pederson.
One Christmas vacation, I believe it was 1985, I decided to record a tape to amuse Slyter when he returned from his ski trip. I had a record called Drum Drops, it had studio recorded drum parts with fills running the average length of a typical song. They had Hard Rock, British Rock, Blues, Punk Rock. It had a lot of beats with fills and endings.
What I did was write down some silly song titles.
BONG HIT KILLER BUD MARY JANE BROWN RAT FINK BAD TRIP SPACED OUT PEAKIN’ SEEDS FOR THOUGHT SPACIN’ MASON
I then played bass along with the desired drum drop beat, and hit the record button. What ever came out was the basic track for the song. Then I had three more tracks open for guitars and vocals.
When I finished that night, after about six or seven hours straight, I listened. I got scared. What I heard happened so effortlessly and naturally, I felt like it was guided by the hand of the Devil himself. Of course i was stoned out of my gourd, and exhausted from working straight through the night without a break. Nothing fries the brain like recording, overdubbing, and mixing.
This of course was me still dealing with the remains of my religeous upbringing, which someone like me can take a lifetime to re-adjust to a normal mode of thinking. Even now at almost 60, I sometimes feel traces of guilt over my silly outdated childhood beliefs.
Needless to say, my tribute to Marijuana, and the music I grew up smoking it to, turned out to be a big hit with a lot of local kids.
Matt Loomis nabbed a cassette of the original recording. I called it SNOW BUD AND THE FLOWER PEOPLE, referencing a note I had left on Slyters door a few weeks before this recording. I had been wanting to obtain one quarter ounce of the new frosty white pot he had acquired called Snow Bud. My note was cryptic, so as to throw off any law enforcement officer happening to stroll by and read the note’s contents.
I need the new quarter inch tape of Snow Bud and the Flower People
That was where I came up with the goofy name. Matt told me all his friends and their friends want a cassette of Snow Bud and the Flower People. It was music styled from the mid 60’s early psychedelia we both grew up on. A naive time. The world belonged to the youth, and we were going to change some things. Slyter and Roth joined me in Gregs living room. We set up the oversized blue vista lite Ludwig drums, on loan from Tim, my sisters husband. Me and my Teac A-2340 4 Track and Roth’s keyboard, Twin Reverb amp, Fender Stratocaster, and my 1980 Gibson custom white Flying V. The Mig Muff Fuzztone, and Cry Baby Wah-wah pedal, and a MXR stereo Flanger, Boss echo pedal. That’s all I needed.
Jeff Roth was originally the drummer, and he could play the best fake jazz ever. He can play some cool Latin type beats too. I would play the caveman pounding drum parts,like on Bonghit and Killer Bud. I called myself TUMBA on drums. I was also FUZZ ROCKMAN on guitar and SNOW BUD on vocals and Ukelele.
When Roth heard the bizzare noisy sped up vocals and backwards masking on BAD TRIP he really freaked out. He was scared, and said “This is wrong, we can’t do this!” It was worse than my initial reaction.
That first cassette became an underground regional hit.
My friend Hippy Brad bought over one hundred cassettes from me and distributed them and sold some to kids on Haight Street in San Fransisco. He travelled there a lot. He owned the Pied Cow, a cool coffee shop on Belmont Avenue in Portland. He said kids were wearing jackets with Snow Bud and the Flower People on their backs. It was so great. I had complete control of this product. I would put together cassettes outside of 2nd Ave. records, and sell the owner twenty cassettes at $60.00, and they would double their money and sell for $6.00.
We hit Seattles Vogue nightclub. Mark Arm of Green River was there. He was digging the wah-wah and Big Muff fuzz pedals. He seemed to like the goofy retro buttons I had made and the beaded peace sign. Arm talked about Green River splitting up. He claimed some of the guys wanted to go the MTV route and the big bucks.
Pearl Jam became that band.
I told Mark Arm I admired him for sticking with his initial desire to play music he loved first and secondly for the fans, and hopefully some money.
The first couple of Mudhoney records were exciting and edgey. They were channeling Iggy Pop from the Rolling Stones inluenced RAW POWER stage in the Ig’s carrer.
When Napalm Beach was touring Europe it was the same club circuit that Mudhoney, Tad, Hole and Nirvana worked. I saw some cute graffiti left behind on the dressing room in a Hamburg venue. Courtney Love had left a message for Jerry A of Poison Idea, reminiscing about their practice space parties with 40 ouncers of Old English 800. I was a little hurt she never mentioned me on the walls. I did see the message from Mudhoney on the dressing room table in Stuttgart I believe. It said “HELLO NAPALM BEACH – Greetings from MUDHONEY!” with a drawing of a dripping syringe carved below.
Sub Pop was a new label. They started out as a fanzine and developed while Bruce Pavitt, Mark Arm, and Poneman worked at Muzac. Some other future label mates worked their too. That night at the Vogue in the Spring of 1986, Pavitt approached me in the backstage area. He was excited about the show and the cassette. He expressed interest in Snow Bud. I loved the Snow Bud music, but dreaded the thought of forever playing the cartoonish character the rest of my days. The music was inspired by the Cramps, Jimi Hendrix, the Stooges, Velvet Undergriund, and Gun Club. This was the music I was engrossed in and studying at that time.
As usual, I didn’t follow through. I wasn’t paying attention. I heard promising talk all the time. I didn’t realize these Seattle dudes were actually onto something. I could have grown with the SUB POP label, or possibly been buried by the label. They went on to become huge in the music industry, changing the whole playing field, and some of the the rules.
Music is competetive. They have the sleazy underhanded stuff going on. People ripping off ideas, and squelching and dousing the flame of their rivals.
Mother Love Bone was the first spin off of Green River. Andrew Wood was a little gypsy Steven Tyler type rock star in the making. I met him at the Satyricon the one night they headlined. He was friendly and respectful to me. He made me feel important, and that always endears a person to another. I was waiting outside the stall in the Satyricon Men’s room. Wood was on the single toilet, obscured by a crude curtain since the door had long been broken off. I was waiting to fix myself. I realized as I saw him stick the needle in his arm through the shabby curtain’s gaps.
Andrew Wood went on stage before a packed house and you could see him pointing to the bleachers at the top back row of the Kingdome in his mind. He was going to be the old school rockstar reborn.
It was sad when he overdosed a few months later, right on the verge of stardom. Eddie Vedder took his place as the Pearl Jam frontman. He is the “Every Man” frontman ala Bono.
I felt that these Seattle bands were getting every kind of break a band could wish for as far as exposure and good press. The trouble was 90% of it was mediocre bullshit. There are potential Kurt Cobains and Elliot Smiths out there even now, but they will go unnoticed with the distractions and slight of hand drawing any attention away from the true and the beautiful. The bottom line is party bands and hate fuckers get on your nerves after a few listens, but a well crafted beautifully delivered song will tame the savage beast and make the little girls cry everytime.
1993 Snow Bud Sub Pop single
Snow Bud did eventually get a Sub Pop release with the Single of the Month club series.
It was Killer Bud, (4 track version) and side two was “Third Shelf” from Green Thing, 24 track and Drew Canulette produced. It included a twelve panel cartoon, “Snow Bud in Hell” 1,000 in print. It was an honor and a delight to be on the label at the time. I recieved a few copies, and got paid a few hundred dollars, which I generously split with Jan Celt.
I can parse the series of music-related set ups in Chris’ life going back to 1967. However, right now I’m focused on the 1980s, especially the Sub Pop era.
I’ve been trying to think of Pacific northwest punk bands who were touring early before 1987. The only ones I can think of are Wipers, Beat Happening, Go Team, D.O.A. – and Pell Mell? Green River toured beginning in 1985.
Pell Mell with Wipers at Evergreen Experimental Theater 13 July 1984
A lot of times people don’t include D.O.A. with these other bands maybe because they were from Vancouver B.C. or because, generally speaking, artificial divisions are made in the northwest music scene where they shouldn’t be made, almost certainly to misdirect attention.
D.O.A. – like Black Flag, the LA band with whom they shared a member – was a popular hardcore punk band on the move.
Wipers, from Portland, was Greg Sage. Sage was linked to the all ages punk scene, to Pell Mell (Steve Fisk, Bruce Pavitt), and Napalm Beach. I don’t know, but I suspect Sage was linked more generally to K Records, Evergreen State College and the all ages punk scene. Wipers was one of the Portland bands who were liked in Olympia. (Dead Moon was another.)
There are things about Greg Sage that tell you he has some kind of background in, for lack of a better term, mind control activity (hypnosis, covert manipulations, etc). It’s in his sound (hypnotic drum loops, etc) and in the messaging he conveyed. This is true of a lot of people around Chris and me – especially those closest to us. How these people were trained to handle us, and who trained and/or handles them, I don’t know. The mind control activities do seem to be linked to bigger record labels and movie studios (I.E. the Hollywood entertainment business), and financial activity. Part of Greg Sage’s job was trapping Chris (thus the hidden in plain sight name of his first label – Trap Records) in the local scene. To this end, I suspect he coordinated with a number of other people and financial entities.
Beat Happening (Olympia) was of course linked to K Records, KAOS Radio/Evergreen, Pavitt/Sub Pop zine/label, and the all ages scene. Go Team (Olympia) was linked to Beat Happening, K Records, Bikini Kill zine/band, and the all ages scene. Part of the misdirecting used by bands like Beat Happening (and all of these bands, really) was an overt eschewing of anything corporate or “sell out.” That seems to have been a psychological technique to make it seem like being small and unknown and not standing out was “cooler” than being successful and “corporate”, and it was also a form of misdirection. I suspect all of these acts were involved in a number of subterranean financial transactions.
D.O.A. (Vancouver, B.C.) was linked to Black Flag (L.A.), the Dead Kennedys (S.F.) and the Seattle club scene. Chris remembered Joey Keithley from D.O.A. giving him a hard time because Untouchables formed in 1980 and therefore were latecomers to punk (D.O.A. were hardcore punk) – this is part of an ongoing pattern of psychological baiting that dogged Chris his whole life. Again with the arbitrary divisions – are you from Portland or are you from Olympia or are you from Seattle? Did your band form before or after 1979? Are you pre-grunge, proto-grunge, grunge, or post grunge? And so on.
It is not clear to me how Wipers, Beat Happening, etc managed, financially, to tour.
One thing about the situation around Chris and me is that it is highly controlled, and in fact our families have been highly controlled for generations. It’s done in such a way as to give people a modicum of power as long as they provide support to the system overall. The system works by tempting, enticing, entrapping, enslaving, threatening, coercing, baiting, lying, deceiving, changing the rules, etc – whatever it takes. There are layers of power/authority and layers of protection. One of the means of protection is financial connections. Another is getting as many people involved as possible in the various schemes, and then convincing them that the system is their only protection and salvation.
So our lives have been a series of set ups, usually involving lots of people in different roles (cut outs), with a bigger plan (world domination) at work in the background. In the early 1980s Chris was playing a lot in Portland and Seattle.
1983 Rock and Roll Hell cassette Trap Records
During 1983, when clubs were closing in Portland and Seattle, Sam and Chris moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, but my recollection is that they decided to move back to Portland after Satyricon opened. They’d come up for a visit and had so much fun in Portland Chris said “let’s move back.” I now think this was all set up ahead of time, that they (the architects of his life) wanted to introduce Chris to Valarie who, even though she was much younger, already had a drug habit, and they also were going to introduce him to heroin. Chris met Valerie through his drummer Sam Henry, and he was introduced to heroin by his bassist at the time, a former member of SF band The Cosmetics, who was at that time driving cab in San Francisco. Chris was actually the last member of that lineup of Napalm Beach to try heroin. That was 1983, the same year Napalm Beach made a record with Greg Sage (Rock and Roll Hell), and drummer Sam Henry’s first serious girlfriend died of a heroin overdose.
Valarie must have returned to Portland with Chris and Sam or followed after them.
In Seattle, both Golden Crown and Gorilla Room/Gorilla Gardens seem to have had issues with under age drinking on the premises. A co-owner of Golden Crown, John Loui was killed along with 12 others in the Wah Mee Massacre, February 19, 1983. The 3bands3bucks calendar for Golden Crown ends after December 1982. It’s a bit chilling that one of the last listed shows is Napalm Beach and Next Exit (12/17/82) and currently the last show listed is Visible Targets (12/31/82).
In Portland, The Met, an all-ages club located where Dante’s is now, closed, I think also in 1983.
It sounds like the similarly named Seattle Metropolis (also sometimes called the Met) had been a favorite of Chris’. It was an all ages space run by Gordon Doucette, Hugo Piottin, and Susan Silver. Silver worked with Jonathan Poneman and later went on to manage Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Screaming Trees. She became co-owner of The Crocodile. According to 3bands the last show at Seattle’s Metropolis was March 6, 1984 and featured Alien Sex Fiend from London, with Red Masque and 3 Squirrels From Hell.
Violent Femmes 1983
What I find interesting about this is it is just about exactly when Satyricon started. It’s actually not clear to me exactly when Satyricon made it’s debut as a rock club as I’ve heard a couple of different stories, and it probably depends on what you consider the first show to have been. Was it a Violent Femmes show at Mediterranean Tavern in May 1983? Or was it Theatre of Sheep? Or was it The Jackals? If I had to guess based on trying to remember the dates of reunion shows, I’d guess Satyricon marked their birth date as October 1983. Is it possible there was a link between the closing of Seattle’s Metropolis and the opening of Portland’s Satyricon?
In 2002 I made and updated a website for Satyricon and then around 2005 or 2006 I created a MySpace fan page for the club which had shut down after 20 years, in 2003. One of the things that several old-timers mentioned on that MySpace page was the song “I Walk The Line” by Alien Sex Fiend as being “the favorite song” on the Satyricon jukebox. I’d never heard of the band or the song before. In any case Satyricon soon became Chris’ new favorite haunt and place to play, and from what I can tell, for several years he headlined there twice a month, and drew calendars for Satyricon and advertisements for Taki’s Souvlakis next door. Chris played other clubs around Portland and Seattle as well, as well as the occasional festival and/or small town gig, but it looks to me like Chris was playing fewer shows in Seattle after the 1983 transition period, and especially after 1988, especially if you compare to how prolific he was in the early 1980s. Under normal circumstances, someone who was doing what Chris was doing as well as he was doing it would have caught the interest of a label somewhere. But there was already a plan for Chris, as there was for me, and both plans were basically a series of traps, along with, it appears, plans/intents/set ups intended to harm us and endanger our lives. I believe that Sub Pop took advantages of opportunities that presented themself within this context. Specifically, in order for them to be successful with their selected group of artists, they would have to help make sure Chris and I stayed put, stayed on track. In order to do that, it seems that everyone around us – friends, family, etc – was instructed/bribed/coerced to keep us in certain locations, and out of other locations – but not to be obvious about all of this. So there is tempting bait (Satyricon as sort of an ad hoc family and artists playground), enticing us to stay close to home, along with messaging warning us away from moves towards financial/professional success. It was a pattern of luring, honey traps, sabotage, psychological warfare. The idea was to make our failures seem like bad luck or our own fault. Meanwhile, terrible reports are sold in hopes that FBI/CIA black bag ops will retaliate with assassinations, because apparently, that’s what they do. It does seem like there are people in these communities who habitually and maybe even as a tradition pick out people (or offer up people) to be marked for death. Audacity is one way the crime hides – the idea being that the nature of the crime is so audacious, no one will believe your story.
Napalm Beach 1987
So 1983 was a very transitional year, and it was a year in which a number of personalities who would appear later, associated with grunge, were becoming established.
One question would be, did the establishment of Club Satyricon in late 1983 have something to do with the origins of Sub Pop and possibly also K Records? And I think that the answer is yes, especially with regards to Sub Pop. What I think was happening is that Sub Pop was making deals specifically at Chris’ expense, and at my expense as well. And while following the money would be ideal, if you can’t see the money, you can see the flow of wealth in the form of material goods and other benefits, and even more so, you can see the matching of dates and movement of people in key positions at key moments. Generally speaking, I think Satyricon served both as a holding cell for Chris, and a transition point for Seattle bands making their moves down the coast and beyond.
In his 2021 book, The Rocky Road To Recovery: The Life of Chris Newman of Napalm Beach Eric Danielson claimed that Chris Newman “attended and participated in the infamous Satyricon Riot” (p 77, 171). This claim is uncited, unsupported, and false. I am not claiming that Danielson has deliberately falsified information. It’s possible this was a rumor that everyone had simply accepted as self-evident.
The Satyricon Riot of April 28-29 1990 is an event that has come up in conversation and in the press from time to time, ever since I moved to Portland in the summer of 2000. At some point in the early 2000s I conducted an interview with Satyricon owner George Touhouliotis who cited that event as being a turning point in his enthusiasm for running the club. What I didn’t understand, until researching the event in The Oregonian archives a few days ago, is that it really was not a one-night affair – but that it seems to have inspired a long running conflict involving not just a few criminal cases, but civil lawsuits stretching into the mid 1990s.
So what actually happened on this night? The core of the incidence seems to be this – that Touhouliotis had stepped outside and decided to take a leak in a neighboring vacant lot. Portland Police Officer Rocky Balada spied and then confronted him. George tried to give him the brush off and walk back into the club, and that’s when Balada began to beat George. What George told me when I interviewed him, and what seems to have come out a grand jury trial later that year, is that at first, no one understood that Rocky Balada was a police officer. He was described as a “guy in a windbreaker” with an earring beating up on George, the club owner. At that point two club employees, Bruno Berger, the bouncer, and Taki Kapellakis, the cook, rushed to George’s aid. After that, more police showed up. Berger and Kapellakis were charged with “among other things, rioting and Escape I” – felony charges. These cases were thrown out by the grand jury the following June (Stanford, “Whose Riot Was That Anyway?” Oregonian, June 20, 1990)
Charges of assault against Steven A. Birch, and John J. Noyola were dropped in July 1991. Both were convicted of harassment, put on probation, and ordered to pay fines. George Touhouliotis and Gilly Ann Hanner “entered pleas of guilty and no contest to misdemeanor charges.” (Leeson, “2 Patrons Convicted In Satyricon Disturbance” Oregonian, July 4, 1991)
By this point, four police officers had filed a civil suit against Touhouliotis and five other individuals, and Touhouliotis had filed a counter suit. These civil suits dragged on for years. One of the suits was by Officer Balada, against the the club, for mental distress resulting from the display of a painting – “the painting of a policeman choking a bleeding black man included the name ‘Rocky.'”
1st Amendment Benefit Show – July 10, 1991
On July 10, 1991 a benefit concert was held at the Melody Ballroom to help Touhouliotis defray legal expenses. It was called The Benefit To Support The First Amendment. Text on the poster read “Help keep Satyricon open. Under attack for a painting displayed after a police raid last year, owner George Touhouliotis needs help with the fight. Stand up for all our rights.” The poster went on to advertise “One night only – 2 Big Stages – ALL AGES.” It appears that Napalm Beach and Sweaty Nipples were co-headliners. This doesn’t make Chris a participant in the riots – it simply means someone asked him to play a benefit to help the beloved club owner, George Touhouliotis, and he accepted. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s Chris’ bands seem to have been playing Satyricon an average of twice a month (alternating between Napalm Beach and Snow Bud). So it was only natural that Chris would want to support the club and George, and as a songwriter and artist, it was only natural that he would support our constitutional right to free speech. From my perspective, all good US citizens should want to support and defend the first amendment – though that, and what that does and does not entail exactly – is, I understand, often a matter of controversy.
Looking through Oregonian archives, appears that most or all of the legal wrangling over the May 29 1990 conflict and the “Rocky” painting was completed by 1995. And that’s when, from my perspective, the story gets even weirder.
Musician Jeffrey Lee Pierce died of a brain aneurism on March 31, 1996, exactly one year, as it happens, after the gun murder of Tejano artist Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (and exactly 23 years before the gun murder of rapper Nipsey Hussle). Another musician named Pierce – Paula Pierce of the Pandoras – died of an aneurism in 1991 at age 31 – just one of many weird spiderweb links around these events. Chris was a big fan of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, but he didn’t find out about his death until the following November. Once he found out, Chris put together a memorial tribute concert for Jeffrey Lee, which was held on December 11, 1996 (also my daughter’s first birthday). Two days later, on December 13, 1996, Chris was arrested for heroin possession, an event which would eventually lead to him and his wife Valarie losing all their possessions and becoming homeless for the better part of a decade.
The catalytic event that led to Chris’ fateful arrest had to do with Valarie creating a ruckus at a 7-11 after spilling a tray of nachos. The clerk at the 7-11 called the police, and Chris allowed them to frisk him. They found evidence of heroin, then searched the car and found more.
Could this little nacho fracas and the resulting drug bust have been seen as a parallel to the Satyricon Riot? Something that is interesting – especially in light of the July 1991 Satyricon benefit show advertising “Two Big Stages” – is there were actually two different incidents in downtown Portland on the night of April 28-29, 1991 involving arrests of bar patrons. The other incident was at a bar called Goldie’s and resulted in the arrest of Portland Trailblazer Cliff Robinson. (After retiring from basketball Robinson suffered a stroke in 2017 and died in of lymphoma in 2020 at the age of 53. Robinson was born in Buffalo, New York, and died in Portland, Oregon.)
So by the end of 1996, Chris was dealing with arrest warrants, legal problems, treatment programs, and all kinds of loss, including financial ruin. This is also when Valarie openly began working as a prostitute.
Meanwhile, back in April 1996, the Satyricon which had previously been a beer and wine only venue, acquired a liquor license. The change was announced in an April 12, 1996 Oregonian article entitled “Spiking the punks at boozy Satyricon: Booze at Satyricon.” Twelve days later, the Oregonian published another article by the same writer, with the headline “Satyricon’s Dirty Dozen” and opening with a quote from 19th century clergyman John Henry Newman. This “dirty dozen” reference had to do, at least on the surface, with Satyricon celebrating its 12th anniversary. But what else does it mean? It was the title of a 1967 film about “a top-secret mission to train some of the Army’s worst prisoners and turn them into commandos to be sent on a virtual suicide mission just before D-Day.” But before it was a film, “dirty dozens” were spoken word insult games (later showing up in blues lyrics) where (according to Wikipedia) “participants insult each other until one gives up.” (Wikipedia, dozens (game))
Another interesting construction in this article is the one that was pulled for the headline of the April 12 article “Spiking the punks.” Spiked belts were a 1980s staple of punk rock gear, but what is the meaning of all of that? I now have come to believe that “spike” is slang for the covert insertion of radio frequency activated devices which are used by intelligence agencies (and doctors and police linked to them) to manipulate behavior, create disease, and to murder. This conclusion is based on direct forensic evidence which I have found and documented, as well as on pattern-based evidence. I have discerned that there is actually a lot of slang linked to this technology – wires/wired, or chicken wire, and pins are also slang for the same thing. Chain link fences are used in photos and video to symbolize someone being wired up in this way. Such references come up with regularity in different media, including song lyrics, and this goes back at least to the 1970s (though the technology itself is older). The idea of “spiking” being something more sinister than a simple liquor license is further supported by the doubling in the headling – the word “booze” is doubled and the name “Satyricon” is doubled. This is a reference to matched, or “twin” attacks and murders – covert assassinations that are linked to each other, symbolically or otherwise (often by dates, names, circumstances).
As far as the content of the articles, what I find myself asking is how did George Touhouliotis suddenly have the money to do a $200,000 renovation of Satyricon? This was a man who five years earlier was in dire financial straights, scraping together money from benefit shows, to pay a few thousand dollars in legal fees. $15,000 from the Portland Development Commission still leaves $185,000 the Satyricon allegedly paid out of its own pocket.
From my perspective, it seems to be indicative of a pattern around Chris and me in which things begin to simultaneously go really bad for us, and really good for everyone else. But I’m beginning to see it’s not just Chris and me who have been suffering. The concept of “spiking the punks” – and the fate of many of those in the community – by which I mean many premature deaths which I maintain have been falsely attributed to bad luck, drugs, and/or a “rock n’ roll lifestyle”- are starting to tell a bigger story.
And what about Officer Balada? In June 1999 Balada was caught up in another scandal. He was accused of allowing officers working federally-funded drug missions to leave hours early yet still receive pay for the full shift. The federal program was called “Operation North Star.” According to Balada and others, the practice of paying officers federal funds for time they didn’t actually work was known as “cuff time” or “short nights” and was common throughout the Portland Police Department. Balada was transferred, then relieved of his duties in July 1999, and promptly filed a stress disability claim against the city. It’s difficult to sort out how many lawsuits Balada filed in the 1990s, but there were several, and he seems to have frequently won money in settlements from these suits. George Touhouliotis paid him a settlement of $7,000 (Police officer near settling lawsuit – Oregonian – April 13, 1994 – page B02). In 1993 Balada sued then-Mayor Bud Clark and various city officials “accusing them of engaging in racism and a plot to oust him from the bureau” and won a settlement of $34,000. In 2000, Balada, who was receiving disability pay, sued the City of Portland for $22 million, claiming civil rights violations and defamation (Policeman Sues City, Superiors – Oregonian – July 1, 2000 – page D01). Balada seems to have been staying home and receiving disability pay from July 1999 to September 2006, when he retired and received his pension as well as $92,300 from the city in addition to the disability pay he had already been receiving since 1999 (December 4, 2008, Oregonian, Bernstein – page B02).
SNELL – of the Oregonian Staff; DWIGHT JAYNES of The Oregonian also contributed to this report from Dallas. ‘TRAIL BLAZER ROOKIE CITED AFTER BRAWL‘, Oregonian, 30 Apr 1990 A01
Danielson, Eric N. The Rocky Road To Recovery: The Life of Chris Newman of Napalm Beach. Pagoda Press/self-published (September 12, 2021). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09F3GSNDL/
Writing to correct and clarify some things about Napalm Beach. Chris talked to me a lot about his past, and his history in music. Because I had written a history (Introducing Napalm Beach), and because I kept wanting to understand things clearly, I would frequently ask him questions, and I would also try to find corroborating support for the things he said in documents, newspaper clippings, and other primary source materials. Generally speaking, Chris’ memory was outstanding, especially as far as dates were concerned. He also had a surprisingly good – though not perfect – memory of the shows he’d played and whatever other bands were on the bill. In certain cases where his memory was fuzzy, or contradicted in some way with evidence I’d dug up, he’d been able to clarify certain details with other band members.
Chris communicated at length with writer Eric Danielson when Danielson was working on a article back in 2010. Eric put a lot of work in particular into compiling a discography of Chris’ music. Since that time, he has done further research, last September, self-published and made a book about Chris’ life available on amazon.com called The Rocky Road to Recovery: The Life of Chris Newman of Napalm Beach. No one else has put anything close to this level of work in researching and publishing about Chris’ life. Nonetheless, there are still some errors, and things that I think bear clarification.
From The Untouchables to Napalm Beach
One thing that seems to be an ongoing source of confusion is when and where was Chris’ best known band, Napalm Beach, formed. The answer, it appears, would be on which band you consider to be Napalm Beach. If Napalm Beach is considered to be the band consisting of a core of songwriter/guitarist Chris Newman and drummer Sam Henry, then Napalm Beach formed in 1981, in Portland, Oregon. However, this is not how Chris thought of Napalm Beach. Chris considered Napalm Beach to be the same band as the band he formed in Portland in 1980 – The Untouchables – albeit with a new name, and soon a new bassist, and new drummer. Unfortunately Napalm Beach bassists cycled in and out faster than Spinal Tap drummers – but Sam stayed in the band playing drums from 1981 onward. It is possible, I suppose, to consider Napalm Beach to be an evolution of a band even older than The Untouchables which Chris called The Goners – but in this case I would defer to how Chris saw his band. The Untouchables was the same band as Napalm Beach. The Goners were gone.
Another thing I would call attention to, is the assumption that Chris Newman and Sam Henry were co-equal partners in the band. Though Sam is an exciting and dynamic drummer and personality, the reality is, that Chris was the bandleader, songwriter, guitar player, and on recordings often he was also the bass player. Chris arranged and sometimes engineered recording sessions, he created album artwork, and so on.
Generally speaking, creative power balance that fans perceive in a band (or that publicists or media presents) is not necessarily reflective of the internal reality of the band. Chris’ bands were his bands – just as every band line up with Greg Sage that Greg decided to call the Wipers was the Wipers – it was Chris who decided what was and was not Napalm Beach. He would never put it that bluntly, but I’m a different person. That said, after a certain point, it’s hard to picture Chris having anyone but Sam play drums for Napalm Beach. The band he formed in 2008 with Sam on keyboards, Lost Acolytes, in all honesty, could have been called Napalm Beach, as it featured three original members of Napalm Beach – Sam, Chris, and Dave Minick. Paul Vega played drums. Calling the band Napalm Beach would have meant an easier draw, but I suspect Chris wanted to move on from the baggage and expectations that were foisted upon Napalm Beach. To him, Napalm Beach had ended in 1996. He wanted to move forward artistically, which is also why he fell in love with his next band, the band he had with me, Boo Frog.
The reason Chris believed he had to give up “The Untouchables” as a band name was because Chris was sent a “cease and desist” letter from a Los Angeles based ska band called The Untouchables. If Chris had a lawyer, or means to research the situation – he might have learned that he had used the name first. Chris had been using the name since 1980 while the ska band formed in 1981 – which must have been the same year they sent the letter. This kind of thing had happened to Chris more than once – another band trying to force its way into Chris’ territory – and if it wasn’t on stage – if it was something to do with business – Chris did not seem to know how to stand up for himself. He always seemed to think it would be easier to move on to the next idea, rather than stand his ground and fight for what he’d already established.
As for The Untouchables original line-up – with Chon Carter on drums and Dave Koenig on bass – my recollection from Chris’ stories, is that Chris fired Koenig, and that Chon left shortly afterward. That is when Sam Henry joined the band. 1981-82 is also the period of time where Chris developed the sound that combined the Big Muff fuzz with the Small Clone chorus.
Napalm Beach “Into The Sky” – Golden Crown, Seattle – 1982 bootleg (bestrockphotos.com)
Heroin
There is a lot to say about heroin, and how it was introduced to Chris, and who was behind it. Chris believed to the end of his days that his experiences with drugs were either things that just happened to him, or things he wanted to happen – but I don’t believe any of this, and the reason I don’t believe any of this is because I have access to a lot more information than Chris did, and unlike Chris I am unburdened by the need to accept personal responsibility (blame) for everything bad that happens. I think Chris underwent deep and deliberate brainwashing both while under the influence of older friends and drugs, and even when he was in recovery. I have reason to believe that people were rewarded for introducing Chris to drugs, and that the FBI was behind all of this, likely accepting funding from various sources. That said, there are a few other issues I want to clarify.
First, while Chris was exposed to a lot of drugs in his earlier bands – pretty much every street drug there was – he did not try heroin until 1981. He was 28 years old. And after trying it the first time, he didn’t try it again for several months, and it was some time before he experienced the withdrawal that signalled a “habit.” The person who gave him his first dose of heroin was his bassist, Dave Minick, who was driving a cab and playing in The Cosmetics, and it happened in San Francisco.
Sam Henry, on the other hand, already had a heroin habit when he joined Napalm Beach. The rumor was that he had been kicked out of the Wipers either because of his habit, or because of the behavior of his girlfriend – the same girlfriend who died as Napalm Beach was recording Rock ‘n’ Roll Hell, allegedly of a heroin overdose. Minick was in and out of Napalm Beach. So Chris was in a band with two members who were effectively heroin addicts. In 1983 Sam introduced Chris to Chris’ future wife Valarie and it appears that although she was very young, she also was already a user of speed and heroin.
I am not trying to point fingers at any given person in Chris’ life – in part because I know not a single one of them acted alone – that each of them had someone bigger behind them, protected by the FBI. I only think it should be made clear, since Chris was tagged as a heroin addict, that he was not the first person in the band to use heroin.
Courtney Love
And then there’s the teenage girl who showed up with pocketfuls of Owsley acid, who later became known as Courtney Love. If heroin was a gift from the FBI, the LSD was almost certainly from the CIA.
Wrex, Seattle – 1981
There are stories about Courtney Love and a trip Napalm Beach took to play at the University of Washington HUB in Seattle, October 1981. I don’t think any of those stories can be corroborated and they all conflict with stories she has told about herself. The one story I do believe about this trip is that Courtney left an oversized Columbo-style overcoat in the van which Chris later wore (seen here at the Wrex in Seattle, 1981 – the club that later became The Vogue).
Courtney Love was more than a girl who just happened to show up in Portland and find a place in the Napalm Beach band house. Her role was part of a bigger tapestry and it’s been difficult for me to figure out just what, and how much to say about that. There is a bigger background here that includes mass exploitation of children in various ways, including sexual exploitation of children – by our intelligence agencies, and supported by the Department of Justice. Chris’ encounter with Courtney fits into this background. She was just one of a series of honey traps set up for Chris by the FBI/CIA.
April 28-29, 1990 Satyricon Riot
Throughout his book, Danielson states that Chris “participated” in the Satyricon “riot,” almost as if it were self-evident. This is not true, and in fact it is the first time I’ve heard such an assertion. I don’t even know if Chris was there. My sense is that he was there – but he was not involved in the fracas in any way. Napalm Beach did later play a “First Amendment” benefit show to “help keep Satyricon open.” I’m not sure to what extent Chris was paying attention to what seems to have become an ongoing conflict between Satyricon and Officer Balada. Balada had taken offense to a photo or artwork hanging inside the club, and was suing for damages. I do know that Chris viewed his civic rights and responsibilities the same way I do. He just didn’t ever really think he would find himself in a situation where his expectation of personal privacy or right to speak out would really be under threat.
The event that came to be called the Satyricon Riot should be looked at more deeply, not because Chris was involved, but because it seems to have been a significant event in the history of Portland music, shedding light on the club scene, and on police activities.
There are other things that could use further clarification, but these are the issues that so far have come to mind, that I really felt it was time to clarify.
Generally speaking, Chris was, from my perspective, over-concerned about what people would think about him, should he rock the boat in certain ways. He cared about people’s feelings and he tried to shoulder responsibility for his own actions, from my perspective, to a fault. Many who knew him, or who had been clued into this, and who had something to gain from keeping Chris in the dark, exploited this and other parts of his personality, using these characteristics to manipulate his behavior and to attempt to drive wedges between him and me. Out of respect for Chris, while he was here, I avoided weighing in on certain things. But I think that failure to correct false or misleading stories around Chris has led to damage, including undeserved damage to his reputation. I’m not claiming that he was perfect, nor am I claiming to be unbiased – I just think that the facts are important.
Boo Frog Undead at Satyricon - cassette Cassette recorded live by Mike Lastra at the Farewell Satyricon show, October 6, 2011.
Side A: 1. Her Heroine 2. Anabasis 3. Walk With Me 4. What Would I Do? 5. Back Alley Man 6. Mind Bender Side B: 7. Jake The Alligator Man 8. The One 9. Re-Revolution 10. Sunnyside Avenue
