Chris Pugh
You’re personally responsible for
The entire strip to be washed away
Cleansed as if gallons of, um, rubbing alcohol
Flowed through the strip and were set on fire
It didn’t just singe the hair, it made it straight…
— Nirvana “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip” (1993)
“Singer/guitarist looking for a cross between Black Flag and Black Sabbath. Will straighten hair for the right band”
— 1980s Rod Moody Rocket ad looking for a band.
Several times last night the name “Chris Pugh” came to me – and instead of trying to translate the I’ll just use the language that comes to me about him – “snickbait Gruber, Lemony Anne Boleyn files, CFI, FBI, CIA Timpanicking Gruber”
I have never met this person. He was in the 1980s Seattle band Swallow. Their bio often contained the aforementioned “band wanted” ad, which is interesting in the way it seems to interface with Kurt Cobain’s ad libbed lyrics from “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip.” A few things standing out to me about Swallow – the band has been labeled “motorcycle pop,” a hint about financing. Pugh and Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt have known each other “from their college days in Olympia, WA” (allmusic.com) – so sounds like he went to Evergreen, was in Olympia in the 1980s.
Other bands Pugh has been in, include “Crime Family” (band names are not irrelevant – other Olympia-linked band names include The Makers and Family Gun) and Creep. The phrase “Creep Store Seattle” comes to me a lot, and I understand it to be financed malfeasance coming from, or through, Seattle.
When I first discovered signs of malfeasance around Pacific Northwest music scenes, in late 2013, early 2014, I was on Facebook with a network that included a lot of people in the Sub Pop orbit, as was Chris. I remember that at that time, Bruce Pavitt changed his Facebook photo to a picture of – it seems like it was himself standing in front of a door or a mirror with Jerry Garcia etched on it, holding a bottle of champagne.