Research and Writing – IV – Dates (new information)

In a blog posted just a few hours ago (Research and Writing III – Dates), I discussed issues around dates, including conflicting information about dates, or poorly supported assertions that become part of what I call The Script. The Script is my name for coordinated stories by gatekeepers of stories about pacific northwest music history, especially in those periods that Chris Newman was actively writing and performing. Chris’ career spanned from about 1970-2020 but he was most active and prolific in a careerist sense from 1980-1996.

I have asserted that Chris’ work was deliberately sabotaged and buried while at the same time widely imitated in a number of ways, due mainly to the high level of surveillance around him – that he was trafficked via surveillance by a number of powerful entities, including the FBI/CIA – and I have also asserted that is who murdered him, as a cover for a number of crimes, including large-scale child trafficking activities, torture, covert medical and psychological experimentation and manipulations, and more murder. I don’t expect to simply say these – what some might call outlandish – things – I expect to provide support for these claims, and that is exactly what I have been doing.

With regards to the previous blog, I brought up the Nirvana song “Heart Shaped Box” and specifically the “tar pit trap” line – which I asserted that Cobain deliberately linked to the title and refrain from Chris’ song “Tar Pits.” And I discussed dates – the alleged date that Cobain composed Heart Shaped Box (“early 1992” according to a footnote on Wikipedia. Clearly I’ll have to chase down the original source, if possible, to find out exactly how that date was determined) – and trying to guess when Chris had written Tar Pits. The reason for this is to provide additional support for my assertion that Cobain was deliberately using the refrain from Chris’ song in Heart Shaped Box. (Not the only support for the assertion, mind you – but still important.)

In the blog, I said that Tar Pits was published by Chris on his album Ripped Van Stinkle (which is true) and that the album came out in October 1992. This date was based entirely on Chris’ memories. Chris did not work with professional outfits to record and release music. He worked independently and/or with tiny DIY labels.

I did recall Chris saying that this album had been recorded twice (and that the original title of the album was El Kabong) – because the original masters had burned up in the Dogfish Studio fire. That allowed me to go back into archives and find an article in The Oregonian dating the Dogfish Studios fire to March 24, 1993. That means that the original recording for Ripped Van Stinkle was made before March 24, 1993, and the second recording was made sometime after that. So it’s more likely that Ripped Van Stinkle came out around the same time as Nirvana’s In Utero.

Chris, in case anyone is wondering, paid very little attention – if any – to the music of Nirvana. Why that is, is worth consideration at some point. Even though “Nobody’s Daughter” Courtney Love had been a friend of his, I don’t know of him hearing any of her music prior to 1994’s Live Through This.

Dogfish Studios fire article from Oregonian – April 19, 1993 – PDF format