Author: admin

Music equipment theft as catalyst 1967, 1982

Valarie, Sam Henry, X, Sean Croghan

Canyonville Bible Academy – 1967 – 1971

From Chris’ biography – My ninth grade year was a bizarre culture shock. I had gone from being adored as Pugsley in Mississippi, to the ridiculed and strange chubby flower child that wandered the halls of Olympic Junior High carrying flowers with my new found girlfriends Patty and Sharon. All the jocks and squares taunted me with “Hey Flower Boy,” and “Faggot.” There was the occasional shoving and threats when the girls weren’t around.

This all changed later that year when some of the bad kids heard I played in a band with Ed Banning, who was known for living at his Mom’s doing what he ever he pleased, being kicked out of Jr. High and he knew where to get pot. A couple of the more influential popular kids asked me to hook them up with some weed. I half heartedly agreed and then I panicked, not really wanting to ask Ed to help me out.

I ended up giving the kid a bag of oregeno and he seemed okay with it, since it was free of charge and he had no idea what the stuff looked like. Eventually I was in the position to get a joint now and then, but this also brought the riff-raff out. This one hoodlum kid showed up at my house and tried to sell me a Vox bass amplifier he had stolen from the school gymnasium along with a couple of the school’s microphones.

I knew the kid who the amp belonged to and I had jammed with him at my house. He had a band called Green Square, and they were really advanced players for fourteen year old kids.

I got my friend on the phone and told him who had his Vox bass amp and his dad was right on it. My school principal called me and my folks into the office to hear my part in it. This caused the entire school to look at me as a dirty rat fink! Not cool!

Everywhere I went that summer I was accosted by these assholes. What was I supposed to do? Let the jerks rip off my friend for his equipment? After getting hassled and ridiculed all the time, I decided, “Hey Mom? You know what? I might be interested in going to the private Christian high school that you and your sister’s and brother attended.” C.B.A. Canyonville Bible Academy. Nestled in a peacful Southern Oregon mountain valley, almost four hundred miles from Seattle, I could start a new life.

On my own, away from home at fifteen.

X – 1983

Something I realized now, going over this history with a fine toothed comb, that I’d somehow managed to miss before was that it appears that the notorious X and Napalm Beach show at Euphoria may have occurred on the same tour where I’d seen X perform at an all ages show at Mojos in Arcata. It was one of my first concerts, and the first show I can remember seeing in a club setting. I was 15 years old – Erika

Chris: I first met Valarie at Sam’s apartment in San Francisico in the Tenderloin district. Sam’s girl Kathrine had a fatal overdose in San Fransisco while Napalm Beach were gone to Portland recording Rock N Roll Hell with Greg Sage in the Summer of 1983. This all had happened just six weeks before we all met Valarie and her friend.

Valarie was an obvious speed freak. Sam met her and this punkrocker chick in the park down on the street below. He brought them up inside his apartment where I was smoking my killer bud. I was thirty then and they were only eighteen. They were up all night folding clothes, tweaking on what ever could keep their fired up brains busy.

The next day Valarie informed us the other chick was planning to rip off Sam for his guitar, practice amp, and anything else of value. She and a couple of dudes were going to break in by climbing the fire escape.

This foiled their plan, and Valarie stayed around to party with us. She was Sam’s girl for a couple of days. She mentioned she lived in San Jose with her Grandma Caldwell most of the time. It turned out to be a couple of miles away from my Dad’s store on the Alameda Expressway.

We all went to see X play at the Kabuki Club. It was weird to see the expression on Exene and Johns faces when me and Sam were standing there in front of the stage. Our little incident at the Euphoria club had only gone down a few months before. This was September 1983.

The Euphoria was a one thousand capacity venue. Napalm Beach had played the night before in Seattle, and we were pumped up for the show with X. We ended our rousing set with a tribute to Jim Morrison and the Doors, and a song much like “THE END”, called “LAST DAY”. It brought the house down, the audience was on its feet and cheering. Even John Doe and Exene were up front banging their heads. A standing ovation for a local opening act is almost unheard of. It was the kind of show a musician dreams about.

Afterwards John and Exene invited us up to their dressing room. Mark was the sensitive martyr, but he was my right hand man and and I should have grabbed him out of respect, especially when Sam and Gwartney came up on their own. Mark was in his low self esteem mode, acting as if he was nothing more than a glorified roady. He had Gwartney help him load the van with our gear. This was before X had even hit the stage.

X invited Napalm Beach to come and play some shows in LA. John Doe tried to beckon me to get to the Big City. LA or New York. He was right. You can’t get anywhere here. Things did change ten years later in the great northwest.

X went on to play a rowdy inspired set that night. By this time I was fucked up royale. It was time to load out and split but Mark had already done that. Then… I blew up like an Atomic Bomb! Someone had broken into our van and stole my Marshall amp head and a few of Sam’s drums. I was livid and caused a huge scene there in the alley behind the club. Gwartney joined in the rage. Shaking and pounding the dumpster and primal screams making X’s skin crawl, I’m sure of it!

John and Exene looked horrified as I gazed into their vehicle with a crazed look in my eyes, and started to tell Exene how I could go for her if she was available… They took off with haste, and I soon recieved an official letter from their management and booking agency in Los Angeles.

“Napalm Beach, we cannot work with such unprofessional behavior. Do not come to Los Angeles. I repeat!!!…”

A few days later, two young kids told me the name and address of the boys who stole my Marshall and the drums. I called the cops with the information. They said they couldn’t do anything about it. Those Montoya boys were trouble.

I got a posse of four huge dudes to go with me. We got up to the door, and a little fifteen year old red headed kid answered.

“Here’s your drums, and our friend has the Marshall head in Tillamook. We will meet you at the corner of 39th and Powell tomorrow at 3:00 PM.”

They were there with ten other boys. They quietly handed over the amplifier, and I sincerly thanked them. It was amazing. We howled with laughter driving away with the equipment.

Years later a local musician and man about town, Sean Crogan of Crackerbash, told me he was one of the skater kids who helped out by giving up the Montoya boys as the thieving culprits.

Grunge and the C.I.A.

As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s been about ten years since I’ve read a book about anything “grunge” related, even though they continue to be published. This is largely because of the frustration in seeing how the focus is controlled, same stories rehashed, and important areas left unexplored.

Part of the mystery for me has been, why some things and people are left out of historical studies (which is basically what books about 1980s and 1990s music are).

Backing up a bit – during 2014, including the week I was abducted and held, and for months afterward, in my medical records, off and on, there is this statement made basically amounting to me alleging that the reason I said I was being stalked and harassed was because “I’d exposed them” with my article (Introducing Napalm Beach). What actually was going on was, occasionally I’d be asked why I thought I was being harassed, and by whom, and I told them that my best guess was it had something to do with the things I’d been writing. In fact I didn’t stop writing after Introducing Napalm Beach, but continued to try to tear down the facade of falsehoods brick by brick with the best information I had available to me at the time, something that is difficult to do when everyone around you is lying and misdirecting. It was in the course of doing that that I received threatening comments on my blog, immediately followed by one thwarted abduction attempt, and the following week, a successful abduction. The January 27, 2014 abduction was successful because unbeknownst to me, people around me, people I’d known my whole life, had all been absorbed into Team Sub Pop going back to the 1980s. So when I began to discover the extent of the crimes that Sub Pop has been involved in – again, with the full support of the larger entertainment industry and possibly the federal government – I sought shelter from one of my oldest and most trusted family friends, and when police arrived at the door, they let them in and allowed them to take custody of me without cause.

In fact, I now think that that whole affair was less about what I’d already published and more about them being concerned that I would discover more of what has been going on. I feel like there’s still a lot to uncover, or at least to support with evidence. What I can see is that there is an occult murder system at work. What’s less clear is how all the parts of it work together, especially with regards to the participation of the FBI/CIA.

The place were I was held in January 2014 was a hospital repurposed into a black site, and set up to be so absurd that for me to tell the story would seem to enforce the idea that I was out of my mind at the time.

So a question one has to ask is, primogeniture aside, was my rinky dink little blog worth all of that? Maybe so, and possibly because what I was really focused on was decoding language. But another thing that was going on, that I recently realized, is the whole revealing thing I was doing was in and of itself a type of set up. What was behind that may have had to do with setting up Chris’ murder (and make no mistake – I and my daughter are also both in the crosshairs). The murders are linked to a system of financial rewards and professional advancement.

Back to grunge.

Grunge seems to have been a manufactured phenomenon, with much of the ingredients coming from Chris’ highly surveilled life and art, but if I think about it – I’d say some of it came from me, too. With Chris, however, it’s easier to prove.

In that it was manufactured, what it looks like to me is that it was planned out in tandem with a control scheme around Chris and me, but again, focused more on Chris, as he is the one who was more of a threat musically, and also because of the nature of the primogeniture at work where the male heir is valued as someone with agency compared to the female, who they seem to see as a sex toy to be used, abused, and discarded. Apparently, by “they” in this case, I’m talking about the FBI and CIA. Both Chris and I (and many others) were/are subjects of medical malfeasance and nonconsensual human subjects research with little concern for our health or quality of life, or simply with the intent to harm us. I wish these things weren’t true, but they are.

Grunge was manufactured according to a recipe that had been perfected over the years with a variety of other organic seeming movements including, I suspect, Beatlemania and the 1960s “flower power” movement. It is linked to CIA mind control research. That the CIA ran (actually, runs) mind control programs is not a baseless conspiracy theory, but established fact, except that even after the programs were exposed in the 1970s, they were still permitted to hide and misdirect about a lot of what they had been doing, and they were also permitted to protect academic institutions and others knowingly involved in the activities, and they were permitted to hide the cash flow, and they were also permitted to continue. They never stopped these programs. Maybe most importantly, they were permitted to hide their use of piezo-electrical biomedical implants and frequency based technologies which are used to control minds directly, and to create diseases like cancer. They do this in part by controlling focus – “yes, we admit, we were involved with L.S.D.”

Back to grunge.

The early Sub Pop bands were connected with certain businesses and establishments. These included college radio stations KAOS at Evergreen State College in Olympia (Pavitt, if not directly, through his connection to Calvin Johnson and K Records), and KCMU (later became KEXP) at University of Washington in Seattle (Poneman). Apparently Pavitt also had opened Fallout Records in 1983, before making Sub Pop his full time gig. Muzak was also a congregation point. Within this network – college radio, cassette zines, K Records, record stores – there was plenty of opportunity to make contact with aspiring young rockers, and to create and distribute media (zines, cassettes, records) – all of which would mesh nicely in the package of a record label.

There is a piece missing here for me, with regards to Chris and me. I know and can show solid evidence that not only have we been under surveillance, but that surveillance materials have been, and continue to be, distributed. Signs also point to packaging and remixing of surveillance data for the purpose of supporting a libelous pre-planned narrative. And signs further point to Sub Pop artists including Tad and Mudhoney being linked to this, and not only to this, but to the January 2014 abduction. I can tell that there is also a link to hospital malfeasance. What I’m missing is specifically how Sub Pop is linked to the FBI, CIA, and all of this medical and financial malfeasance.

Back to grunge.

What I intended to write about was another important center of the grunge narrative, but one of the ones that tends to be buried, presumably because it is too close to Chris, and that is The Vogue.

Wipers

As I’ve been tracing back, it’s become alarmingly apparent that there is, running in the background, a deliberate wiping away of historical documentation. It’s a particularly disturbing component of a pattern of evidence destruction, and it’s also pretty obvious that people within the community are taking part in this, insidiously, though not very cleverly, at times under the guise of historical preservation.

This is also part of a long plan, and I’m guessing this “wiping” is something that’s been going on for centuries, and that it is in fact part of the origin of the band name “Wipers.” Other likely links to the name Wipers are World War I links to Ypres and a soliders publication called Wipers Times (in addition to records and record industry links there seems to be links to publications – small presses like the one my parents ran in the 1970s, and zines of the 1980s and 90s).

I also suspect it’s a reference to the idea of driving through the rain and the hypnotic rhythm of windshield wipers. In fact, some Wipers music seems to evoke this very rhythm, as I can attest to having listened to Wipers music on a car stereo, driving through rain.

Finally, there’s the the reason given on the Zeno Records website –

Greg Sage said that the idea for the name came from when he worked at a movie theater that had a long hallway of glass that looked over the city of Portland, Oregon. One of his jobs was to clean the glass that would get cloudy from people waiting to enter the theaters. When wiping the glass with a large squeegee, the view of the city would become crystal clear. A “crystal clear view” was the idea he wanted to put into music.

The words “crystal” and “clear” both evoke radio frequency communication (crystal radio, clear channels).

It’s hard to know where people really stand, and nearly impossible to trust anyone.

Did Green River already plan to break up in 1986?

And what else were they planning?

I have spent the last couple of days thinking hard about Chris’ story of meeting Bruce Pavitt and Mark Arm at the Vogue in 1986.

Chris’ memory about things like this was generally really good. There have only been a couple of times where I’ve figured out maybe his memory was off slightly about a gig. Not only does he remember events, but his memory for dates is incredible, considering how many hundreds of shows he’s played and how many albums he put out. But sometimes he’ll be off by a year or so.

Was he off by a year on his memory about playing the Vogue and meeting Bruce Pavitt?

And why does it matter? Do I need to explain why it matters?

The sloppiness (or alternatively, lying) I see around music reporting music history of the this place – the Pacific Northwest, and this era – 1980s-1990s – is astounding. In addition, writers are surprisingly (to me) resistant to correcting “mistakes” even when you can provide a refutation with back up. The reasoning for this varies from “how can you presume to know anything at all when you weren’t physically there”? (It’s called historical research using primary sources) to this idea that it’s just music and musicians and therefore facts don’t actually matter – something which seems both deeply disrespectful as well as disingenuous – if it’s “just” music why are some of these musicians living in mansions while others were living tents? At what point does one’s ability to earn money from one’s own work matter in this country? If you don’t care about art or music, maybe you care about money?

I don’t think I should have to explain why it matters.

Back to the origins of Snow Bud and the Flower People. Now I’ve heard this story several times, asked clarifying questions, etc. It sounds like Snow Bud actually originated during the winter of 1985-86, and that during that time period, the songs were recorded twice. The first session was Chris at home, alone. He picked out some funny sounding song titles, then picked out some drum drops, and using his reel-to-real 4 track, recorded some songs to go with the titles and drum drops. It’s not clear to me whether this first demo was ever distributed on cassette – maybe a little bit among friends. Then, probably in January 1986, Chris got together with his buddies and did a second version, with live drums, and that is what became the original Snow Bud and the Flower People cassette tape. The band was basically imaginary characters, but of course Chris was excited to play the songs live, so he then also put together a live act. The first Snow Bud show was, according to Chris, at Satyricon on the same day as Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, so that would have been January 28, 1986. Chris’ memory is they played Seattle’s Vogue soon after, maybe in the spring. While the 3band3bucks website doesn’t show any Snow Bud shows at the Vogue in 1986, that doesn’t mean Snow Bud didn’t play there – there are many blank spots on their 1986 Vogue calendars. One source I read said Snow Bud played the Vogue “several” times in 1986 but sources aren’t cited and so I don’t have any way to fact check. I do recall Chris telling me that in these early shows, Sam Henry played bass and Andrew Loomis played drums. All three of them – Chris, Sam, and Andrew – were diagnosed, then died of cancer after I wrote that 2014 Introducing Napalm Beach article, and they all died before the age of 70, with Andrew dying first, in 2016, at 54. Compare to the Ramones. Part of the point I’m making is these are assassinations and the elimination of witnesses, and there is an established system involving global finance and US federal government black bag ops – for eliminating them. And furthermore, I’m saying this is is a profound violation of the constitutional right of due process and other constitutional rights, and we need to do something about it.

With regards to the general history, Mark Arm and Steve Turner were involved in the music scene going back to the early 1980s and if their stories are to be believed (this is always a big if), may have even met for the first time at a show where Napalm Beach opened (PiL in 1982) – Chris seems to have been much more aware of Mark than Steve, likely because Mark is a front man, songwriter, more loquacious and commanding of attention.

By the time Snow Bud performed for the first time in Seattle, I suspect Chris had already shared a bill or two with Green River. They were not buddies, but they knew each other by name. Bruce Pavitt, on the other hand, was probably not familiar to Chris in 1986.

So with regards to this story, it seems like basically three things were happening – first, Mark Arm was looking at Chris’ “Snow Bud” hippie costume, and also closely checking out his gear – his Fender Twin amp and pedals. Then, back stage, Bruce Pavitt expressed an interest in signing Chris to their new label. Chris said he Pavitt gave him a business card that said Sub Pop on it. And Chris said he didn’t follow through, explaining that at that time, he was approached this way all the time, and it never amounted to anything. And third – and this is when I really begin to wonder if the date is correct or something very unusual and deliberate was going on – Mark chatted to Chris about the impending break up of Green River, saying that some of the guys wanted to go commercial, while he and Steve wanted to keep their music more underground.

This was Spring of 1986? But Green River didn’t break up until November 1987, more than a year later. And Sub Pop didn’t start releasing records until 1987, either.

So maybe Chris had the whole thing mixed up? Maybe all of this happened in 1987? Maybe, but I’m not convinced, and I’ll explain why.

With regards to Green River breaking up – in normal circumstances, if you’re in a band, and your band decides to break up for whatever reason, you do NOT wait a year or more to actually break up. What would be the point? But maybe these weren’t normal circumstances.

What I am sensing, based on penumbra and patterns, is that between 1985/86 and 1987/88 is, for lack of a better metaphor, something like a chess players on a chess board being set up. Sort of like a pre-war planning process where you plan out a strategy and move your men around to key positions. And that might have been what was going on with Sub Pop and Green River. That Green River was planning ahead of time – not just to break up, but to split into two different bands, traveling two different paths, but with common goals.

With regards to Pavitt dangling out the idea of signing Chris – or specifically Snow Bud which was really a side project that started as a joke – I don’t think that was ever intended to come to fruition and I also now don’t think there was ever any good intent behind this. I think that the goal was if not to destroy, to seriously limit and suppress Napalm Beach, and to that end, a variety of tactics would be employed, including getting some fans to ignore the main band while lavishing attention on the goofy side project. This is not to say people didn’t genuinely like or love Snow Bud. But even if you liked the music, you can’t deny that the subject matter was self-limiting. “Bong Hit” was never going to be played on American Bandstand.

As far as what Mark was doing – it seems like, in the way Chris describes it, it was almost theatrical. He wanted Chris to know that he was studying his clothing, amps, and pedals. When I originally researched the 2013 Napalm Beach article, I did some follow up research, going back and listening to the Green River EP from 1985, and discovered that yes, in fact the sound, amps, and effects were very different than what Mudhoney started using in 1987. Mudhoney used Fender Twins, the wah, and the Big Muff.

So basically, not long after this, Kurt Cobain adapted the effects Napalm Beach used in the early 1980s – heavy distortion (including Big Muff in the studio) with Small Clone chorus – while Mudhoney adapted the early Snow Bud effects. Mudhoney cites 1970s rock as their influence, but that was also what Chris was playing with the band Bodhi in the 1970s. To me it looks like the bands took from Chris in a systematic and almost occult manner. Chris was used by these bands – Mudhoney, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, and others – as a source for ideas, while simultaneously being deliberately held back and not permitted to profit from his own ideas. This may have been framed as a “Game” to the bands, but there was big money flowing in from behind the scenes, and Chris wasn’t aware it was going on, and none of this makes it ok. Also, it seems like set ups were being created over and over again, and salacious gossip deliberately spread. From what I can tell, the ultimate goal seems to have been to incite attack and murder by a federal black bag ops death machine, because it is also a money making machine. There is a lot of money in chronic disease (for example, Kurt Cobain’s mysterious chronic pain syndrome) and cancer – and in addition, it appears that there’s a global finance stream provided to people who are willing to deceive, set up, lie, and throw friends, neighbors, and family members into these flames.

Sub Pop’s pretending they wanted to sign Chris looks like maybe it was a repetition of the 1981 set up with X – one that I don’t think I’ve examined here in detail yet. But what I will say about that is, what it points to is a lot of this possibly being set up by major labels or with major label entertainment industry money. Because Sub Pop wasn’t the only label “harvesting” ideas from Chris (and me) – all the record studios, movie studios – art world in general – have been doing this. And it’s quite possible (even likely) that what they did is set up a series of concentric rings around us – with Sub Pop being an important link between the inner circles (family, band mates, etc) and the outside architects – major labels, movie, studios. Also involved are government entities like police, FBI, and the health care industry. This – police/FBI and hospitals – is who I think is doing the physical attacks (creating sickness, disability) and killing, basically on behalf of these major labels and corporate entities.

One of the things that happens is that when the financial entities behind all of this begin to feel like the system is under threat, floods of money, gifts, and favors start flowing into key places. It’s too big to hide, and why should they hide it if the FBI is involved? One way this is done is through record, television, publishing, entertainment industry deals. Hence, Sub Pop.

There is more support for the idea that the initial Snow Bud/Sub Pop meeting happened in 1986 or at least was planned in 1986, and that is the song called Steve Instant Newman on the Melvin’s Gluey Porch Treatments. Steve Instant Newman, recorded October 1986, is a reworking of a song called Disinvite which was recorded in February 1986. My recollection is that the lyrics to this song were printed on the album.

Steve Instant Newman

Open the pain
To my short glass ear
Infected in
Too much intensive

Disinvite
Dis, Dis-in-vite
Disinvite

When eating alone
They think you’re talking alone

Disinvite
Dis, you Dis-in-vite
Disinvite

Steve Neuman

A few things stand out about these lyrics – “open the pain” – again a possible play on Payne/Pain – link to Mike Payne. Mike Payne said his high school nickname was “Mister Instant.

“Short glass” sounds like shot glass. Short is a reference to piezo biomedical electrical attacks (short circuit). “Infected” and “intensive” suggests hospital involvement.

At the end of the song, Newman is switched to Neuman, the German version of the name. It’s also a type of microphone.

There are a few things that suggest to me – and this may be one – that something was being worked out already with Germans. In 1984 and 85 Mike Payne spent a considerable amount of time in Germany (where I was living, going to high school), so he may also have had something to do with the German set up. It does increasingly look like Mike Payne and others in my orbit were linked, behind the scenes, to the origins of Sub Pop.

Another thing is, as I’ve been going back into Chris’ catalog, trying to chase down masters and so on. On May 26, 1986 Chris recorded the album that would become Moving To And Fro, which would ultimately be put out by a German label, Satyricon Records, in 1988. The Moving To And Fro tapes were recorded by a company that also did cassette duplication for K Records. On those tapes Chris name is misspelled “Neuman.”

So what do I suspect was going on? I suspect that this was a set up situation where three was a fake play made – let’s invite Chris, then we will disinvite him. I further suspect that they would say that Chris was disinvited because of his “behavior” – which is the set up that was pulled by X and/or their big label backers in 1981.

Snow Bud did go on to play shows with Green River and also did an early Sub Pop showcase (Feb 28, 1988) at the Vogue, though I’m not sure Chris had any idea it was a showcase or that the gig was linked to Sub Pop.

As far as Green River, based on how things operate within this system, I think it’s entirely possible they had planned their break up a full year or more ahead of time. Why they would do this would relates to a bigger strategy and how a small set of bands saw (and still see) themselves with regards to their burgeoning label, Sub Pop. This is related to Chris and me being in a unique position because of primogeniture and the “golden opportunities” (for profiteering through crime) that this brings to some people. They decided that they needed to keep Chris under surveillance, under control, and under wraps. To this end, he’d be permitted to play on bills with certain bands, and not with others. The bills that were set up, were set up strategically. Mudhoney was among the bands that could play with Chris’ bands, and they continued to play on bills with him off and on into the 2000s (though probably not during the height of their grunge-induced popularity). Pearl Jam would not be playing on bills with Chris’ bands.

Controlling focus and attention is huge. It is why controlling the press (via finance, threats) is so important. If Chris got too close to a band that blew up really big, it could put focus on Chris, and that’s what they didn’t want. This is also why famous bands or artists never publicly mentioned Chris as an influence, or gave him any help to progress professionally. And it is why writers avoid writing about him.

I believe that the large scale plan, in all its parts, was known early on to bands like Tad, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. My suspicion is that some of this information was kept from the younger band, Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was another person who received special (not necessarily in a good way) treatment.

The Beginning of Snow Bud and The Flower People 1985-86

by Chris Newman

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.

Snow Bud cassette side A

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.

Snow Bud Sub Pop single 1993
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.

Matchbox: U-Men and Napalm Beach

U Men - Dig It A Hole single - 1987
U Men – Dig It A Hole single – 1987
Napalm Beach - Liquid Love - 1988
Napalm Beach – Liquid Love – 1988

The U-Men cover is from the Dig It A Hole single released in 1987. The Napalm beach cover is from their album, Liquid Love, the first album they put out with Jan Celt at Flying Heart records, in 1988. Artist/writer Joe Sacco made the Liquid Love cover. I doubt that Chris, who wasn’t a record collector, had any idea of the similarity between the two album covers.

There is a whole thing with Flying Heart and album art, and contracts in general. It’s a lot of theft and fraud. There was an earlier album cover that Chris did not approve and asked (in my presence) to be destroyed, but it seems that around the time Chris got sick, Celt started to distribute that version of the record. That version has a bunch of unflattering photos of the band, with flames drawn on them in red. The symbolism seems like it should be obvious.

With regards to these two album covers, there’s likely another reference going on, and it has to do with Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival, 1985. By 1985 Napalm Beach was a mature band, trying to get somewhere. They had recorded Rock and Roll Hell with Greg Sage in 1983 and released it on cassette, and in 1985 they self-recorded Pugsley, also releasing it on cassette, and also recorded their self-titled album, which would later be called Teen Dream and self-released on vinyl.

Both Napalm Beach an U-Men played Bumbershoot in 1985.

There’s a lot of strategy employed to bury Chris’ music and his intent. U-Men seem to have achieved this at Bumbershoot 1985 by pouring lighter fluid into a water feature and lighting the whole thing on fire. I’m guessing if you read about Bumbershoot 1985 in any “grunge” book, this is what you’ll hear about, and this is what you’ll remember. “They lit the moat on fire.” It’s not about the music, it’s about the flames. It is a mind control tactic – control of focus – the “cool kids” tell you where to focus, and who (and what) to pay attention to, and who and what to ignore.

still from Pearl Jam "Jeremy" - figure against flames