Category: malfeasance

Music Industry Issues (Part 1)Tear The Pedals Off Of You

The following is an excerpt from an article the article I originally published in 2013 entitled “Introducing Napalm Beach.” I originally – rather carefully – titled this section of the article “Chris Newman and the northwest fuzz-wah continuum.” This was because I was trying to keep everyone’s feelings in mind – Chris, and others who were influenced by Chris’ music. I was trying to avoid making the claim that Chris’ ideas had been stolen by other artists who became far more successful and who avoided sharing their success or crediting their inspirational source.

However, 2013 was a very different time for me. When I published the article, I was not aware of the bigger picture of what was going on around us. I just knew something was fishy. It was shortly after publishing the article that I realized that more than any other band, it was Kurt Cobain and Nirvana who had adopted Chris’ innovations. And Nirvana was, at one time – a time before the web and YouTube, when celebrities were fewer, and larger – the biggest band in the world. This probably deserves a follow up article. The only reason I never published a follow up earlier is because many others in the industry already knew the things I was just figuring out, and had actually been waiting for years for this day to come, and were busy finalizing plans for the hailstorm of chaos that would ultimately lead to Chris’ death, and because after the initial blast of music industry/FBI blowback, Chris didn’t want me to pursue that line of inquiry anymore. It’s not because the line of inquiry was wrong or would be unfruitful; it’s because Chris was, and had always been, mightily controlled.

Because the original article was intended to be a fairly comprehensive history of Chris’ career as a musician, it’s possible this section could be lost in the din. But considering it all now years later, I realize it was probably the most consequential and controversial part of the article. So I’m republishing it here as an excerpt, and as a foundation for other information which I’ve gleaned since the publication of the article.

LPB1 precursor to Big Muff

Chris Newman and the northwest fuzz-wah continuum

One of the things that is sometimes exasperating is watching people try to figure out where, when, and how northwest punks began to incorporate elements of 60s and 70s psychedelic rock. Most writers credit Mudhoney (and their generation) for these innovations. That’s because Chris has been left out of the story.

If you look at west coast underground rock as a continuum, as I do, Jimi Hendrix had a tremendous impact. The power trio, the bass and drums holding down a solid groove while the guitar goes crazy with feedback and noise – Jimi was the innovator. Jimi’s main effects were fuzz and wah. However, fuzz tone had fallen out of fashion in rock music by the 70s. The Cramps, and Chris Newman, brought it back.

Here are some things I know about Chris as a musician. He has a sharp memory, an ear for melody, and a natural ability to arrange instruments. In addition, he has a driving need to express himself verbally, and through his guitar, and to embody all that is REAL, and all that is rock’n’roll. Simply put: it is his calling.

He grew up in a tight-knight evangelical Christian family. When he began to play, they told him he was playing the “devil’s music”. And he literally believed he could burn in hell for playing it. And he deliberately, consciously, decided that he loved rock’n’roll music so much that he was willing to burn in hell for it.

And then he did burn in hell for it. When he came out of hell, he was still playing, better than ever.

That’s how seriously he takes his music.

He is foremost a guitarist and songwriter, but he also plays bass, drums, keys, whatever. He got his first acoustic guitar at age 13 and his first electric at 14. He was also 14 when acquired his first effect pedal: a Fender Fuzz-Wah. Because, Jimi Hendrix.

At 17 Chris mowed lawns to save up money for an Electro-Harmonix LPB1 distortion pedal which he purchased from the classifieds in Rolling Stone (Issue #2). That was his introduction to Electro-Harmonix. In 1969, Electro-Harmonix developed the Big Muff π. Supposedly Jimi Hendrix was the first musician to buy a (work in progress) Big Muff – but Chris must not have been far behind, because ever since the early 70s, the Big Muff fuzz and Crybaby wah have been his main – and usually his only – effects.

In the 80s – especially the early 80s – Chris also used an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus pedal. The chorus effect was invented in the late 70s. Chris bought a Small Clone in 1980 (likely about the time it first came out), incorporating it into his sound immediately. (You can hear it, for example, on these albums: Trap Sampler, Rock & Roll Hell, and Pugsley.)

Years later, these combinations of effects would become associated with Mudhoney (fuzz/wah) and Nirvana (distortion/chorus).

As for guitar and amp, in Napalm Beach, Chris started out playing his pink fender Strat (that matched his pink converse high-tops) through a Marshall stack. Later, and for many years, his main ax was an old Gibson Flying-V bought from Fred and Toody’s Tombstone Music store.

After seeing the Cramps in 1982, and their original two guitar, Fender Twin reverb-and-fuzz attack, Chris added a Twin Reverb amplifier to his setup. He refashioned a headlight dimmer switch to an amp switcher. For his Napalm Beach shows he could now use the switch to select either the Marshall, or the Twin, or both amps together.

Back To Black

  • photo showing Washington state rock band Bodhi standing in a field with mole hills in front, trees in back
    Bodhi – 1973
  • still from Amy Winehouse video Back To Black showing hill of dirt before open grave
    Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

The Amy Winehouse song “Back To Black” is pretty clearly about a man who is cheating, but the video shows images of a funeral and cemetery. I think the mound next to the grave was intended to evoke the 1973 press photo of Chris’ first working band, Bodhi. When Back To Black came out in 2006, Chris was married, but in a long distance relationship with his wife Denise. Meanwhile, Chris’ ex-wife Valarie never left him alone, and he continued to struggle to stay off of heroin. I am confident Chris didn’t cheat while married to Denise, but Denise acted insanely jealous, didn’t want him anywhere near Valarie, and took Chris’ relapses incredibly personally. I think Denise – a honeytrap – was among those creating a nasty record with the FBI, on purpose, in order to murder Chris. Meanwhile, Chris was trauma-bonded to Denise and never completely able to release himself from the fantasy she created for him. This situation that Chris, me, and now my innocent daughter are in, is about leveraging financed abuse into more and more abuse and ultimately murder, and it’s all done for GREED.

Amy Winehouse was almost certainly murdered as well. A so-called “27 club” casualty.

Here is what I know about Chris’ murder

Chris was murdered. Here is what I know about his murder:

  • it involved, and was covered up by, the FBI
  • it involved the CIA, and frequency based weapons
  • it involved financed lies, false stories, and elaborate manipulated set ups
  • it involved and was covered up by his doctors at Providence Hospital
  • it involved and was covered up by people who were close to him, people whom he trusted
  • it involved finance, including finance linked to cannabis and finance linked to cocaine
  • it involved people living in neighboring apartments
  • this same group of people intends to kill me and my daughter

What did I know and when did I know it?

What did I know and when did I know it?

Generally speaking, I’m grateful for any and all help that I get, except for when I’m misdirected. This situation is so difficult, so dangerous, and the truth so unconventional, that it’s really difficult to deal with gaping holes, or important bits left out.

I knew beginning in January 2014 that there were serious issues with surveillance. It was pretty clear soon after that, that surveillance-based human trafficking was involved. I also knew I was experiencing directed energy attacks, but I didn’t have a name for them yet. I had to get a lot of my information from sources that turned out to be disinformation sources. The thing about disinformation sources is that in some cases, they convey valid information along with bad information, and if you have no other source of information, as I did not at the time, sometimes you can pick out bits of truth. But you inevitably get snagged up in lies as well – especially in my case where there is so much surveillance and it’s easy for people to reflect or “mirror” what I’ve been experiencing, and claim they’ve also experienced the same thing, or have some kind of inside information in it.

It wasn’t until Spring 2017 — more than three years after my initial attempt at resolving the surveillance issues — that some good information began to leak, albeit in subtle ways. In 2017 I began to discern that I was having some dreams that were scripted, or programmed (like radio broadcasts), presumably by a military source; and it was in 2017 that I began to understand that I had implanted devices in my back and elsewhere body which were being used to create pain and somatic sensations. Throughout August of 2017 implants were activated one by one throughout my body so that I could feel them “pulling” as if magnetically. In October 2017 I sold my prized 1964 Fender Mustang in order to get enough money to purchase a wireless frequency tracer and obtain objective evidence supporting this. The wireless tracer showed evidence of implants throughout my body. I purchased a Geiger counter as well, and that also registered some disturbing readings. Chris was completely freaked out by the whole thing and never allowed me to use it on him.

The following year, 2018, there was a type of sea change, in which someone associated with military intelligence began to communicate with me more clearly and consistently, and help me understand what was going on. For example, I began to understand that not just some, but all of my dreams seem to have been broadcasts (military/CIA programmed) – going back to infancy. This is important, because information is conveyed to me through dreams.

However, even then there were big pieces missing, or presented problematically. At first this idea was pushed to me that I should hide the fact that I was getting information from a military source, and simply present myself as clairvoyant. I knew I couldn’t do this for several reasons – it’s not honest, it’s not accurate, and it would likely be more of a liability than an asset considering there had been a paper trail built up with multiple individuals claiming that I had psychosis, delusions, etc.

Another thing that’s been going on, is that different individuals from my past were said to be linked to drone activity, and in some cases, with this idea that certain individuals are linked to specific drones. (There is a web of drones over my apartment building, many of which can be seen at night, mimicking stars.) This has never entirely made sense to me, for obvious reasons. Some of these individuals don’t even really know how to use a computer. But this idea was pushed to me consistently and I was made to understand that I should put this information out, and being as I was experiencing all of these directed energy attacks, and I was (and am) desperate to stop the attacks, I put the information out. I was acting as instructed.

When Chris came down with cancer, the idea of the CIA being involved started to come forward. The idea of the Portland Police Chief being involved started to come forward. And the idea that Chris was being murdered by the FBI was also pushed to me.

Why did I believe the messages that came to me?

I believed them because my confidence had been gained, through a variety of means, and also because I didn’t have much else to work from.

The problem is, it’s clear to me by now, while I know I can pick up on wirelessly transmitted information (sometimes consciously, but also unconsciously) – it’s not always easy to decode the meaning of what I “hear,” and nearly impossible to know where the information is coming from. So how do I tell if or when I’m being tricked?

Another layer of problem here, is there is some kind of “game” structure behind all of this, with rules that are designed, essentially as traps. And the further I wander into this, the more I buy into the legitimacy of the game itself, the worse it seems to get. I don’t want to buy into the legitimacy of this. I never did. But it appears that everyone around me – maybe everyone in the world – has bought in or accepted it, so where does that leave me? Nonetheless, it’s increasingly clear that this entire structure has to be abandoned and the world needs to turn back to the rules that are supposed to apply to everyone – the law. US law – including the US constitution – and international law – including human rights laws, and laws against medical malfeasance and crimes against humanity.

In 2020, it was converted to me for example, one individual had “killed” another individual. I thought that meant that this person had somehow been trained to operate a drone, and had been paid to kill another person. What else was I supposed to think? I knew that murders were happening. Both individual were ex-convicts with drug histories. The person identified as the killer was someone I knew had been involved in surveillance sex trafficking activity, at least as an observer. The person who died, died suddenly and unexpectedly, in his early 50s, of a massive heart attack. I do know that this is one way that people are being murdered, and I’ve personally experienced both attacks to my heart and with a frequency tracer, have detected wireless signals coming from the region of my heart.

Much later, all of this was refined, with the idea that the way these killings are actually happening, is via “FBI files.” That people are making negative reports to the FBI about others which are then being used as a justification for secret assassinations. But I’m not even sure if that’s correct. In fact, I think that any so-called “files,” if they exist, are a cover for the real and far more logical reason why people are being killed, which is to cover up and continue a massive crime (medical malfeasance, medical trafficking). Part of what is going on is evidence destruction, and part of that is killing off of witnesses. Whether or not these witnesses have “talked” is less important, I suspect, than that they have potential to talk. And it seems pretty clear to me that the longer this whole business is covered up, the more people will die.

Furthermore, how do these alleged reports get to the FBI? Though it’s possible, it doesn’t seem likely that people are submitting garbage information to FBI through their online tip form. This question – how these reports get to the FBI – has never been answered. Why, if you are trying to help me resolve something, would you leave out these key bits of information?

At this point, every day, throughout the day, this idea of “FBI files” is pushed to me. That the FBI has files on me and my daughter that of course would have to be slanderous (because we’ve never done anything that should be even slightly interesting to the FBI) – and this is why we’re being attacked and in danger. And that “FBI files” are a “murder weapon.”

A pattern that I see going on is a divide and conquer strategy applied at different levels and with different groups, including family groups. This is made worse by people’s willingness to keep covering for this entire mess.

So it’s hard to know if you’re being played, and to what extent.

When Chris died, I saw things his family members were saying on Facebook that were shocking to me. As if he were a bad person who deserved “forgiveness” for something. Some of his family seemed not to like him. I don’t understand where this came from. Similarly, some of my own family members have said or implied terrible things about me, and this goes back a decade or more. Where is this coming from?

Why do people who have information about this crime, cover it up? think there’s a number of reasons, but in the end, it’s all a type of mind control. This is a hallmark of the CIA. Some of the control is direct frequency-based control of the brain. Much of it is cult-like behavior, with this idea of there being the enlightened “insider” group, and the hostile “outsider” group, and somehow this trumps even close family connections. Some of this is linked to finance. Some of it is linked to fear. Some of it is habit. Some of it is group think – everyone is doing it. Some is linked to fantasy – this idea there is some valid process of resolution, or that when the right “savior” appears, all will be resolved. The idea that there’s only one person who can address this (either Chris or me). There’s a lot going on, a lot of myth and nonsense to overcome.

The more you allow yourself to be swept up in the “logic,” thinking patterns, secrecy, and coded language of this “game” (probably better described as a cult) – the more you lose touch with reality. The nature of the structure is to push every single person into this point, where they lose touch with reality – what our laws are, how science works, how people are supposed to treat each other, what risks we face as individuals, communities, and globally – and even how to communicate clearly.

Looking back at how all of this has progressed, it’s clear that it is vital to keep touch with reality, and not be swept up into the false logic of this cult-like behavior and false promises of “the game,” which looks like – has always looked like – nothing more than an elaborate cover for a terrible crime. I saw this in January 2014 when I first tried to file a police report and hire an attorney, and I see it today.

Chris was murdered

Chris went into the hospital on January 5, 2021 and he died on May 9, 2021. This was all well over a year ago now. I had known for years that our lives were in danger, and expressed it publicly several times both on my YouTube channel and my Twitter account. I also knew that there had been a pattern of untimely deaths in the music communities in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco – all communities where Chris had lived and performed – and had tried to draw attention to that. May 22, 2019 I told the FBI that our lives were in danger. They said “probably wouldn’t” investigate. Two weeks later, Chris was hospitalized with heart failure.

But Chris didn’t die from heart failure. And even though he had terminal cancer, he didn’t die from that either. In fact his heart and/or breathing was remotely stopped, and that is how he died. But the heart failure and the cancer were both medical conditions that were deliberately created and, I believe, deliberately neglected by Providence Hospital, at the behest of the FBI, until it was too late to do anything.

I’d known the basics of this from the moment of Chris’ diagnosis, because of what I’d been observing for years, and because of the information that had been passed to me. But I was working with more than just hunches, suspicions, and (wirelessly transmitted) information pulled out of the air. There was other evidence as well.

When Chris died at 11:33pm on May 9, 2021, I knew it was a murder, but I didn’t call the police to report it as a murder, at least not that night. The following July 15-16, however, I did try to report his death as a murder. The police, however, refused to take a report.

Why I didn’t initially report the death as a murder, and why I changed my mind two months later requires some explaining. It’s clear to me now that all of these details – how I knew that Chris was murdered, and why I didn’t report it at first, need to be put in writing, because the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that details will be forgotten and otherwise lost.

Also, I am in all the same danger that Chris was in, that we both have been in for years. Since 2014 I had been trying every way I knew to get us out of this situation, to get us out of danger and it seems that no matter what I tried, I couldn’t make any progress. I’m still trying, but I also realize that no matter what, I also have to try to document everything.

It wasn’t until Chris was sick that I was made to understand that the CIA has been involved in this all along. I’d already figured the FBI was involved, simply because I’d tried to report different aspects of the crime to them so many times, telling them I had evidence, and they kept ignoring me. In 2019 when I was experiencing a lot of wireless attacks to my heart, and trying to get the FBI to investigate the wireless signals I’d detected coming from my heart, I recall an agent saying “goodbye, Erika” with a decisive tone, as if she expected me to die. others were doing the same thing, around time, and I couldn’t understand why.

It was only after Chris died that it started to come out to me that the FBI had been maintaining some kind of secret reporting system (“FBI files”); that people who we may or may not have known over the years had been filing “reports”; and that – to the best of my understanding – Chris was tortured to death because of what was in those reports, and the attacks I’m experiencing are also because of what is in those reports. That the attacks themselves are being carried out by the CIA with a variety of wireless weaponry. That hospitals, including Providence Hospital system and PettyGrove Medical center, are involved in this. That TV broadcast towers (KVIQ, KGW) are involved in this. That drones are involved in this. That weapons have also been placed in spaces adjacent to our apartment, either wirelessly operated, or operated by neighbors.

Behind all of this is a web of global finance, a longstanding pattern of corrupt behaviors, backroom deals, coercion, threats, blackmail. It’s so big that the patterns around it are obvious. It only exists because of the participation and cover up within all branches of the US government, and because so far, civic leaders, medical professionals, citizens, and journalists/publications are willing to cover it up, either out of fear, or for pay/favors, or all of the above. Nonetheless, there’s always a chance that one or more individuals will see the big picture, and the writing on the wall as to where this accelerating murder and malfeasance rampage will go if it isn’t stopped as quickly and decisively as possible, and find a way to come forward before things get too much worse.

Un-wiping Chris’ legacy

This site was supposed to be about Chris’ music.

I know what Chris wanted, and I know what concerned him. He was concerned about what people would think. Too concerned. I’ve tried to keep this site focused on music. We had other websites as well, and YouTube channels, which over the past eight years we’ve lost control of, our couldn’t afford to keep running, or in the case of the Boo Frog YouTube channel, simply disappeared.

When I met him, Chris was suffering physically and emotionally, and he continued to suffer during our years together. It’s increasingly clear that wasn’t suffering because of poor choices he made based on “free will” or because of “bad luck,” but because of set ups and lies. I began to figure some of this out back in 2014, but at that time, I still didn’t have a clue how extensive the whole business was, and how deep it went, or how sophisticated it was. Furthermore, as soon as I tried to push back, I was met with a financed, neverending, avalanche of hell. A tremendous amount of effort was put into the idea that I could just “behave” my way out. So when I finally gave into the idea, figuring well, if I do what they want, I guess then they can’t blame me (as they had been doing) when things don’t work out – well then they had what they needed. Time and space to operate. So things just got worse and worse.

Here we are, eight years later. Chris has been murdered, and since 2014, absolutely nothing has changed for the better. A lot of things are worse. Clearly, in acquiescing, even the tiniest bit, I made the wrong choice.

It’s been a year since Chris’ death. I’ve tried to honor his wishes to the best of my ability, but it’s also clear that Chris’ wishes were being manipulated, and that he didn’t always understand what was best. I know he cared for me and for Brook, and he worried about how we would fare after his death. He also cared about his legacy.

Today, trying to understand some things, I spent some time looking at my old blogs from 2014 and it was really difficult to see how far I had actually come in understanding that year, only to be shut down while simultaneously being made to believe that the United States government had plans to work something out on our behalf. Because we were being imprisoned, exploited, and harmed, ultimately, I now know, by the FBI and CIA.

Instead, apparently, they chose to treat us like pawns in a global political strategy game. They allowed people around us to profit from lies, and based on those lies, they ripped our family apart, attacked us physically, and murdered Chris. But they didn’t do it alone – they had help from people around us. They had help from people who knew us, people who spied on us, people in the local business community, people in local politics. They had help in the form of lies and corruption from so-called “upstanding citizens.” All around us, the people and groups who had already exploited us for decades continued to enrich themselves as they continued to deceive and misrepresent us and we remained in a state of imprisonment and suffering. Meanwhile, a lot of other people died, who would not have died if the US had done what they had made us believe they intended to do, and helped us get through to a state of justice. I am convinced that we would not have had the COVID epidemic, or all the mass shootings we’ve had, or any number of other horrible events, had they allowed us to come through in a timely manner. Our family would have stayed intact. Chris and I could have lived out the dreams we’d been working on since we got together in 2009. Chris would not have been so horribly tortured and he would not have died as he did, believing he was a failure.

This site was supposed to be about music, but it’s clear that there are powerful entities working hand in hand with the FBI who are dead set on destroying every memory of Chris’s legacy. So right now, I don’t feel that the so-called “high road” is the correct route. I’m not saying that I believe in taking the “low road” – because to me that would mean lying, cheating, stealing – everything that’s been done to us. That’s never how I’ve done things, and I don’t intend to start now. What I mean is that I can no longer ignore what has been going on, and I can’t stay silent about how I feel about Chris’ legacy being sabotaged and his image dragged through the mud, including by people whom he trusted the most.