Effects Pedals and Pacific Northwest Heavy Rock Sound Jimi Hendrix had a tremendous impact with his "Experience" power trio, the bass and drums holding down a solid groove while the guitar goes crazy with feedback and noise. Jimi's main effects were fuzz (Fuzz Face) and wah (Vox). However, fuzz tone had fallen out of fashion in rock music by the 70s. Chris Newman 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. This would have been 1967 or 68. He was inspired by 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. Chris was using the Big Muff fuzz pedal by the early 1970s. Since the early 1970s, Big Muff Fuzz and Crybaby wah have been his main - and usually his only - effects. (Since 2018 he's begun experimenting with and incorporating other pedals, echoplex, etc.) 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 (1981), Rock & Roll Hell (1983), and Pugsley (1985). There are also bootleg videos of Chris performing in Seattle songs that never made it onto an album, using these effects, for example, a 1981 performance of a song called "Into The Sky" https://youtu.be/kq-D8nteb5U What I find so interesting about this song "Into The Sky," other than the way the Nirvana song "Very Ape" seems to link it lyrically with certain journal entries of mine, is that Chris told me that people in Seattle didn't seem to like the song, which may be part of the reason he never put it on an album. But to me, it sounds like what would later be called "grunge" - and I strongly suspect that people were pretending not to like Chris in order to discourage him, similar to the way I was psychologically manipulated when I tried to perform or collaborate on guitar. Guitar smashing by Townshend, Hendrix, and Cobain was likely intended in part to be a type of whistleblowing about the machinations around music with regards to us, as is, I believe, the section of Walt Disney's 1928 “Steamboat Willy” cartoon where the goat eats Minnie Mouse's guitar and then transforms into a victrola with his tail used as a crank. This shows that these plans were made long before we were born. It doesn't make them any less cruel, harmful, or disruptive. And just because someone has an idea or a plan of this type doesn't mean it needs to be carried out, or continually pursued decades later. to the bitterest of ends. MUDHONEY / MELVINS In 1982 Chris Newman's band, Napalm Beach, opens for PiL in Seattle. Steve Turner is quoted in "Everybody Loves Our Town" as saying that he may have met Mark "Arm" McLaughlin standing in line for that show (Yarm, p 45) - so it looks likely that both Mark Arm and Steve Turner were seeing Napalm Beach play live by 1982. In 1986 Chris said that Mark Arm and Bruce Pavitt came and saw him perform with his side project Snow Bud and the Flower People at the Vogue around 1986. Bruce Pavitt gave Chris a business card for Sub Pop and invited him to contact them, while Mark Arm carefully examined all of Chris' gear. Chris didn't have a phone at this time, and being as he was constantly being approached by various shysters making various offers around music, he doesn't respond to Sub Pop, and Sub Pop doesn't contact him again, though Chris goes on to play on bills with many Sub Pop linked bands. In October 1986 the Melvins record an album called Gluey Porch Treatments featuring a song called "Steve Instant Newman" - lyrics are of the sort where words sound like other words, but I believe the official version was printed on the record sleeve: 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 My recollection, having seen Mudhoney perform live - and I'm thinking now between 2009 and 2012, is that Steve Turner was using one type of fuzz pedal (probably the Big Muff) and Mark Arm was using another type (probably Super Fuzz). Turner was also using a wah. And they were using Fender Twin amps. So when I saw that, it really struck me - that was Chris' set-up. It was only later I learned about how Chris had combined Small Clone and Big Muff in the early 1980s, that I started to smell something rotton, especially since Chris had been shut out in so many ways, not even given a shout out by other more successful artists like Kurt Cobain. NIRVANA Every biography I've ever read about Kurt Cobain which mentions his gear talks about him using the Boss DS-1 and DS-2, and then often there is this mention that Big Muff was used on the song "Lithium." Lithium, by the way, is the drug my maternal aunt was on for many many years, a drug which eventually destroyed her kidneys, requiring a transplant. So it's pretty well known that Cobain used Big Muff on the recording of Lithium, but if you listen, you can hear that the Big Muff was used on other studio songs as well, and that it is especially prevalent on the In Utero album. The song "Heart Shaped Box" uses both Small Clone and Big Muff. I think that for this reason, and many other reasons, Heart Shaped Box may be one of the most central songs tying together a lot of different things, from issues related to medical abuse, to surveillance sex-trafficking through hospital systems, to issues around the effects and sound. Sometimes effects pedals are called "stomp boxes." So I find it interesting that no one outside of myself seems to have mentioned the use of Big Muff on In Utero. I believe Big Muff was used on several of the songs on that album. It's even more interesting when you consider that after I discovered what had actually happened - that Mudhoney and Nirvana essentially split up Chris' sound - and again, this is my opinion, but I think that Mudhoney knows I'm speaking truth here - and I published an article which made this assertion - suddenly I've "become a danger to myself and others" and while minding my own business I'm tackled by sheriffs, declared "delusional," and locked in a mental health facility. And the truth is, they were trying to find a way to lock me up long term. I just think that this was difficult for them to achieve, legally. Otherwise, they would have done it, just as was done to my great aunt Mildred who was locked up, then died of tuberculosis at age 27 at Anoka State Hospital after being abused by a hypnotist. And I think that Mildred was probably assassinated, as there seems to be a pattern of TB deaths in my family and my daughter's father's family. I also believe my aunt was abused by frequency based technology, and that was the real cause of her "bipolar disorder." So I suspect that writers being permitted to say Nirvana used Big Muff on "Lithium" but never mentioning the other places where it was used - was a coded warning, because Lithium is a psychiatric drug. And I say "being permitted to say" because I think the lockdown on the truth is that severe. I believe that Mudhoney - Mark Arm and Steve Turner - for whatever reason, have been covertly empowered to wield and co-opt other systems and do all kinds of horrible things to people. That's why I think they are in the role of the "Magician." And I believe that Michael Payne is right up there with them. It's possible the "Magician" is three or four people (Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Mike Payne, Mike Patton). And I think the flip side of this is that these individuals also have the power to lift people up, but it's done in this predatory way, "sacrificing" those in the role of the sun. Thus, a pre-Christian and arguably Satanic religion is being forcibly imposed on anyone who wants to be an artist or entertainer, and even anyone who is involved with medicine, law enforcement, politics, or education. The Boss pedal that Cobain used, especially the DS-1 sounds a lot like a pedal called MXR which was used by Greg Sage of the Wipers on the album Is This Real? This is what Sam Henry told me - Sam is the drummer who played with on the album, then went on to play with Chris in his bands for more than two decades. I've used this pedal, and I think Sam was being accurate when he says that Sage was using it a lot at that time (around 1980). Cobain's choice to use the Boss pedal was likely done in order to not be too obvious about being influenced by either Chris Newman or Greg Sage - though Cobain didn't have a problem giving Sage a shout out.