Pope Goat VII - The First Book of Pope Goat VII

(Sir Ackronomicon and Sir Billy the Phreek performing a mass at Al's Bar.)

In honor of April Fool's Day, I thought I'd post the beginning of what became the single most significant aspect of my entire musical "career."

In the summer of 1999, I was 20 and Ack moved into my mom's house with me. She went to the east coast for a few months, so we had the house to ourselves. One day, I asked him if he wanted to record, and we turned the living room into our recording studio. I set up my Fender Rhodes electric piano, my four-track and we just improvised. It was a way to do the Karp/Melvins thing that we always wanted to do.

Recording became an obsession for us. I suggested the named Pope Goat VII and Ack liked it. We transformed into Sir Ackronomicon and Sir Billy the Phreek and we came up with a whole history - we were nights from the middle ages sent into the future by His Holiness Pope Goat VII to teach the modern people how to make music without any strings attached. Have fun, make noise - that's all that counts. People who take themselves too seriously are pompous assholes.

The Pope Goat became our musical deity, and we recorded five albums in that living room before we moved into our own apartment. This is the first, hence the name.

We went on to record over 50 albums and perform something like seven "masses" in honor of His Holiness Pope Goat VII. We knighted people along the way, too, bringing them into the ways of The Goat. The Pope Goat is real in our minds, and he stands behind us with his hooves on our shoulders in everything that we do.

All songs on The First Book were completely improvised. We recorded the music first and then overdubbed the vocals. Sometimes we had a song title and a riff to work from; sometimes we just hit record and let the Goat guide us.About the psalms:

01. Flies - This was the first psalm we finished with music and vocals, so it had to open the book. I had forgotten to empty the trash and one day I came home to find the house infested with flies. The vocals were recorded while yelling at the flies buzzing around us.

02. Plants & Girls - My mom made us pick up these huge, heavy plants from the place we used to live and Sir Ackronomicon was having female problems. This was our frustration. The Goat works in mysterious ways.

03. Korean TV - We had the TV tuned to the Korean station for this psalm.

04. Wuss - The first music that The Pope Goat ever channeled into us. The vocals were recorded later. This is The Pope Goat's commentary on wussy emo indie pop.

05. Kennedy Crash - JFK Jr. had just flown his plane into a mountain, so we recorded this. This was a pretty accurate precursor of what was to come on the next two Pope Goat VII albums.

06. Stupid Fucking Ugly Bitch - About someone I worked with.

07. Memento Mori - "Remember that you must die." Sir Ackronomicon suggested the title. It's a hedonistic celebration of mortality.

Pope Goat VII
The First Book of Pope Goat VII CS/CDR
(MPAE/Hummer Productions)
1999

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