Pope Goat VII - Book of VII Commandments

(Photo by Sir Ackronomicon)

I'm really excited to post this, as I haven't heard it since we recorded it 11 years ago.

This was the last book of Pope Goat VII to be recorded in my mom's house before Sir Ackronomicon and I set up our domain in The Blue Room. Quite honestly, I don't remember much about this recording session, probably due to intoxication, but I do remember it being the first time I used my guitar for the Pope Goat and that we were screaming through most of it. Listening to it now, it sounds like a cross between Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse and Acid Mothers Temple.

Of course, it was supposed to be 10 Commandments, but we moved before recording the last three Commandments, and by that time, the Pope Goat commanded us to start fresh, with the Book of New Surroundings.

About the psalms:
(note: psalms that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. I Am the Only God - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:2-6.

02. Keep My Sabbath Holy - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:8-11.

03. Bear False Witness - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:16.

04. Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:17.

05. Thou Shalt Kill - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:13.

06. Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:17 (continued).

07. Stealing Is Good - His Holiness Pope Goat VII's response to Exodus 20:15.

Pope Goat VII
Book of VII Commandments CDR
(MPAE/Hummer Productions)
1999

Download Book of VII Commandments as a .zip file!

note: the .zip file includes booklet and tray-card inserts so you can make your own PG7 CD!

More Pope Goat VII

Visit Pope Goat VII on MySpace!

Ultramundane - A Kingdom at Birth

I'm very pleased to announce that Shaadie Khoury, the brain behind Ultramundane, has given me permission to post the entire Ultramundane discography.

I discovered the band while writing my series on Middle Eastern Black Metal for Bigtakeover.com. You can read the entries on Ultramundane here and here.

This was their first album. From what I can tell, the band was a side-project of sorts of Egyptian black metal band, Oziris. While there are two very nasty lo-fi black metal tracks on this album, the other five tracks are dark, psychedelic instrumentals, kind of like Mogwai. It was a great start to what would become a great band, although after this, they'd become an electronic darkwave/ambient band with drummer Shaadie Khoury at the helm.

The images and music were uploaded with Shaadie Khoury's full consent. Thank you, Shaadie!

Ultramundane
A Kingdom at Birth CD?/MP3
(Ultramundane?)
1998

Download A Kingdom at Birth as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

Sworn Revenge

Stepped Into Heaven

Visit Ultramundane at Soundclick!

Pope Goat VII - Book of New Surroundings

(The Blue Room floor circa 1999/2000 - Photo by Sir Ackronomicon)

What better way to get back on track than with another Book of Pope Goat VII?

This is the Sixth Book of Pope Goat VII. Where's Number 5? We never mixed it down.

This was the first book we recorded after we moved out of my mom's house and into our own apartment. We immediately transformed our hallway, which was actually pretty spacious for a hallway, into a permanent recording studio, the Blue Room, for us to use at our leisure. This was really the most thriving creative period His Holiness the Pope Goat gave us, and we recorded something like 45 of our 50 Books here.

All tracks were now one take, no overdubs, completely improvised either off a riff one of us started, or by just hitting record and seeing what happened. This is really one of our finest moments, as the excitement and energy of our new living situation and my new-found freedom really shines through.

About the psalms:
(note: psalms that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. All Ye Who Enter Here - Our first recording in our new apartment and in the Blue Room conjuring the powers of His Holiness, the Pope Goat.

02. Tropical Frog - We had some shitty cereal with stale marshmallows in it, like Lucky Charms or something, and it was advertising the new "tropical frog" marshmallow, so in true Pope Goat fashion, we did a song about it.

03. Tropical Toad - We didn't feel done with the "Tropical Frog" thing when the tape ran out, so we recorded a "sequel," as directed by the Pope Goat.

04. Do the Pope Goat - Pope Goat disco. Pretty self-explanatory.

05. Shit - Everybody does it.

06. Christian Disco - The only channel we got on our TV (since we refused to pay for cable) was TBN, the Born Again Christian channel, which became a huge inspiration to our music. I believe this is the first TBN reference in the Pope Goat cannon.

07. White Trash Rap - Here, we were joined by Sir Ackronomicon's brother, Sir P of Pimping Hos, on vocals, and Sir Minister Barry the Conquistador on keyboards. Sir Ackronomicon is on bass and I'm playing trumpet and screaming in the background.

08. You Silly Bitch - Yup.

09. Black Sunday - We were hungover on a Sunday morning, and we said, "Black Sunday" - a reference to the great Mario Bava movie - in our Pope Goat voices and realized were were being summoned by His Holiness Pope Goat VII to record, which we did.

10. Leaky Ceiling - One morning it rained and I woke up with a deluge of water dripping through my ceiling all over my room, like it was raining inside.

11. Metal Plate - Basically, when we were moving into our apartment, Sir Ackronomicon had leaned a metal plate from something his dad had welded against the railing outside our door, and when we were moving his mattress in, we knocked the plate, which slid under the railing and sailed down into the courtyard of the apartment complex. We heard somebody yell, "What the fuck was that?" We didn't think anything of it until he kept yelling. We looked at each other and knew something was wrong. We ran downstairs and saw some guy on his knees holding his head. Sir Ackronomicon pulled the guy's baseball cap off his head and blood poured down his face. I ran back upstairs and called 911. Luckily, the guy didn't sue, but Sir Ackronomicon was stuck paying the guy's medical bills for a while.

12. Toilet - It was one of those typical shitty cheap apartment toilets that ran for no reason or got stuck after you flushed and you had to jiggle the handle.

Pope Goat VII

Book of New Surroundings CDR
(MPAE/Hummer Productions)
1999

Download Book of New Surroundings as a .zip file!

note: the .zip file includes booklet and tray-card inserts so you can make your own PG7 CD!

More Pope Goat VII!

Visit Pope Goat VII on MySpace!

Simstim Technologies - Neuromance

(Mr Phreek circa 1998/1999 - Photo by Ackronomicon)

It's oh-so-apt that I'm posting this after winning a five day battle with the swine flu of computer viruses...

Anyway, I'm really big into cyberpunk. Max Headroom, Shadow Run, Blade Runner, Tron, THX-1138, Akira, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith and, of course, the novels of William Gibson all rank highly on my entertainment scale.

On a cyberpunk kick in 2005, I decided to create music that was truly "cyberpunk." I figured a good way to do this would be to record a digital instrument through an analog recorder, so I overdubbed my digital Korg Prophecy on my cassette-based Fostex XR-7 multitracker. I kept William Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, in mind as I assembled the tracks to create this bit of lo-fi electronica.

If you're familiar with Neuromancer, the song titles should speak for themselves, so a track-by-track analysis is unnecessary. However, if you're unfamiliar...hell, download this album and listen to it while you go to the bookstore to buy it. Or, in true cyberpunk fashion, shop online for an ebook.

And, no, you can't dance to it.

Simstim Technologies
Neuromance CDR
(MPAE)
2005

Download Neuromance as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

Television Sky
Sleeping Coffin

I Luv Luv Birds - I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings

And here is what I believe to be the second ILLB release. Here, Holly Prindle's tortured/angelic vocals come to the forefront, delivering dreamy, psychedelic lyrics over Marc Mozga's trippy electronic dub. As to be expected, it's highly original and genuinely unique, and an interesting step forward from their previous tape, Mysteries of Magnetism.

Play loud and turn up the bass!

The images and music were uploaded with Marc Mozga's consent. Thank you, Marc!

I Luv Luv Birds
I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings CDR
(ILLB)
2006

Download I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

One Watt

Icicles (Of Gasoline)

Visit I Luv Luv Birds on MySpace!

Pope Goat VII - The First Tract of Pope Goat VII

As I mentioned before, some fuckhead stole Sir Ackronomicon's computer, so PG7 posts are on hold for the time being. (May His Holiness Pope Goat VII smite said fuckhead with all the chaotic violence of the universe.) The music is safe - it was all recorded on a cassette 4-track - but Ack wants to make fancy inserts for our followers, so I'll wait until he can get that together.

So, here we have a religious pamphlet that I wrote to spread the Word of Goat. It was heavily inspired by writings at The Kook's Museum. I could have sworn that I wrote a second one, but no one seems to believe that but me, so I'm probably wrong. Anyway, here you go. Praise be to Goat!

More Pope Goat VII

Messier 7 - Songs About Girls Who Never Existed

(Photo of M7 by NASA)

I've been busy writing reviews for The Big Takeover, so I haven't had much time for the blog. Also, some fuckhead stole Sir Ackronomicon's computer, so Pope Goat VII books are on hold for the time being. I haven't posted something of mine lately, so I'd thought I'd get back into the swing of things with this, my Helios Creed-inspired spacerock CD.

Songs About Girls Who Never Existed was one of the first albums I finished after I moved to NY. I was having a really hard time connecting with anybody musically, as I was (and still am) on the ass end of Long Island where people get their cultural relevance from television and radio. I actually had some redneck asshole tell me that the music I like couldn't be any good since he hadn't heard of it. So I holed myself in my apartment, got really drunk and stoned and recorded music on my own.

I'd been a huge Helios Creed fan since I was 14, and I always wanted to do something along those lines. I even bought a bunch of effects pedals to get that spacey sound. Finally, I decided to put together some older tracks of mine, record some new tracks, and have a spacerock "band" of my own.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. My dad was even impressed with my guitar playing. Maybe you'll dig it, too.

Best heard under the influence of something or other.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. I Saw You (Crying) - An old song from my solo recordings. Go here for more info.

02. Lady Dragon - Another old song from my solo recordings. Go here for more info.

03. Descent Into Your Mind - This was the first song I recorded after buying my Danelectro phaser pedal. It had been a long night working in the bar (I was a barback) and I was irritated at having to listen to Rush on the satellite radio, so I went home with a few drinks in me, quickly assembled my recording gear and basically improvised this. It's mostly influenced by The Butthole Surfers' "Human Cannonball," especially in the vocals. It's a fun song.

04. Mistress Morphing - The guitar riff was inspired by a song from the cult science fiction animated movie Rock & Rule, where the character, Mok, is summoning a demon in Ohm Town. I believe this was recorded under the influence of opiate pills, hence the pun title.

05. Space Flying - This was centered around a riff I had written for The Gardeners that was really influenced by Neu! and Stereolab. I kept it an instrumental and recorded two guitar tracks. I always liked this one.

06. Xolotl/I Wanna Be Your Dog - "Xolotl" was a song I wrote for Anubis Rising, but I was never happy with the way it came out with them, so I redid it and tacked The Stooges to the end for some reason (probably because I could, and because I wanted to do a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" that didn't try to sound like The Stooges for once). By the way, "Xolotl" means "monster" in Nahuatl, the language of pre-Columbian Mezo-American cultures, i.e. Aztecs.

Messier 7
Songs About Girls Who Never Existed CDR
(MPAE)
2001

Download Songs About Girls Who Never Existed as a .zip file!

I Luv Luv Birds - Mysteries of Magnetism

I met Marc Mozga in English class my first year at CSUN. Somehow it came out in our first class that we were both film majors and we both liked David Lynch movies, so we started talking. Turned out, Marc was from the Minnesota Twin Cities and was heavily involved in the music scene there with a band called The Swingtones. Like me, he had a really eclectic taste in music, so we started hanging out. I believe he came with Aidan and I to see Thee Headcoates at Jabberjaw. We saw The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion a couple of times, too, and probably some more bands.

He also really loved The Two Felipes.

After a year or two in LA, Marc had had enough of LA, though he managed to bring The Swingtones around on tour and I hooked him up with a show at The Whiskey-A-Go-Go. I was there with my friend Mark Lovretovich and we sat there really amused by the bands that played before them. There was some really pretentious art-punk band that was trying desperately to be The Fall (and failing miserably) and this ridiculous Motley Crue/Poison-type LA glam band called 88 Crash, who really perplexed us - especially the bald, body-waxed singer who looked like some guy from Century City letting loose onstage. It was completely ridiculous. Finally, The Swingtones took the stage and it was a great show, they were all great guys and we had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, after Marc got sick of LA and moved back to the Midwest, we lost touch. He sent me a few really odd handmade tapes (to be posted here in the future), but I didn't hear much from him after that. Finally, he found me on MySpace a few years ago, but I'm not good at communicating on MySpace and we lost touch again. Oddly enough, he Googled "The Two Felipes" and found this blog a few months ago, and I haven't lost touch with him yet.

I Luv Luv Birds is his newest project with his girl, Holly Prindle. He plays stuff and she sings. It's indescribably great music. Although it's rooted in dub reggae a la The Mad Professor, there are elements of various modes of electronic music, including Cabaret Voltaire's early industrial, new styles 8-bit and glitch, and some sound collage aesthetics to keep it interesting. This is one bass-heavy, pulsing, psychedelic collection of music.

Ever read William Gibson's Neuromancer? This is the music that I imagine the Rasta space colony listened to.

Mysteries of Magnetism is ILLB's first release. It's mostly instrumental, but Holly comes in on the last track with a haunting vocal that would indicate where they'd go in the future.

I'm very happy to be posting this tape. It's an amazing collection of music.

The images and music were uploaded with Marc Mozga's consent. Thank you, Marc!

I Luv Luv Birds
Mysteries of Magnetism CS
(ILLB)
2005

Download Mysteries of Magnetism as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

MoM 2

MoM 7

Visit I Luv Luv Birds on MySpace!

Pope Goat VII - Book of the Fucking Piece of Shit

Book of the Fucking Piece of Shit was the Fourth Book of Pope Goat VII, recorded August 15, 1999 entirely live in four takes. Everything was improvised within the span of that hour without any pre-arrangement or overdubs.

This was a "concept album" of sorts centered around our "catch-phrase for the new millenium," i.e., "fucking piece of shit." So, as we recorded, we complained about every little thing that popped into our heads, from Christians to guitar picks, deeming them all "fucking pieces of shit." We even made shitty Jeno's personal pizzas while recording.

This was a true and powerful display of His Holiness Pope Goat VII's power. It was an awesome sight to behold.

(Sir Billy the Phreek circa Summer 1999 - Photo by Sir Ackronomicon)

About the psalms:
(note: psalms that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Chapter I - Intro, band, world, Christians, TV, cops, batteries, blues, singers.

02. Chapter II - Tape, suburbia, houses, food, piano solo, picks, land, action movies, jewelry, commercials.

03. Chapter III - Sharks, Mike, stock market, Elton John, bass solo, pizza, weatherman, alarm clock, golf, dogs, slide, Cher/Sonny Bono/John Denver/JFK Jr.

04. Chapter IV - Wrestling, bands, babies, infomercials, shitty piece of fuck, president, doctors, Grammys, end.

Pope Goat VII
Book of the Fucking Piece of Shit CDR
(MPAE/Hummer Productions)
1999

Download Book of the Fucking Piece of Shit as a .zip file!

note: the .zip file includes booklet and tray-card inserts so you can make your own PG7 CD!

Previous Books of Pope Goat VII

Visit Pope Goat VII on MySpace!

Pope Goat VII - Book of Extreme Measures

This is the Third Book of Pope Goat VII, and, at this point, Ack and I were comfortable with the roles of Sir Ackronomicon and Sir Billy the Phreek, which His Holiness Pope Goat VII handed down to us. It's a brutal onslaught from beginning to end, with some parts bordering on power-violence (that Sleestak influence coming through). The first song, "Fucking Piece of Shit Bitch," sets the bar, and the book continues down that path.

All music was improvised with vocals improvised later, with the exception of "27 in 1."

These psalms truly were the most extreme measures His Holiness the Pope Goat ever had to take!
About the psalms:

01. Fucking Piece of Shit Bitch - This woman kept calling and asking for "Ira" while we were recording, which, of course, made the Pope Goat very angry. When I insisted for the third time that there was no "Ira" and that she had the wrong number, she got indignant and the Pope Goat waged war. The Pope Goat won.

02. Headshots - Sir Ackronomicon was in the process of making a student film, and he had piles and piles of headshots from wannabe actors looking to get their big break from Dramalogue. We ran around the living room recording studio in my mom's house throwing the headshots in the air and screaming at them. It was a huge mess.

03. Just Dogs - I'm not sure if this was about my dog, Lady Cookie the Wookie (RIP - she's guarding Pope Goat VII at his throne now) or if it's about these asshole dogs next door that always barked at us. I think it was the latter. Fucking piece of shit dogs.
04. Micro Phones - A lot of our equipment was/is budget crap from Radio Shack, and, as to be expected, it breaks. I knew Sir Ackronomicon was a worthy warrrior when I saw the look on his face as he glared maniacly at a broken microphone and screamed, "Look at you, you fucking piece of shit microphone!"
05. Chicken in a Biscuit - Yes, it's about the cracker, but His Holiness Pope Goat VII didn't want to worry about trademark infringement, so we spelled it differently. "I think I'm gonna risk it for chicken in a biscuit!" How about you?

06. 1492 - This evil track is a brutal assualt on American society going all the way back to Christopher Columbus. It's the soundtrack to the Pope Goat destroying 500 years of culture.

07. Auto Erotic Asphyxiation - It was a popular way to die at the time.

08. 27 in 1 - This was the first time we recorded music and vocals together and it was a real turning point in the way the Pope Goat channeled his music and message through us. It was also recorded under the influence of mushrooms. Either later that night or listening to it the next day, Sir Ackronomicon said it sounded like 27 songs in one, hence the name.

09. Doughnuts (Remix) - A dub-style remix of "Doughnuts" from Book of the Headless Goat.

10. Decapitation (Remix) - Another dub-style remix of a track from Book of the Headless Goat. The remix was something we meant to pursue, but the Pope Goat doverted out attention into other areas.

Pope Goat VII
Book of Extreme Measures CDR
(MPAE/Hummer Productions)
1999

Buy Book of Extreme Measures!

note: the .zip file includes booklet and tray-card inserts so you can make your own PG7 CD!

Previous Books of Pope Goat VII

Visit Pope Goat VII on MySpace!

Mr Phreek - Solo Recordings 1998-2001

(Mr Phreek circa 2000 - Photo by Judy Jean Kwon)

Here's a chronological collection of random songs I recorded over a span of about 3 years. I put a lot of time and effort into some of the tracks; others were "of the moment."

The first three songs were recorded at my mom's town house in Northridge. 4 and 5 were done at my mom's house where the first five Books of Pope Goat VII were channeled. 5-9 were recorded in the apartment Ack and I shared in Granada Hills. Track 10 was one of the first songs I recorded when I moved to NY.

The "bonus track" mentioned on the cover art isn't included because I used it on my spacerock album along with two other songs from this CD and that would have put about half the album up here. I'll be posting that spacerock album in the future.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. That Certain Feeling - This was an attempt to do something "industrial" sounding, but it just sounds like something Steve Albini would have done with Big Black. I wanted single note arpeggio, like you'd get from a Moog, as the bass. I didn't have a keyboard yet, so I used a real bass. It was hard keeping time. The guitar line turned out well considering that I played the whole thing through the song. I also incorporated some sampling elements that I had begun with The Goatfish Oratorio. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. It ended up on my digital hardcore/industrial album, Luddite Surprise.

02. I Saw You (Crying) - My first stab at psychedelia and spacerock. I tuned my guitar to some strange tuning that went something like E B D A B F#, essentially making power chords out of the three pairs of strings. I spent a lot of time programming the drums, which wasn't easy considering I have a Yamaha RX-11. I actually mic'ed the bass and guitar, too. I think this is one of the best songs I've ever recorded. It opens my spacerock album, Songs About Girls Who Never Existed.

03. Can't Really Complain - I was big into digital hardcore, ie Atari Teenage Riot, and this LA band called Babyland, who were the closest thing to DH that I had heard locally. This was my tribute to both. I recorded the vocals in a friend's (John from The Gardeners) closet. I played an early version for my friend Mark Lovretovich and he said it needed some squeals, so I got our friend Phil, who would become Sir Oedipus Beer in Pope Goat VII, to play a noisy guitar solo over the whole song, which I edited. Many people love this song, which makes me very happy. This is the first track on Luddite Surprise.

04. Torn Apart - This is the original version of "Torn Apart," and to me, it's far superior to the one on the Anubis Rising demo. It's very Slip It In Black Flag with a heavy dose of Hammerhead.

05. Is It Worth It? - I wanted to do something like Flipper, but ended up with this teen angst anthem instead. Features the first extended guitar solo that I ever wrote.

06. Kicking Self - This was a less successful attempt at psychedelia. It's kind of a spacerock version of Flipper. My vocals sound very drugged-up - I probably was.

07. Lady Dragon - Hands down, this is my favorite spacerock song and one of my favorite songs that I've ever recorded, period. It's "Lady Dragon" as in "chasing the dragon," something I was doing heavily at the time until I switched to a much more sordid way of getting high. The song was recorded very Pope Goat-ish - mostly improvised. It came out perfectly. This is also on my spacerock album.

08. Freight Train Baby - I was really big into The Stooges' Funhouse and it shows here. I even programmed a pseudo-funk, Ron Asheton-style drum beat.

09. Highway Driving - I really shouldn't have used the same beat as "Freight Train Baby," but I think I was just trying to get some ideas down as quickly as possible. More Funhouse-infused Stooge-rock.

10. Liz Thinks I'm a Bore - A very trashy garage rocker that marks my transtition to NY. I was using a really shitty Radio Shack mic that was meant for portable tape recorders, which is where all the noise comes from in the middle of the song.

Mr Phreek
Solo Recordings 1998-2001 CDR
(n/a)
2001

Download Solo Recordings 1998-2001 as a .zip file!

Pope Goat VII - Book of the Headless Goat

(Original cassette insert.)

It's the first post of the month, which means it's time for another Book from His Holiness Pope Goat VII.

Book of the Headless Goat followed right on the heals of The First Book. It was recorded with the same setup we had in my mom's living room while she was away in NY.

As a joke, we submitted to a local LA film festival in the hopes that we'd get to play live in front of a bunch of industry fuckheads. The best part was going to some office on Hollywood Blvd. to meet the music coordinator of the festival. I made him listen to all of "Acid" and a little bit of "Sleep" while he tried to stifle his laughter. I kept a straight face and acted like we were the best band on the planet. Some lady in an adjacent cubicle complained. Needless to say, we didn't get the gig.

Headless Goat picks up where The First Book left off and bridges well with the unforgiving power-violence of Book of Extreme Measures (which will be posted next month). Again, the music was improvised first and the vocals were improvised later.
Sir Ackronomicon talks about the psalms (with comments by Sir Billy the Phreek):
-->

From the Dungeon of Sir Ackronomicon

A Treatise on the grouping of psalms called

Book of the Headless Goat

as recorded by

The Holy Order of the Knights of Pope Goat VII

01. Acid - After we recorded this psalm, Sir Billy The Phreek named it because he said it reminded him of his LSD trips. Although I had yet to take any heavy hallucinogens (wait for Book of Extreme Measures for evidence), I think my brainwaves & sound were very in sync with “it” on this one. Sir Billy the Phreek began the song with this HUGE noise sound using his pedals and I forget what else. I love how the song “mellows out” with myself on harmonica, then Sir Billy the Phreek's noise dies out and I get super drippy with my slide bass and wah pedal. Sir Billy the Phreek hit the couch with his mic or something and I got into it by being his victim. Holy Goat! we banished some demons somehow with this one. “Are you feeling lost? It’s OK. You’ll never find your way out anyway.” (Negativland and Throbbing Gristle were on my mind while we did this. My repetitive vocals were an attempt at recreating voice samples. Then it turns into S&M at the end. I was hitting the couch with a stick - possibly one of the "Lame Far and Limp Bizkit Drumsticks!" My favorite line is "I juggle clowns for a living!" -Sir BtP)

02. Sleep - After recording Acid, Sir Billy the Phreek really wanted to sleep. I said I wanted to do one more, although I was just as drunk and exhausted. It came out kinda funky. (Perhaps my being tired allowed me to channel the Pope Goat better. -Sir BtP)

03. Monk E - This may have been when we were falling asleep. We did some mumble-chanting. It features more of my bass, with distortion and wah mic’d though a shitty burnt out little amp - I loved the sound! Phreek’s Rhodes had such a strong power though the distortion on his Fender amp. If the Pope Goat built a gothic church as the only place of peace for all of the tortured souls in the middle of Hell, we would be there playing "Monk E" for them. (Meant to be played at a funeral along with "Memento Mori" from The First Book of Pope Goat VII. -Sir BtP)

04. Doughtnuts - For the love of doughnuts, and certainly not cops. (I think we were eating doughnuts while we recorded this. -Sir Btp)

05. Fucking Piece of Shit Cat - Sir Billy the Phreek had this cat that we kept in the dungeon. Sometimes she would escape from her chained existence and sneak into our studio. She would also stick her paw under my bedroom and wake me up in the morning. We had to buy cat food AND feed her. She could never open the fucking can of food, hence the name, "Fucking Piece of Shit Cat." She snuck into our studio during this session and we chased her through the house, screaming while recording. She didn’t like it one bit. We would play this psalm for her really fucking loud whenever she escaped. She was a fucking piece of shit cat! (Yeah, that cat WAS a fucking piece of shit; nothing like Lady Smokey, my FPOS cat who kicks ass! -Sir BtP)

06. Pope Goat VII - Ah, a tribute from the Goat to himself, through us. Phreek could really play like a demon in the Vatican. I grabbed the mic and stood on that soapbox to let the world know what the Goat was all about. The Goat reverted to his primitive state through Sir Billy the Phreek, and said, "Baaaaah!" Amen! (Amen, Brother Ackronomicon! -Sir BtP)

07. Vikings and Pirates and Bears, Oh My! - I think I came up with this title at work and brought it home to Sir Billy the Phreek. Don’t know where it came from but Sir Billy the Phreek and I come from different backgrounds. You see, before we were The Knights of the Holy Order of Pope Goat VII, I was a pirate and he was a viking. The drum machine really sounds like a machine gun. This psalm is long and obnoxious, different from our other psalms, which can be short and obnoxious. I love it like it was my own psalm. (The psalm title came from His Holiness himself, as do all our other psalm titles. It tells the story of how His Holiness Pope Goat VII brought us from two different eras of history into his time in the Middles Ages, then into the future. -Sir BtP)

08. Fish - On top of having the aforementioned "Fucking Piece of Shit Cat," we had a whole mess of fucking piece of shit fish. We went into the minds of the fish, which wasn’t that difficult because fish are really dumb. You see, they were religious fish who really didn’t know about Darwin. Oh, the nerve! And they, like the aforementioned "Fucking Piece of Shit Cat," had to be fed. They probably ate their own shit - I can’t remember. Well, we screamed at them while recording, as usual, because they were fucking piece of shit fish. At least they couldn’t escape. “The Pope Goat commands that everybody eat meat on Friday. Everyone must eat meat every single Friday, including Christmas Friday and people should eat fish every other Sunday of every other January of odd even years.” (The Pope Goat had some serious words with those fish. "Flopping fish/flying fish!" -Sir BtP)

09. Goat 3:16 - Keeping with His philosophy of straddling extreme Good and extreme Evil, The Pope Goat channeled this amazing psalm through us. One of us reads from the Bible, and the other from the Necronomicon. Who’s reading which? (I read the erotic parts of The Song of Solomon. "Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down the mountains of Galaad...Your breasts are like twin fawns, the young of a gazelle that browse among the lilies." Oh yeah, that's romantic. -Sir Btp)

10. Decapitation - Oh the glory of decapitation! Our favorite method of murder, and also torture, when it’s done meticulously and slow. I like the huge evil note we hit towards the end of the psalm. It’s the audio equivalent of a giant, double-blade ax swinging down upon an unarmed peasant, slicing through his jugular and spine. Pure bliss. (Off with their fucking piece of shit heads! -Sir BtP)

Pope Goat VII

Book of the Headless Goat CS/CDR

(MPAE/Hummer Productions)

1999

Buy Book of the Headless Goat!

note: the .zip file includes booklet and tray-card inserts so you can make your own PG7 CD!

Previous books of Pope Goat VII

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Mr Phreek - Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk

(Mr Phreek circa '98/'99 - Photo by Ackronomicon)

It was the summer of 1999 and Ack and I were living in my mom's house in Van Nuys, CA while she was in NY. We had turned the living room into our permanent recording studio so we could walk in and hit record whenever the mood struck us. Most of the recordings centered on Pope Goat VII, but I got home from work a few hours earlier than Ack so I squeezed in some recordings here and there.

By this time, I was fully steeped in Iggy Pop's The Idiot, Throbbing Gristle, The Birthday Party and free jazz, especially Sun Ra. All those influences can be heard here, though I was really trying to do my version of The Idiot using Indian beats described by Don Cherry on Actions. I used my drum machine, Fender Rhodes electric piano and bass.

I ended up sending a copy of these songs to Michael Dean from Bomb. He said it reminded him of Suicide, certainly a high compliment.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Hibernation - I guess this was my attempt at doing something like "Mass Production" from The Idiot. You can hear that I'm trying to do my best Iggy Pop impression in the vocals. Haha.

02. Friday - I programmed one of those Don Cherry beats into my drum machine and jammed this one out. It ended up sounding kind of industrial. I like the way it turned out, especially when it changed 2/3 of the way through.

03. Drunken Battle - Another Don Cherry beat. This one has Iggy all over it, even stuff from his first two Arista albums.

04. Desert Song - Probably the darkest song from these sessions. I really like the way this turned out.

05. Crossing the Line - This song ended up being pretty prophetic, as I was sinking deeper and deeper into drug use. There's much more of a Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard/Stooges thing here than on the previous tracks. You can clearly hear me smoking pot at the end.

06. Factory Man - The Stooges/Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard sound comepletely took over here. Maybe it was a good thing that I stopped when I did.

Mr Phreek
Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk CS
(n/a)
1999

Download Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk as a .zip file!

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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The Gardeners - Winnetka

(Mr Phreek circa '98/'99 - Photo by Ackronomicon)

Here are some recordings made during a night of jamming with some friends, circa '98. John Huntley is drumming, Micah Calabrese is on bass and I'm playing guitar. The recording is surprisingly clear for something that was recorded on a boombox in a garage.

I originally met John at a coffee house in Northridge called Common Grounds. We quickly became close friends and I spent many many nights crashing at the huge house he shared with four other guys.

Micah was the drummer of a local band called Radio 4 (not the band that would later gain radio airplay). He was, and I imagine still is, a masterful musician.

After this jam session, John, Micah and I decided to continue the project. We brought in Aidan, from Twitch Party, to play second guitar and Ackronomicon to play second bass. We played live a couple of times, then it started to lose its charm. It quickly became an "anything goes" free-for-all with random people jumping in at practices that really had nothing to do with the band. Plus, the music was going in a really wimpy indie-rock/Stereolab direction that I thought lacked the edge we originally had. Too many cooks and all. Eventually, it just kind of dissolved.

So it goes.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Track 1 - Our first jam of the night. John and I bonded over our shared love of Joy Division and it really shows here. Towards the end, I started quoting "Walls" by Crass on my guitar.

02. Track 2 - This was all centered around Micah's phenomenal bass lines. Apparently, this was a song he had fully written that he randomly decided to pull out here. This was my favorite Gardeners track.

03. Track 3 - You can tell the night was winding down, as this goes all over the place. I think that at one point, Micah switches from bass to keyboard and things get really noisy.

The Gardeners
Winnetka CS
(n/a)
1998

Download Winnetka as a .zip file!