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!

***UPDATE***

I was sick for a while and I fell off the radar, but I'm finally starting to feel better so I should be back up and running at full capacity sometime next week. I apologize for the delay.

World War IX - When a Good Time Turns to Shit

Haven't been feeling very motivated lately, so here's a quick one for the week.

This is an early "single" from WWIX, when Max was still the vocalist. Personally, I never really cared for his vocals - his voice is a bit dopey and onstage he really seemed to be trying too hard. Compare this version of "Treasure Hunt" to the one on Brown Bagging It with Mike's vocals. There's no comparison; Mike's is way, way better.

But the band is top-notch here as always and it's cool to hear the origins of "the best trashy punk band in NYC," to quote myself.

The images and music were uploaded with Justin Melkmann's consent. Thank you, Justin!

World War IX
When a Good Time Turns to Shit CD
(Elis Eil)
2005

01. Intervention

02. Treasure Hunt

Visit WWIX on MySpace!

The Two Felipes - Hot Off the Grill

For the beginning of the new year (and a new decade, according to some on NPR), I bring you the origins of one of the most important bands to my musical upbringing.

Hot Off the Grill was The Two Felipes' first tape, and it's basically a "demo" for what would become Eat Your Fill. It's pretty interesting to hear the orignal versions of these songs in comparison to how they evolved only a few months later.

A must for all Felipes Fanatics!

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

The Two Felipes
Hot Off the Grill CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1986

Download Hot Off the Grill as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

Industrial Strife

Jay's Plan

Fish

More Felipes!!!

ULTRABASTARD! - Demo

(Live at Big Al Doogie's birthday party August 2006)

My band, i.e., the functioning one that practices every week and plays out once in a while.

John and I met in Maggot, a Lower East Side scummy punk band that I joined after seeing them play once. Unfortunately, main man Greg Maggot and I butted heads and I was out of the band a few months later. Shortly afterward, I started playing with a douchebag who called himself Atom, where I met Dan, but that's another story.

Basically, John called me out of the blue one day after the Maggot debacle, right when I was realizing things weren't working out with Atom, and he asked me if I wanted to play music with him. Of course I did - he's a great guy, really easy to work with and he played bass. So we started writing and practicing songs with a drum machine in his garage. John wanted to name the band "Hypocrite," and I liked "Jackhammer," so we became Jackhammer Hypocrite. We actually played a show with the drum machine to about five people in a sandlot.

The thing was, we really wanted a singer and a drummer. Eventually, we found the latter in Dan Brown, a guy from my neck of the woods, the North Fork of Long Island. None of the singers we "auditioned" worked out, so John and I took over vocal duties. This line-up played several great shows, most notably at The King's Club in Centereach and Saints'N'Sinners in Smithtown. We also changed our name to JAKKHAMR HYPOCRYT for some reason.

Eventually, Dan Brown, who's a helluva musician by the way, began flaking on band practice, leaving John and I to sit there pissed off and frustrated. Finally, we just never called him back for practice and we returned to square one. We put a classified ad in a local music mag and talked to a few people, but nothing worked out. In the meantime, I played with Optimus Prime. Then one day, John called and said, "I've got a dumb idea - why don't I switch to drums and get Dan from Optimus Prime to play bass?" So that's what we did, and it's stayed that way for better or worse ever since, although now we practice in Dan's basement and we're called ULTRABASTARD!

There's been a lot of fun and a lot of turmoil. We did a mini-tour of Florida with Libyan Hit Squad. We played Cleveland and met Nightmare Mode. We've had incredible, ass-kicking shows and really horrible, embarrassing ones. We've hated each other and loved each other. We all love it, though, and we always come back for more. In fact, we're recording again (finally).

These songs were recorded in late 2005, right after John switched to drums and Dan joined.

(Live at Joe's going away party October 2009)

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

01. Turning Fat Into Muscle - This instrumental evolved out of a riff I pulled out of my ass one night when John was playing bass and Dan Brown was still drumming. It became our staple opener for quite a while.

02. Numb - John wrote this one, though I came up with the chords for the solo part. It's a heavy, solid song about frustration - a subject that appears often in our lyrics. This was one of the original seven songs John and I assembled with the drum machine.

03. Don't Need You - I wrote this trying to write the "Sonic Reducer" of break-up songs. I actually originally recorded it on my 4-track for the second FPOS album that never materialized (because I had a real band for a change). It remains a crowd favorite.

04. Alive - John write this, but his original lyrics were some "pretty girl, dream come true" drivel that had no place in our repertoire, so I wrote lyrics about the asshole my mom married. Another of the original seven songs.

05. Kiss Me - One of mine, written shortly before "Don't Need You." One of the original seven.

06. Citiots - Dan came up with the music for this killer song and we all worked together to arrange it into what it is here. I wrote the lyrics about summers on the North Fork with some inspiration from The Candy Snatchers.

07. Piss & Hatred - John wrote this about a rough patch in his marriage. Also one of the original seven.

08. Big Fat Dumb - I was on a Motorhead kick when I wrote this song about an asshole I had to work with. We don't play it anymore, mostly because Dan can't remember the bass line and I'm too lazy to re-teach him.

09. Myrtle (Something Good) - Dan wrote and sang this garage-y stomper. He titled it "Something Good," but John said it should be called "Myrtle." Still one of my favorites.

10. Blues Type Thing - One of the original seven I wrote that was inadvertently ripped from Iggy Pop's "Rock And Roll Party" from Party. And yes, that's a Robert Plant reference in the lyrics.

11. Fight Song - I wrote this song about my experience moving across the country after being annoyed by Rush on the radio at work. Funny how that worked out. John said he could see the crowd fighting to it, so the name stuck. I think I wanted to call it "Wanderlust," but that didn't last long. One of the original seven, and, just for the hell of it, I'm gonna post that original seven song, four-track demo up here at some point. Also, be sure to listen to the hidden track, which appears 30 seconds after "Fight Song" ends.

PLAY LOUD AND DRINK HEAVILY.

ULTRABASTARD!
Demo CDR
(MPAE)
2005

Download Demo as a .zip file!

Bonus!!! A video of us in the basement performing a song that's not on the CD!!!

MPAE presents...A Guide to Middle Eastern Black Metal

I don't know about you, but I despise Christmas. It's one thing to be socially obligated to buy crap for people when I can barely afford to cover my rent, pay my bills and feed myself, but, to add insult to injury, I'm constantly assaulted by trite, vapid Christmas music everywhere I go. Makes me want to drive around the malls blasting Fear's "Fuck Christmas" over and over again at top volume. I'd like to dig up the corpse of Charles Dickens and kick his dead, rotten ass into dust.

So if you're like me and you feel like killing every asshole in a Santa hat, I've assembled a Christmas carol antidote - a collection of blasphemous black metal from the Middle East. This is some of the most punishing, brutal black metal on the planet, and the reality is, most of these bands are risking their lives by performing this music in their home countries. Talk about balls.

If Jello Biafra wants to bitch about a lack of personal freedom, he should go try to record a black metal album in Syria, where the style is out-right BANNED.

I have personally selected each track on this comp from bands I've covered in my series on MEBM for Bigtakeover.com. None of it was cleared, but most of these tracks are out-of-print, nearly impossible to find or were never given proper releases due to political or religious restrictions. If you really like a song on this comp, please try to purchase something from that band and help support true underground music.

MPAE presents...
A Guide to Middle Eastern Black Metal MZ
(MPAE)
2009

Download A Guide to Middle Eastern Black Metal as a .zip file!

Tracklist:

01. Ayat - "Possession" from El Nabi Mojrem Moghtaseb Dajjal LEBANON

02. Die Entweihung - "The Unholy Precept" from Die Entweihung ISRAEL

03. Mucous Scrotum - "You Will Perish" from Calls from the Underground ISRAEL

04. Narjahanam - "Nehaya Wa Bedaya" from Undama Tath'hur Al Shams Mn Al Gharb BAHRAIN

05. Al-Namrood - "Barzakh" from Narcotized SAUDI ARABIA

06. Ammattammen Bas - "Mint Tea Til Sugar Skog" from Estanna Yabny Estanna EGYPT

07. Dhul-Qarnayn - "From Chaos" from Beyond Human Malice BAHRAIN

08. Infernal Nature - "Of Lords & Servants" from Calls from the Underground ISRAEL

09. Veinen - "Apocalyptic Nuclear Terror" from Black Hypnosis LEBANON

10. Nekroforest - "Kristian Grave" from Kristian Grave TURKEY/UAE

11. Rabbath Ammon - "Crown of Sand" from Rabbath Ammon JORDAN

12. Ultramundane - "Sworn Revenge" from A Kingdom at Birth EGYPT

13. Damaar - "Ode to Blasphemy" from Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege LEBANON

14. Aras - "Wish to Be in Death Embrace" from Depressive Rebellion IRAN

15. Dark Promise - "The Dark Promise" from To Violate the Light SYRIA

16. Blaspherion - "The Night Before Mourning" from The Night Before Mourning UAE/USA

17. Sorg Innkallelse - "Lethal Invasion" from Into the Dark Tower IRAN

18. Azaroth - "The Winds of Mayhem" from Azaroth/Nekroforest TURKEY/UAE

19. De Mysteriium - "546 BC (short mix)" from Cold Days in Experience IRAN

20. Kusoof - "Exist to Un-exist" from Vile BAHRAIN/KUWAIT

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