Moon Colony Bloodbath ^{1 2}

The EP was originally released as tour-only, eventually coming out on mail order, but never available for digital download. It is constructed as songs selected from an unwritten rock opera. Attucks Theatre, Norfolk, Virginia, March 20, 2009. See also here.

Releasing the demo to Surrounded, as the first announcement of the EP, John writes:

For years, John Vanderslice and I have been talking about doing a collaborative album. Our schedules have yet to allow us to do much more than kick ideas around about it, though we do have a band name (see the tags on the song below) and I did at one point write a sort of opening salvo for the projected album's plot, since of course all supergroup-type projects ought to either be a) totally absurd grand-concept albums or b) crappy collections of covers. Not favoring the latter, we drummed up this story about organ harvesting colonies on the moon, and the guys who secretly work up there six months out of the year, toiling in the employ of an unidentified government agency. Our protagonists live lives of secluded, anonymous luxury during their off-seasons; theoretically, anyway (hardly any songs have been written for the project; God knows if it will ever be finished), one of them begins to tell his story in the following song.

Mountain Goats news. In Which The Word "Tradition" Gets Abused Somewhat. December 24, 2007, retrieved May 1, 2014. See also City Arts and Lectures, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, February 24, 2009; Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 27, 2012; Front Porch Festival, Wente Vineyards, Livermore, September 1, 2012. ↩

Occasionally, this record is credited to The Comedians, as that's how the demo to Surrounded was tagged (as well as being from the album Transplants). However, the official release simply credits The Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice. ↩

Perhaps related, perhaps not, as John describes the EP in his introduction to Surrounded at the Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 27, 2012, he says, "But nobody seemed to care about the whole deal, we tried to talk about it in interviews, we called the TV stations, nothing. Send letters to the local press, a lot of letters to the local press, 'Haven't you heard about the organ-harvesting colonies on the Moon? We wrote a six-song EP about it, here's a link to a download.' Well, we can track that shit, none of those newspapers downloaded our EP. They didn't really seem to care. Then we started to think that they were in on the con. We're like, maybe it's a whole newspaper thing. Maybe it's the newspaper magnates that are the ones growing the bodies on the Moon where the organs are grown and harvested. And then we thought, 'Well, yeah, but the newspapers aren't even doing so good.' And then we thought, 'But maybe that's why! It's like, that's their next line, it's sort of a natural progression, you go from reporting on people in print media to growing bodies from which you're going to harvest organs." — Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 27, 2012 ↩

There have been a number of people named Albert II, almost all royalty. However, given the context of the EP, I believe this refers to Albert II, the second monkey astronaut and the first to successfully enter space, who died from impacting the Earth after his parachute failed. He was named not after royalty but after the first monkey, Albert. ↩

Orlando is a major city in Florida, located near the center of the state. ↩

Colorado is an American state in the central west of the country, containing large amounts of open land and wilderness. As stated in the liner notes, this is the place where organ harvesting workers live while on Earth. ↩ ↩²

John often describes the EP when introducing Surrounded, so some of these quotes are repeated from above with some more of the quotes that are Surrounded-specific.

"This is one of those songs about, you know, organ harvesting colonies on the Moon. <laughter> It is, though. It's — John Vanderslice and I just finished up an EP — yeah, man. And we've been talking about this EP for years, right. And at one point it was going to be a whole album about — well, I'm proud of this storyline — about a guy who's part of this program where they have host bodies in little capsules all on the surface of the Moon growing organs for use on the Earth, and somebody of course must tend to these colonies of organs, but of course there's ethical questions with growing organs in a body you're going to discard, right. So the people who work on these Moon organ harvesting colonies are sworn to secrecy, they can't really have a life, they can't be married, and they can't have friends, they can't live in cities, they have to live lives of utter secrecy and privacy and silence during their six months on Earth, and the other six months they're up on the Moon, they can tell whoever they like, 'cause there's nobody else up on the Moon. So in exchange, they live in opulence and solitude. This is from the song that introduces us to the main character of the rock opera that will never be written, but of which a few songs survive." — City Arts and Lectures, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, February 24, 2009. See also Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 27, 2012; Front Porch Festival, Wente Vineyards, Livermore, September 1, 2012; Laurie's Planet of Sound, Chicago, April 19, 2014.

"This is a song about his home up in the hills out West." — Attucks Theatre, Norfolk, Virginia, March 20, 2009

I feel compelled to mention that there is an amazing version of this track on the Fair Game session, March 4, 2008, that is so, so good that you should go listen to it right now. ↩

A demo to Surrounded was released as a Christmas gift in 2007, similarly to the release of the demo to Michael Myers Resplendent in 2006:

As longtime readers know, we have a tradition around here of an annual holiday giveaway. By "longtime" here we mean "people who were also reading this page last December," and by "annual tradition," we mean "we also did this last year." 2006's yuletide gift was the demo for "Michael Myers Resplendent," which turned out to be the album-closing song on the forthcoming Heretic Pride, which, need I remind you, you can totally preorder.

But I am not here to badger you about pre-orders! No! I come to give you a real oddity.

For years, John Vanderslice and I have been talking about doing a collaborative album. Our schedules have yet to allow us to do much more than kick ideas around about it, though we do have a band name (see the tags on the song below) and I did at one point write a sort of opening salvo for the projected album's plot, since of course all supergroup-type projects ought to either be a) totally absurd grand-concept albums or b) crappy collections of covers. Not favoring the latter, we drummed up this story about organ harvesting colonies on the moon, and the guys who secretly work up there six months out of the year, toiling in the employ of an unidentified government agency. Our protagonists live lives of secluded, anonymous luxury during their off-seasons; theoretically, anyway (hardly any songs have been written for the project; God knows if it will ever be finished), one of them begins to tell his story in the following song.

Odds seem strongly against our being able to get any work done on this project in 2008, or 2009, or whenever. All good things to them that wait, right? Or something. But I do like the one little song we've got so far, and I thought some of you might like it, too, so here it is. Enjoy. Yule!

Mountain Goats news. In Which The Word "Tradition" Gets Abused Somewhat. December 24, 2007, retrieved May 1, 2014.

As mentioned above, the demo is tagged as being by the Comedians and from the album Transplants, perhaps an early working title or just a joke. ↩

The demo instead contains the line, "And three fresh feet of snow". ↩

Lucifer Rising is part of the informal series of Biblical references. ↩

There are a few possibilities for this reference, but given the mention of Beausoleil in Scorpio Rising, which itself is another title of a Kenneth Anger short film, this must refer to Lucifer Rising, Kenneth Anger's surreal 1972 short film with lava, Egyptian deities, and UFOs, symbolically representing a spiritual revolution. The soundtrack to the film has a strange history, originally written by Jimmy Page, and then rescored by Bobby Beausoleil, who completed the score in prison after his conviction for one of the Manson murders. The film also features Chris Jagger, Mick Jagger's brother.

After a falling out with Anger, Beausoleil purportedly stole some of the footage and buried it in the Mojave Desert outside of Los Angeles. Anger then made Invocation of My Demon Brother out of the remains. ↩ ↩²

Alachua County is a county in northern Florida. This reference is otherwise unclear to me, if you understand it, please let me know. ↩

Phosphor is any luminescent material. ↩

A reference to Jack the Ripper, a notorious and unidentified 19th century English murderer of prostitutes in Whitechapel, London. I don't know what the significance of the name change to John is, if any. ↩ ↩²

Satori is Japanese for "awakening" or "understanding". It refers to the first steps towards complete enlightenment in the Japanese and Zen Buddhist traditions, where a student begins to see their true nature. ↩

Denver is the capital of and largest city in Colorado, located a short distance north of Route 24. ↩

Route 24 is an east-west road through Colorado, beginning in Minturn in the Rocky Mountains, heading south to Buena Vista, where it then traverses east, joining Interstate 70 to terminate at the Kansas border. Given that the protagonist lives, like other organ harvesters in the Colorado hills, this implies to me that he resides somewhere along this road in the Rockies, west of Colorado Springs. See below. ↩

The main city on Route 24 is Colorado Springs, although this could refer to the title town of Denver, located north of 24 along Interstate 25, or other, smaller towns. See also above and above. ↩

As with Lucifer Rising, a surreal Kenneth Anger short film made in 1963. The film depicts motorcycle gang member and methamphetamine addict Scorpio through comparisons to Jesus Christ, Hitler, and Satan, amid homoerotic and violent imagery and a rock soundtrack. It's not clear to me how this or Lucifer Rising relate to the EP. ↩

Bobby Beausoleil was a musician and actor involved with Kenneth Anger's film Lucifer Rising. Beausoleil gained notoriety for his role in the Manson murders, where he killed music teacher Gary Hinman in his Los Angeles home in 1969 over a purported failed drug deal. Beausoleil is currently serving a life sentence, commuted from death after the Supreme Court ruled the death sentence unconstitutional. Again, I'm not sure what this has to do with the EP. ↩

"This song, just between you and me... doesn't really fit the theme of the 7-song EP we have up for sale, it's kind of the odd man out. It's just a song about how sometimes you — how do I put this without sounding more emo than it already is. Look, it is too late. But, I mean, sometimes you have a bad day, and you may for a moment think, you know, 'I can't really go on like this.' But then, if you are emo, then, you know, you really mean it and then you go home and cry... But on the other hand, sometimes you have a year where you think to yourself, 'I'm not gonna last, this isn't gonna work out, I'm going to keep showing up to the things that I'm supposed to show up for, and I'm gonna try and be a stand-up dude or woman about it, but I don't — but something has got to break.' ... Something bad's gonna happen. And you feel like that. And I hardly think I'm alone in having had these experiences. So I sort of compared it to a thing that happens with trees." — Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Bloomington, April 6, 2009 ↩

Sudden oak death is a disease caused by the oomycete Phytophthora ramorum, which causes cankers on the bark and death of the foliage, resulting ultimately in the death of the tree. Oaks and many other trees can contract the disease, and many, many tree deaths have occurred since the discovery of the disease in 1995. ↩

I'm not sure what this means. My best guess is that it's either intended to sound like a military acronym (and maybe have meaning at least to John and Vanderslice), or that it would refer to the Desert Camouflage Uniform, therefore referring to a uniform or disguise rather than a location. ↩

"This is a song about the organ harvesting colonies on the Moon, and the guy who works there and becomes a cannibal and starts eating the corpses of which he is supposed to be taking care, you know, growing kidneys for the government and stuff... This is a song about when he sort of is up there going a little crazy, you know, because he's all alone on the Moon except for all the corpses growing in the pods, and you know, and so, he begins to eat them. And this is sort of his love song to the corpses he's about to eat." — Attucks Theatre, Norfolk, Virginia, March 20, 2009 ↩