NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.
(February '00)
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2/6/2000
Hi,
Greetings from the land of shaky cameras (see right). Just another aspect of our aura of discorporeality. Autofocus never works with us because we're just plain fuzzy around the edges.
What's new in Big Greenland? Not much, really. I've been making an attempt at writing some new material for our next cd, but it's tough going. We don't really need any more songs for the project...I just had some ideas and thought I could flesh them out. Only every time I get started on working them over, something comes up. You know how it is.
People have asked me about our (Matt's and my) songwriting process. It's quite simple, really. You need at least three dog-eared dictionaries and a day-old newspaper. You place one item at each corner of a rectangular room, then you run from corner to corner, collecting a word at random from each item you pass. You jot the words down on a notepad, then try to connect them up later. The newspaper is key to the song's theme. If, say, we want to write a song about religion, we open the Utica Observer Dispatch to the "Religious Briefs" column. That way every fourth word has something to do with the topic. Get it?
Other people (not the same ones I mentioned in the previous paragraph) have asked if we place subliminal messages in our songs. To this I respond with an emphatic yes. As an illustration of this subtle attempt at mind control, take a close look at the following lines from my own "Where Johnny Got His Gun:"
Johnny got his gun, so he dropped the bomb (...is this thing on?) He brought if home to mom (ahem...kill moose and squirrel) and showed her how to make his day (eat...more...french...toast) And so it goes.
Believe it or not, there's a subliminal plug for Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm in there. And if I hadn't told you, you might have just gone out and bought one of their (fine...necessary...sexy) products.
Some of these same avid Big Green fans (numberless as they are) have asked me if it bothers us that this sort of manipulation may result in mayhem of some kind. The example they invariably give is that of Charles Manson basing the Tate-Lobianco killings on the Beatles' Helter Skelter and other songs. All I can say is, hey...if you're nuts enough to do everything you hear in some rock song, then you should consider calming down a little.
Anyway, Manson could have built the same rationale around any pop song of that era. Take Tommy James's Crimson And Clover: "Crimson"...blood! "Clover"...on the graves of the dead! "Over and over"...many dead! Plenty of ammo there. I don't even want to think of what he might have done with Crystal Blue Persuasion.
Hey...somebody do me a favor and send this message to Tipper Gore. It's time someone put her tiny mind at ease.
More later. Got to get back to those dictionaries.
luv,
jp
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2/13/2000
Here we are again...
Just getting body and soul together after a punishing night of weekend revelry. My eyes keep gluing themselves to the cursor, following it across the screen as words emerge in its wake. Strange. Who's writing this? Is it you? Is IT YOU???
Sorry. I'm over it now. These momentary lapses I can only attribute to our "virtual" status as a group. It's been a while since our last live performance, and one might expect some level of disassociation to accompany our dis-corporate condition. No matter, though. We'll soon be taking steps to counteract this effect. More on this later....
Why did we stop playing live gigs? Good question. Part of it was personnel-related (i.e. we couldn't hold on to a guitarist for longer than a year or so). Part of it was health-related (i.e. we couldn't breath smoke for longer than an hour or so). Yet another part was economics (i.e. we're lousy at business -- I couldn't sell guns to Gordon Liddy). But as with most ego-centric pop groups, the biggest "issue" was art (i.e. art blakey wouldn't let us tour with the Jazz Messengers).
Our live performances have always been chaotic, cacophonic affairs marked by copious amounts of shouting and stomping and high-volume handplay. Only one or two legible recordings exist -- the rest are bootlegs captured by a cassette machine left in John's bass drum by mistake. Or so they sound, anyway.
Any memorable nights? Well....not hugely. The night we opened for Bloodline at SUNY Tech was probably typical. You know...working through a PA set up for somebody else; can't hear yourself think, let alone sing. Fun. Then there was the "Live At Woodley's" festival, circa 1993.
We
did a gig up at Middlebury College once that is memorable mostly for the ride
there and back. It was a particularly cold January (see right) and our van had
virtually no heat. By the time we got to Middlebury (about a 3-4 hour drive in
that piece of junk) we were Big Greencicles. The night went okay, and we crashed
in someone's drafty dorm room (without their prior knowledge, as it happened.
Though I myself don't remember, Matt tells me that the room's official occupant
rolled in around 5 a.m., saw us on his floor, said "What the fuck...?"
then left).
The
next morning, I stupidly took the Adirondack route home. The van was having some
kind of mechanical crisis; stalling at idle. I had to ride the clutch a lot,
while John and Matt huddled as close as they could to the heat vents, such as
they were. There was no place to pull over, so we drove straight through and
were frozen to the fucking marrow by the time we got back to nowhere. (If you
look closely in the rear view mirror of this picture, you can see the look of
agony frozen on my face.)
Good times were had by all. Say, if anyone out there is interested in live Big Green, email me at jperry@biggreenhits.com and I'll get a cassette together for you. Cause that's the kinda guy I am. Yeah.
luv u,
jp
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2/20/2000
Great googly-moogly...It's that time of the week again. Tempus sure does fugit, doesn't it?
So what's been happening in the low budget made-for-tv movie that is the life and times of Big Green? Lots. Whole lots. Bucket-loads. But then, you already know how much it snows here at this time of year. (For more info, see last week's message...)
What else? Well...Amplifier Magazine ran a (favorable) review of 2KY2C. A paid PR hack might do this with it:
"13 songs that showcase the trio's considerable songwriting and pop orchestration skills."
-- Amplifier Magazine
Or just:
"...considerable songwriting and pop orchestration skills."
-- Amplifier Magazine
Or perhaps, even more economically:
"...considerable... skills."
-- Amplifier Magazine
(Can you tell I've done this before? I thought not.)
To celebrate Presidents Day 2000, Matt suggested I should share with you the lyrics to an ode we composed to our favorite President, Abe Lincoln, whose birthday tomorrow's national holiday was designated, in part, to honor (just Lincoln and some other guy who came before him...Pierce? Buchanan?). We did a scratch track of this a few years back, and we may re-record it for the next collection. It's called, aptly enough, Quality Lincoln.
Take a look, then tune in next week for line-by-line analysis. Better yet, email me your analysis...I'm dying to know what it means. Explain it to me at jperry@biggreenhits.com
Speaking of Presidents Day, I see Tex W. Bush took the South Carolina primary handily, charging up that electoral hill with Confederate Battle Flag in hand. After seeing him yuk it up with the racists at good old Bob Jones University, I'm hoping I can line up a few interracial couples for W's next swing through upstate New York. Should be entertaining.
Frankly,
I'm surprised he did so well, what with the kinds of celebrity endorsements John
McCain has been racking up. Here's an AP photo of John sitting in with the
"Lead Us Not Into Temptations", headlined by Gary Bauer (formerly of
"Tower of Bauer"). Their pictured here doing their now-famous
rendition of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone."
Okay, well I gotta go. See, there's bad talk goin' round town that Gary's got three other children and another wife. And that ain't right...
Be free,
jp
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2/27/2000
Another wonderful week in the neighborhood, kiddies. Either I'm having "flashbacks," or all the snow is melting. Maybe both. (Iiit's meeelllltingggg!!!)
Well...the Diallo verdict is in, and I guess everyone who has the misfortune of being black (or even simply non-white) in America knows just how much his/her life is worth. Just as when Rodney King's attackers went to trial, I thought surely this was too much...too heinous...too absurd to be found justifiable in any way. Sure, black kids get shot by the cops all the time -- just another day in the neighborhood, right? But forty-one shots? An unarmed man brandishing his wallet? They couldn't get away with that one. That would be like getting acquitted for something that had been caught on video tape...
But
now I realize the true import of this verdict. The killers of Amadou Diallo are
still at large! That's right. If these SCU boys are "innocent"
(I vas only following orders...) then the guilty ones have yet to be
apprehended, right? Here in Big Green-land, we have a theory with regard to
this. My suggestion is that authorities should speak with this person (pictured
right, in mid-yuk), perhaps the most dangerous man in New York City.
He and other members of his gang (populated by nasty characters like the notorious "fingers" Bill Clinton, George W. "hang-em high" Bush, "maximum" Al Gore, and many others) have spent their entire criminal careers turning "justice" into a blood sport; one whose primary objective is their own political self-aggrandizement. They bribe, cajole, scare whole communities into signing on to their crusade. The scariest part? It works.
Message to voters, wherever you may live: stop them before they kill again! Don't vote for police-state politicians. Call, write, email every jack-in-office and let them know that you won't tolerate this zero-tolerance society they're building on the bodies of the disenfranchised.
For more about the Diallo shooting, listen to our indie-folk number 41 times . It's our take on the pre-eminence of Dirty Harry-style policing, and it's free for the download. Hey -- send a copy of the file to the above-mentioned political perpetrators. That'll learn 'em.
In other news...I mentioned last week I would give our interpretation of the arcane lyrics to Big Green's Quality Lincoln. Not wanting to disappoint anyone out there, I'll give a little thumbnail sketch.
Imagine taking all of television as history. Gleaning bits from a documentary here, taking a little from a 60's melodrama there, confusing the identities of actors with the roles they play. That's what Quality Lincoln tries to recreate. The bit about Lincoln having "a rare disease" was from some documentary Matt saw. "Colonel Smith" was a character on the 60's Sci-Fi show Lost In Space (Dr. Smith's Cousin, who had a Southern accent).
Now, the actor who played Colonel Smith also played a Union officer on the 60's western The Big Valley -- a Colonel who had pledged his sword to the Confederacy, and was involved in the plot to kill Lincoln. In that show, the character burned a Southern town so people would have no doubt that he was loyal to the Union cause. The line about how "he wandered into outer space" is a feeble attempt at explaining how he (the actor) might have gotten to the planet where Dr. Smith and the Robinsons were marooned.
The rest is history. Questions? Email me at jperry@biggreenhits.com. Love to hear from you.
Peace.
jp