Space friends.

January 22, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

Yeah, not many people gave Nixon the credit he deserved as a singer of songs. Not President Nixon, of course – he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I mean the Nixon android from Ned Trek. Now THERE’S a chanteuse if ever I heard one.

Oh, hey … what’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up. Space, that’s what …. waaaay up. We were just thinking about potential markets for our music. One could be the local Firemen’s Field Days – those rustic events always cry out for entertainers. We might pick up maybe four, even five new listeners. Then there’s the people across the street, up on the third floor. They seem weird enough to like us. We could ask. I suppose if I put Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out on the street with sandwich boards and a bell, we might be able to drive up some interest. Then there’s the overseas market and what we call the over-skies market – outer space. Lots of untapped potential there.

Sure, there are logistical issues, right? I mean … we could send Marvin to Mars with the sandwich boards and bell, and see if anybody on that dusty little world bites. That may be a bit too retail for the extraterrestrial market. We need to do broad-spectrum outreach – the kind of marketing that blankets entire solar systems with positive messaging. Even if we get one one-hundredth of one percent of the punters on, say, Aldebaran three, that’s enough paying customers to keep us in pub cheese for the rest of the year. And it’s only January! This could be like those automated robocalls, always fishing for a live one. We may have to piss off whole civilizations with our annoying spam calls in order to reap a few hundred listeners, but hey …. interplanetary harmony is greatly overrated. When’s the last time Earth had a serious dispute with its nearest celestial neighbors? Not recently, that’s when.

The next question is, do we have the kind of music that the public wants on, say, Aldebaran three? Well, there’s no way to be sure. We can make an educated guess, though. Or we could ask our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee whether he has any ideas. (That could be dangerous, however.) We do have some idea of space alien music tastes just from recent media reports. The Guardian, for instance, did a story on a signal from Proxima Centauri that was detected by radio telescopes. The signal contained a single pure tone at around 982 MHz. That sounds like one of those Cage compositions, right? So maybe we need to go in more for the longhair stuff to get the Centauri crowd rocking. Matt and I are talking about doing some one-note songs …. and I DON’T mean One-Note Samba (which actually has more than one note in it).

That’s where Mitch Macaphee comes in – we need a big-ass antenna to broadcast our one-note tunes into deep space. Get to work on it, Mitch! We’ll work on the songs, you build the radio telescope. From each according to his/her talents.

Political Rants

That happened.

January 22, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

This is the first blog post I’ve posted since the end of the Trump presidency on Wednesday at noon. Congratulations, America – we got the stiffs off the property. That’s the good news. As in previous years when presidents I despised were defeated and sent packing, my inauguration day focus was on the departure of the jackass, which I watched this week with great pleasure. In the end, Trump slunk away out the back door of the White House, into his government provided chopper, over to Joint Base Andrews where he gave a farewell address that, one would hope, every school child will learn by heart … just so that there’s a chance we will never have to do this again. (Fat chance, right? This is America, after all.) “Have a good life,” said the now ex-president in one of his last utterances as Chief Executive of the nation. Like that’s a choice, right? He’s had one, but that was preordained by the gods of money.

The network coverage of the transition of power was about what you would expect. The focus tends to be on the pomp and circumstance, the traditions, the contrasts between the incoming and outgoing administrations, the bipartisan spirit of continuance, etc. Inasmuch as the riotous attack on the Capitol building took place only two weeks before the inaugural ceremony, it was impossible for them to avoid the inherently divisive nature of what was taking place. No matter how much they show Mitch McConnell grinning ear to ear (behind his mask, of course) or Roy Blunt joking about Amy Klobuchar, the fact remains that the Republican party was all-in for Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, that more than 145 members of the House caucus voted not to accept the electoral count, and that more than eighty percent of registered Republicans believe the president handled himself well during the transition period. It takes more than a little bunting to conceal that magnitude of support for, frankly, what amounted to an attempted coup.

Still, let’s dwell for a moment on the fact that Trump and his minions are gone. Let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that this would-be autocrat no longer has his finger on the nuclear trigger, or the other vast powers of the presidency. Let us rejoice in the fact that his attempted coup was a failure, even though it provides a road map for future coup plotters. Let us be thankful that there has thus far been no replay of the pitched attack that took place on January 6, though many of the responsible parties remain at large and their enablers in Congress remain in office. Let us be hopeful that the new administration will deal seriously with the COVID crisis and other priorities, even though we know we will have to push them to do the right thing.

Indeed, the best way for us to celebrate this transition – and the end of that awful thing that happened these past four years – is to stay on our toes and remain active. That’s the only path forward.

luv u,

*Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.*

Usual Rubbish

Holism.

January 15, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first? Spinach, then cake, or vice-versa? Right, then … let’s start with the bad news. Astronomers have discovered a super massive black hole 1.6 billion times more massive than our sun. It subsists on a diet equivalent of 25 suns a year, so it’s the deep space equivalent of the proverbial hungry hungry hippo. And it’s HEADED THIS WAY. Or not. That’s the bad news.

The good news? Well … it’s 13 billion light years away. So we’ve got some time. That said, I’ve already talked to our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, about this terrifying celestial object. That may have been a mistake, because he appears to be obsessing over the thing. He has already proposed some kind of top secret space mission to learn more about J0313-1806 (the code name for the black hole inside a quasar). Mitch is proposing to send a volunteer – namely Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – in a specially designed space craft straight into the dark heart of the object, then bring him back so that he can report on what he saw there. How would he do that, given the irresistible power of the black hole? Well, there’s this rope, you see? And he’s planning on tying it to the marble statue of Grover Cleveland that stands in the nearby town square. (I think he was just spitballing at that point.)

Well, when Marvin heard about this, his lights started blinking frantically. At first I thought it might be Morse code, but it was probably the fight or flight circuitry Mitch built into him using spare parts scavenged from his central HVAC system back in Vienna. I kind of think Marvin doesn’t want to do this mission. Frankly, I can’t blame him. The stories I’ve read about flying into the center of black holes are not very encouraging. I mean, best case – he could be sent into some kind of time-space worm hole that would lead him to a previous era on Earth when dinosaurs ruled …. or perhaps when men with six-shooters ruled, depending on where he hops off. It might also, I don’t know, send him into the future, or drop him into a weird cave-like nether world inhabited by one-eyed freaks and Michael J. Pollard. Or (somewhat more likely) it might crush his atoms into a singularity long before he gets within light years of it. Either way, not a day in the park.

Not sure you want to go there, old chap.

Fortunately for Marvin, Mitch hasn’t even started work on the spacecraft yet. Frankly, I don’t think he has much to worry about. Mitch gets these bugs sometimes, and they usually pass. Like when scientists were receiving radio signals from the Jovian moon Ganymede. Next thing I knew he had a radio telescope in the backyard, vacuuming up every microwave that dared float in his direction. A couple of days later, it was on to the next thing. Still, I’ve locked the rope in a trunk in the basement, just in case. (Sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if it’s not the simplest thing. This is not one of those times.)

Political Rants

Fifth Column.

January 15, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

Last week their minions were storming the capitol building, attempting to stop the counting of the electoral votes by any means necessary. This week, all they want is for everyone to get along. Fuck that shit. Republican members of Congress, particularly those who actively supported stealing the election and handing it to Donald Trump (the loser) appear to have played an integral role in the insurrectionist attack on the center of American legislative power. As I write this post, the attackers are plotting an even broader campaign against both federal and state targets. There’s reason to believe that this campaign will not only coincide with the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but that it will continue well beyond the change of power unless they are put down in a serious way. The only way to do that effectively is by holding their allies in Congress fully accountable and expelling those who coordinated with the racist minoritarian insurrectionists.

The House voted to impeach the president a second time this week. That’s a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. Naturally the president should be removed and barred from holding public office ever again, and that should be done yesterday … or the day before, perhaps. But aside from that, we need a deep and timely investigation of this attack, with particular focus on who in the House and Senate may have aided and abetted these criminals. There’s some indication that cooperation may have involved both members and staff on the GOP side. Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who spent part of last Wednesday hiding from the mob with Congressman Dan Kildee, has spoken about capitol tours given the day before by Republican congress members and staffers – tours have been suspended during the COVID pandemic – that were reminiscent of intelligence reconnaissance (Sherrill is a veteran).

Then, of course, there are members like Rep. Lauren Boebert from Colorado, a first-year congresswoman who promoted herself brandishing a handgun in some vain attempt to paint herself as Palin 2.0. Mission accomplished, as she appears to be a moron, like Palin, but also someone willing to egg on the angry horde that descended upon the capitol. “It’s 1776” she tweeted in advance of the attack. 1776? What happened then … a revolution, right? So … you’re in favor of the attack? Interesting. I understand that the relevant law enforcement agencies are looking closely at contacts between congress members and the mob – sounds like a good idea, but they’d best move with a bit more alacrity, because as I mentioned earlier, this battle is not over. If there’s a fifth column in the House and Senate, we need to know about it sooner rather than later. And we need to expel collaborators pursuant to the 14th Amendment. Now.

We didn’t get here overnight. We got here on a decade’s worth of lies about everything from Obama’s birth certificate to the legitimacy of 2020 election. We need to start holding people accountable, and the best place to start is with these freaks in the Republican caucus.

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Breach.

January 8, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

Are they still up there? Hmmmm. I can’t hear them right now. Maybe the stereo drove them out, or the garlic, perhaps. I always thought those people would be trouble. Did I say “always”? I meant, uh, sometimes.

Well, this has been one hell of a week for everybody here in America, am I right? Here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we might have been glued to the television all week if the cable company hadn’t discovered our illegal tap and pulled the plug on us. And then there was the electric company with their so-called “unpaid bills” and such. What part of abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill do they not understand? I mean, just because it’s a derelict, long-condemned building doesn’t mean it should be stricken from the grid like at scofflaw. I mean, we’re the scofflaws, people … it’s not the building’s fault that we’re squatting in it. Not really.

Anyway, as you know, over the past couple of years we’ve had some dyspeptic neighbors living upstairs in another section of the mill that we seldom visit, though it is often spoken of in legends. That notwithstanding, they have been problematic in the past with regard to, I don’t know, agreeing to little courtesies, like … not shooting us or not setting the mill on fire for kicks. (They like their kicks, these upstairs neighbors.) It was worst early on, but in recent months it had quieted down quite a bit, perhaps because of the COVID pandemic, but more likely because they got bored with intimidating us and turned their evil attentions elsewhere – to our friends squatting in the abandoned storefront across the street, for instance. Whatever misfortunes they may have visited on others, all was peace and contentment here in the hammer mill.

Holler all you want, dude. We don't have any bacon.

But that was not to last! (Dum, dum, dum!) They got all feisty with us again this week, and this time with the help of outside confederates. Now, when I say “confederates,” I’m not using that as an alternative for “friends” or “accomplices” – I mean confederates, like, the southern kind, waving the stars and bars. Those dudes as well as other denizens of the far right descended on this place like locusts. It took us a while, but we eventually worked out that they had mistaken the Cheney Hammer Mill for the federal building, which isn’t even located in our township. No matter – these MAGA hatted crazy people started scaling up the sides of the mill with those climbing cables. Not sure why they didn’t just come in through the open door and take the stairs up, but to each his own. They overran this place with as few as thirty people and started making themselves at home, except for one guy who stumbled upon our studio and started shouting “Olympus has fallen!” over and over again. (Seriously, I think these people are majorly confused about where we’re living.)

Yeah, so now we have a houseful of right-wing rioters, and nothing to offer them. My guess is that they will eventually get bored and go find someone else to kill, but until then …. hope they like banjo music!

Political Rants

White Rage.

January 8, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

There’s no reason to be surprised that the Trump administration would end in this way. His presidency was destined from the beginning to culminate in mayhem, insurrection, and smoke rising from the capitol. They wanted to deconstruct the administrative state, and they have largely been successful in that endeavor, but along the way they’ve also managed to detonate the legislative and judicial state as well. We haven’t previously seen a president refuse to accept the fact of his own electoral loss, so we have no experience with what impact that may have on a large segment of the populace. I think sometimes we actually underestimate the power of the presidency – it is an office of enormous influence, and even unpopular presidents are able to mobilize large numbers of ordinary people if they put their minds to it. That’s the slow-motion train wreck we saw impact our constitutional order this week.

The mob that descended on the U.S. capitol was met with mild resistance. I don’t think we’ve ever had a better illustration of the true nature of race and policing in America than this spectacle. I can hardly believe I’m typing these words, but a large number of right-wing rioters entered the houses of Congress, pushing their way past the guards, breaking in through windows, and occupied the chambers, lounged in the Speaker’s chair, hung from the walls, and planted explosive devices. Some paraded around with confederate ass-rags … I mean, “flags”, others with guns and zip-ties, as if they were planning to take hostages. What did the police do? At first, they took selfies with them. They certainly didn’t keep them out of THE CENTER OF LEGISLATIVE POWER IN THE UNITED STATES. “What the fuck” seems an inadequate response to this, but …. what the fuck.

Fortunate for the MAGA mob, they were white people. So their uprising was not countered with a solid wall of riot police in robocop gear with special weapons and armor and very short tempers. They were not forcibly driven back by large military units firing pepper balls and incendiaries, backed by tanks and MRAPs. They weren’t apprehended and abducted by government officers without badges, shoved into unmarked rented vans, and taken to the crowbar hotel. They weren’t shot in the head for protesting historic injustice against people of color. They didn’t have to worry about convoys of armored vehicles rolling through their neighborhoods, the officers inside barking threats at peaceful residents through loudspeakers, ordering them to stay inside their houses and keep away from the windows. They knew that, by default, the officers would see them as friendlies, not enemies, and that they would have to go way out of their way to change the officers’ minds about them.

In short, the people’s house was invaded this week by white people entitled to feel rage about something they can’t quantify and to act upon that rage in violent ways without consequence. That’s what America is all about … until we make it about something else.

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Inside Christmas.

January 1, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

Wait, what? It’s over? That was fast. How about Michaelmas? Is that over too? Okay, well … I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Was it fun? Did everybody have a good time? No? Ah … okay.

Yeah, I know – 2020 sucked, all the way to the end, right? That appears to be the consensus. Here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green has been known to keep Christmas in an unusual – perhaps singular – way. Like last year, when we built a big plaster volcano and set it off at midnight. Or three years ago, when we all got really, really high, then ended up trampling all over our neighbor’s chocolate pterodactyl farm (though the next day they denied ever even having one in the first place – strange). This year, on the other hand, was a low-key affair, given the COVID restrictions that even we observe … with the exception of our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who eschews masks in favor of an ultraviolet force field device he wears around his neck. (It glows when it’s running – very impressive, particularly after lights out … which in the Hammer mill, comes around sunset.)

Well, at least ONE of us is safe from COVID.

Anywho, you may have noticed that we dropped an episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast, lately on a kind of hiatus, but still just about kicking. Yes, like everything else about this year, it’s kind of lame, but at least it hearkens back to a simpler time …. such as the year 2017. In any case, here’s what’s in the show:

Ned Trek 35: The Romney Christmas Special / Ned Trek Reunion Special. Originally broadcast on Christmas 2017, this non-episode of Ned Trek is patterned after cast reunion specials they used to run for, I don’t know, the Brady Bunch, or …. some other tripe. Pearl is played by a different annoying actor. The Nixon Android is present, but only the guy inside the Nixon Android suit, not the voice actor who read his lines. (Note: Ned Trek is an audio podcast.) The show includes a bunch of Big Green Christmas songs, including an early mix of Bobby Sweet, remakes of Plastic Head, Christmas To End, and He Does It For Spite, and others thrown together to round out the farce. (Don’t miss the cheesy T.V. pop version of Away in a Manger at the start.)

Older Ned Trek Songs. We included a few numbers from Ned Trek 15: Santorum’s Christmas Planet, as we haven’t spun these in a good long time. They include Christmas Green (a Romney song), Horrible People (a Ned song), Neocon Christmas (a Pearl song), and Make That Christmas Shine (another Romney song, a version of which is posted on our YouTube channel).

Song: Pagan Christmas. Once again this year, we included this track from our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas. For a variety of reasons, this track gets a lot of play around Christmas. Our main streaming platform has us down for more than 300 plays this month, which for us is a lot. Kind of a minor hit with the pagan / wiccan crowd, particularly over the last ten years. Glad to have them as listeners.

Yep, it was a clip show. I know, man. Like everyone else, we’ll try to do better in 2021. Happy new year, campers!

Political Rants

Who’s the client?

January 1, 2021 Joe Leave a comment

As the Senate moves closer to a veto override vote on the $740 billion defense authorization act, I’ve been thinking about how eager our national legislators are to spend money when it comes to military hardware, consultants, logistics, etc, and yet how reluctant they seem to be to provide working people with the means to, I don’t know, feed themselves and their families, keep a roof over their heads, maybe see a medical professional if they need one, all in the midst of a once-in-a-century (up to now, at least) pandemic. Of course, this $740 billion doesn’t represent the full price tag of our national security posture – no, indeed, there are many billions more going into intelligence, covert operations, and of course the after-market costs of war, such as the Veteran’s administration and so on. All this money to “keep us safe”, and yet here we are – more people dying on a daily basis than in any previous armed conflict.

We have an administration that has dragged its feet on the Coronavirus since the very beginning. They are currently falling way behind on their vaccination campaign, having committed to 20 million Americans vaccinated by year’s end – it looks like they will struggle to achieve ten percent of that. When challenged on this, they shrug – it’s the states’ fault, you see. What a pathetic joke. Take the goddamn money you’re shoveling at the Pentagon and use it to get those fucking vaccines into people’s arms … now. COVID is the national security threat, fool, not a resurgent Russia or China. People are dropping dead all around us, like there’s been an invasion of invisible killer aliens, and fat boy is out golfing while his Coronavirus coordinator Veep is enjoying a skiing holiday. From the start, this phenomenal lack of urgency has been a reflection of the president’s priorities – there’s simply no perceived benefit to him in pursuing this virus, and so he pretends it doesn’t exist.

Someone on Facebook shared that photo of Trump in the oval office with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, going over the presentation of military hardware that the Prince was committing to purchase from U.S. arms manufacturers. It struck me that what I was looking at was an image of a vendor (Trump) with his client (MBS). Trump was using his office to broker a deal with Saudi Arabia – one that is currently being extended, by the way – so that they will continue to patronize him after he leaves office. How does this serve the interests of the American people? Saudi Arabia is a repressive, dictatorial regime that’s killing thousands of people in Yemen, using our weapon systems and our military’s logistical support. The jobs supported by these purchases are not worth the lives lost – far from it. The only benefit that comes from this relationship is realized by Trump, who has bragged about the money he earns from the kingdom. His entire presidency has been a branding exercise, and he’s ready to start cashing in his chips.

This is a level of cynicism beyond anything we’ve seen before. We are losing thousands of lives every day, and our leaders are too busy feathering their nests to even notice, let alone act.

luv u,

Recording

Getting started in Garageband: a resource

December 30, 2020 Joe Leave a comment

Over the years, lots of people have asked us how we do our recordings. And when I say “lots”, I mean more that one …. in these socially isolated times, that seems like lots to me.

Because we are an independent, unsigned, non-commercial musical collective, we have made very little use of proper studios, even when producing our albums. (We’ve released three, by the way, not that anyone’s counting.) In fact, all of our albums were recorded at home, using the tools available at any given time. In prehistoric times, that meant charcoal and flint. As the aeons passed, though, our tools got a bit sharper.

It will surprise few of you to learn that none of us has any training in audio engineering. What we know, we’ve learned largely through trial and error, partly through interacting with other, more knowledgeable people, and partly through reading articles, blog posts, etc. Hell, we’re musicians, not technicians, right? (Some might argue with the first claim in that sentence, but oh well … haters gotta hate.)

Over the course of Big Green’s forty some-odd year history, we’ve gone from recording on reel-to-reel decks, to bouncing tracks on multiple cassette machines, to analog cassette portastudios, to an 8-track DTRS system, to a 16/24-track Roland workstation, to various versions of Cubase, which is where we’re at now. It’s like we were born in the stone age and are now living in a soft-touch laser land. (I get whiplash just thinking about it.) But as far as the know-how to run this technology is concerned, well …. that’s another matter.

Suffice it to say that, like any indie band with zero budget, we have relied to a certain extent on the kindness of strangers, so to speak, to help us through the production and engineering work involved in any project. And thanks to the advent of the internet (a.k.a. that series of tubes), there are a lot of resources out there to help guide you through the fine points. Some are good. Some …. well …. not so much.

So, if you’re just getting started with recorded music and you don’t know how to begin, here’s a suggestion: check out this article by our friends at Beginner Guitar HQ entitled How To Record in Garageband. The thing we like about this piece is that it starts with software that comes with every Mac computer, so if you have access to a Mac, this can be really useful. The only hardware you need is a digital interface – we currently use a Focusrite Saffire DSP unit, but you can get units that do the same thing for a lot less, as this article suggests. The piece takes you through the process one step at a time, explains the basic concepts, and invites you to interact with the authors – not too shabby. (Wish to hell we had help like this when we were starting out, in those dark days before the internets.)

Anyway, you young people, you …. Give this a read and let us know what you think:

https://beginnerguitarhq.com/how-to-record-in-garageband/

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: December 2020

December 28, 2020 Joe Leave a comment

Big Green comes in days late and dollars short with a cobbled-together clip-show extravaganza that includes an encore Ned Trek special, some warmed-over chestnuts from our holiday songbook, and surly commentary. Let that Christmas shine.

This is Big Green – December 2020. Features: 1) Put the phone down: Joe talks about the year that was. Spoiler alert: it sucked; 2) Ned Trek 35: The Romney Christmas Special / Ned Trek Reunion Special; 3) Song: Romney Christmas Special theme, by Big Green; 4) Song: Christmas Business, by Big Green; 5) Song: Plastic Head, by Big Green; 6) Song: Bobby Sweet, by Big Green; 7) Song: Christmas To End, by Big Green; 8) Song: He Does It For Spite, by Big Green; 9) Song: Christmas Green, by Big Green; 10) Song: Horrible People, by Big Green; 11) Song: Neocon Christmas, by Big Green; 12) Song: Make That Christmas Shine, by Big Green; 13) Pagan Christmas, by Big Green; 14) Time for us to go.

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Official site of the band Big Green