Tag Archives: Cowboy Scat

All’s well that ends.

That’s no good. They will certainly have lifted the phonograph needle by that point. The phonograph needle… you know… the thing that scratches along the record and makes the music come out. Don’t you know anything about technology?

Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there, peering in from the void of cyberspace. Just working my way through some technical issues relating to our upcoming album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Getting into the minutiae with our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who will actually be making the records this time out. Yes, we do have a corporate label – Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., a.k.a. Hegephonic Records – but they are kind of a “hands off” outfit (unless you owe them money; then it’s another story … one involving off duty military personnel, typically …. I’ll stop there).

What all that means is simply this: under our “contract”, we make the product from start to finish. We write the songs, record them, cut the discs, package them, carry them to all of the stores, etc.  Hegephonic does the rest. (That is to say, they rest up until there’s some looting to do. It’s complicated.) So, we’re just trying to work out a few of the details with Mitch, who apparently has never heard of the gramophone record. Have you been to the talkies yet, Mitch? They’re like a freaking conjurer’s trick!

The fact is, Matt and I prefer to concentrate on more artistic matters… like what’s going to happen at the end of every song. Sure, most pop songs just fade away, but the story doesn’t end there, my friends. Indeed, a lot of meaning is lost in that fade-out groove. Big Green, for its part (which part I decline to say), is dedicating itself to recovering some of that lost value for the benefit of listeners everywhere. And we’re going to do that by putting them out on the interwebs – a collection of last gasps, as it were. Some funky, so sullen, some so bizarre even I can’t fathom the implications of their existence. It cannot be so! I find myself shouting when I hear them. And yet it is so.

So…. something to look forward to. That’s what we like to hear. Now … about those photographic plates…. Don’t drop them! They’re glass, you know.

Poditis.

How do you spell XML again? Does it rhyme with “smell”? No coincidence, I suspect. Jesus christ on a bike. Technology is for fools. And forever a fool I shall be.

Oh, hi. Just got done cobbling together this month’s episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our notorious podcast, and placing it online with the technological equivalent of stone knives and bearskins. My approach to programming is akin to placing several monkeys at computers loaded with self-peeling banana screensavers. Trial and error… but mostly trial. Anyway, it got done, and that’s just as well, because this month’s episode is chock full of something. Yes, friends, it’s full of ingredients. It contains contents. Should I draw you a picture?

Right. You’ll see from the program notes that there are not one but TWO new songs from Cousin Rick Perry, governor of Texas. These are two more in a series of “first draft” recordings that will comprise (in a more finished form) Big Green’s upcoming album, tentatively named Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Our cousin has inspired an album’s worth of material, to be sure, including one jaunty little number called “Awesome Hair”:

It once adorned Reagan, now on your head it sits
and not on that wanna-be latter day Mitt’s.
When you’re nonsensically talking, it especially fits
If anyone tries to muss it up, you mess with their shit.

Pure audio dynamite, that’s what that is.

Thankfully, things were a little quieter around the hammer mill this week. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) finally gave up any idea of going to robot camp for the summer. “Just because all of the neighbors’ robots are doing something,” I heard myself telling him, “that doesn’t mean you have to do it, too. If they all rolled into the car-crusher, would you follow them?” At that point, Marvin emitted a metallic cluck and rolled his eyes. I just can’t say anything right, it seems. (He’s at that difficult age when robots start pushing the boundaries a little bit. )

One other thing about the podcast, before I forget. You might want to listen to it with something running in the background, like maybe an espresso machine. That would give a better sense of what’s going on in our heads when we record it. Just a suggestion.

 

Settle. Just settle.

Listen, Marvin. I know you want to go to summer camp like all of the other robot assistants. That’s understandable at your age. But you have to understand, we just can’t afford it right now. It’s not that we don’t want you to go … it’s money, Marvin. We’ll try to save enough to send you to robot assistant camp next year, okay?

Sheesh. Another dejected look. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has now officially joined the ranks of the disgruntled. That makes about nine of us, if you count both Lincolns. We are in the dog days and, apparently, the doldrums of summer here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, and I can tell you personally, nobody’s happy around these parts. I blame our persistent lack of gainful employment. Most band entourages, as you know, can occupy themselves with the somewhat questionable benefits of touring. Big Green, though, has not done a tour yet this year, and I fear that fact is beginning to wear on us all.

Aw, now look…. mansized tuber is getting fussy again! Matt! Lincoln! Mitch! Somebody else take a turn, for chrissake! I’ve repotted him twice today already and it’s only noon.

Jeebus, just listen to me. Listen to all of us. It’s the sound of domestic life, that’s what it is. We have been in one place far too long, my brothers. I feel the road calling me, once again. Ah, the aroma of poorly prepared meals, the clatter of ancient window-mounted air conditioners, the inviting patina of a well-used shower stall. Okay, so there isn’t a lot about touring that I miss. It’s the lack of touring that worries me. For one thing, it makes us prone to lethargy (well….. more prone, let’s say). For another, it drains our modest resources to what can only be described as a negative value. You see …. oh, jesus. Wait just a minute, my friends…

Not that pot, Mitch! I used that one earlier today. Give tubey a fresh one from the garden shed. Use your head, man!

Right. Where was I? Doesn’t matter. We have to get another interstellar tour together. Just as soon as we finish our upcoming album / rock opera / whatever the fuck it is, titled Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Check out our July podcast, soon to be posted, for details.