Where’s the list? Damned if I know. It’s somewhere in the forge room, I think, under a mountain of iron filings. Well, you TOLD me to file it! Jesus.
Yeah, looks like I blew it again. So what’s new? We were compiling a list of Big Green songs we’ve written and at least cursorily recorded since our last CD release – Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – some six years ago. Lot of water gone under the bridge since then, and a lot of music along with it. It’s almost like there was a little boat all loaded down with songs, and the water carried it under the bridge. Along with, well, a lot more water. Or something like that.
Of course, this is a list of all of the songs we’ve written and recorded for the Ned Trek portion of our THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. There are about 70 or 80 of them, all tolled. So if we decide to release another album, it will either (a) have 70 or 80 songs on it, or (b) be the product of a sane mind. Or maybe it’s two or even three albums. After all, it’s been six years, and before that it had been another five years, and before that, like, nine years. Yeah, we’re slow …. slower than most bands. But hey … most bands don’t have a personal robot assistant (Marvin) or a mad science advisor (Mitch Macaphee). If they did, well, recording albums would take a hell of a lot longer.
Now that I think of it, we almost never mark the anniversary of CD releases. Last year was the 10 year anniversary of International House, our second album, and no celebration, no party streamers, no commemorative live performances, no fireworks, no flagrant branding exercises hoping to chew the last dollars off of its rotting carcass. We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of our first album, 2000 Years to Christmas, and my guess is that we will do TWICE as much celebrating as we did for International House. At least that. Hell, I still have signed CDs from the tenth anniversary of 2000 Years to Christmas. Want one? Post a comment to this post or email us and we’ll see what we can do.
Till then, I had better get started on that pile of filings. Or that file of pilings.
Well, the pendulum has begun to swing back in the other direction. I think we’ve put about six months into these songs, and we’re only now at the mixing stage. Mind you, we have just a few hours a week to do anything on this at all, then it’s back to the salt mines. Still, taking time allows us to experiment a bit more, which is what Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was calling me out for just then. Not sure when he graduated from Julliard, but apparently the sight of me playing a coronet with a violin bow blew a few breakers in that little brass noggin of his. It’s called innovation, Marvin. Deal with it.
Well, so … how to celebrate? Our plan is to reissue songs off of International House via 
Let’s face it … we’re crappy capitalists. (Or crapitalists, if you will.) Matt has no interest in money or notoriety. As for me, well, I couldn’t sell songs to my mother … and I did ask nicely. In a world that measures quality in terms of the price the product commands, we strain to reach the lowest rung. Our production quality is commensurate with the resources available to us. (i.e., we’re not recording at Big Blue North, even though it’s right up the freaking street.) We are evolving in that respect, but like Issa’s snail, slowly … slowly.
pre-production, or something like that. This will be the first group of songs we’ve recorded entirely on Cubase 9, with no help from our trusty old Roland 2480 deck, which served us so well for the last 16 years. So we’ll just see how that goes, my friends.
Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is probably the most sophisticated piece of technology we have at our disposal. In fact, that’s exactly what he is – a re-purposed garbage disposal. I’m told that our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, added some arms and legs and popped a refurbished Commodore 64 computer in his noggin, then it was off to the races with him. We could probably use HIM as an audio recorder almost as easily as we manage with our antiquated Roland VS-2480, but it would require some modifications, and damn it, we’re Luddites. We just flip the switch and a light goes on – the rest is magic.
exchange for discarded hammer handles from the last century.) So naturally we are left to forage for talent a little closer to home. And when I say “talent”, I’m using the word in a very generic, denatured sense. Bodies with working digits is what I mean.
So whereas SpaceX has the famed “Falcon 9” rocket with the patented “Dragon” spacecraft, SpaceY offers the not-so-well-known “Plywood 9000” rocket powering its nearly designed (and no, that’s not a typo: it hasn’t been designed yet) “Malaysian Tapir 9000” spacecraft. (They seem to like the number 9000. That would explain their requested down payment.) I know what you’re thinking …. this doesn’t sound like it meets the reliability standard I set forward in the previous paragraph. My only rejoinder to that is, well … that was more than a paragraph ago. Are you going to hold me to EVERYTHING I’ve said in the past? How about gurgling noises I made as an infant – do you plan to hit me with those, too?
something more appropriate to the century we’re living in. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has suggested we start recording on cylinders or wire. Damn it, it’s been done, Marvin! Come up with something new, like, I don’t know … recording on bricks.
these into an album of sorts and toss it out on the street for passers-by to happen upon and drop into their MP3 players.