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Usual Rubbish

Sing, Rick, sing!

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Turn which knob again? That one? I already turned that one, for crying out loud. Turn it again? Shut the front door!

All these knobs, all these switches… Hey, that’s a good idea for a song. All of these knobs, all of these switches, keep this up and you’ll need stitches, uh-huh. Okay… not a good idea for a song. I’m getting punchy, and small wonder. Matt and I are hip deep in mixing Rick Perry’s new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick … being a collection of songs that arose from some strange sensory phenomena our dear cousin experienced over the past year. You know how when sometimes you have a little too much to drink or a bit too much …. well, whatever, and the world around you gets all fuzzy and weird, and then the next day you find yourself freighted with all these unexplainable memories of odd behavior, like something your fevered mind cooked up in a dream? Well…. Rick wrote some songs about that.

We’ve been putting rough mixes of these songs on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, for the past few months, to mixed reviews, I must say. Here’s a sampling:

What is that sound in the middle of your last podcast? It almost could have been music but not quite…  – jaypod

Tell tex to pipe down. I’m sleepin’ here.   – brooklynfan#482

[expletive deleted] the [expletive deleted] with a [censored].
– nixon’sghost45

All very promising, wouldn’t you say? It’s this kind of feedback that keeps us going, year after year. Like that guy who wrote me last month with the simple advice of “Get a life.” Isn’t that enchanting? Almost haiku-like in its simplicity. I meditate on it daily.

When will the finished album be ready? Well, that depends on how soon we can get a turn at the power tools down in the basement of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where we reside. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the mansized tuber have been building something down there for weeks. Maybe it’s an ark, for all I freaking know – I hear sawing and drilling through the closed door to the shop. “Are you going to be long?” I yell, “We’ve got to start whittling those CD cases!”

Useless. Oh, well… back to the faders.

Usual Rubbish

Process, process.

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Smallest town in the biggest state. Father Joseph, what would be my fate? So starts this month’s anthem of the Hammer Mill. Can’t get that tune out of my head, man!

This writing finds us chin deep in production for our next album. Imagine Matt and me in a roomful of 1-inch Ampex tape, all spooled out and tangled like Don Knotts had it in his space capsule in The Reluctant Astronaut. Yes, we always aspire to such heights. “Why not the best?” we ask ourselves, and the answer, of course, is obvious. (Go right to the source and ask the horse.)

Why do we do this thing over and over again? This “making an album” thing? We’re past the age of consent (well past) and not famous on our home planet. Our best-selling album is welded to the hull of Voyager as it makes its way out of our solar system. (We sold one copy to NASA. They bought it because it features a lead vocal by the late Kurt Waldheim.) The fact is, we are driven. When Big Green first rose out of the primordial soup of the mid 1980s, we had several choices. They were:

1) Go back into the soup! It was quite good, actually. Always like a little ginger in with the carrots. Mmmmm-boy.

2) Start a band, but instead of an indie rock group that has to make its own albums, something less demanding. Call it “Various Artists”. That way, on our first day of existence we would have dozens, perhaps hundreds of albums to our credit, many containing hit songs from every era. Instant popularity! Just add crack!

3) Start an indie rock group that has to make its own albums. With help, of course, from our mad science adviser, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the indefatigable mansized tuber, a couple of Lincolns, and others. (Don’t want to suggest for a moment that we do all this work alone!)

So here we are, patching the rough road that is Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, preparing for final mixes and looking for obvious holes. Hey, there’s a good name for a band: The Obvious Holes. Beats the Recognizable Hicks any day.

Keep your eyes open for more fadeout grooves. Think of them as shards left over in the manufacture of the next album. Or something.

Usual Rubbish

Back pages.

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The jury is in on Curiosity. The bad news: there is no water on Mars. The good news? There’s club soda. And tonic water with lime. There’s a lot you can say about the Martians, but you can’t say they’re not civilized.

Got some time on our hands, obviously, so we have the luxury of pondering the findings of the latest Mars probe, made available by our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee (who somehow hacked into Curiosity and has compelled it to act on our behalf as a robotic booking agent on the red planet). Roll, Curiosity, roll, and soon we will be idle no longer. Or something to that effect. Hell – bring back a pizza and the Lincolns will be happy. That would certainly outdo Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and he only has to cross the street to get the great emancipators a third-rate pie. (I’m looking at you, Marvin. You’re not good!)

Well, I hope you all enjoyed our anniversary edition of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our official podcast. A little something for everyone in there, I’m proud to say. Aside from all the pointless yak by Matt and myself, you can enjoy:

  • a little visit with Mr. Ned, Mitt Romney’s dancing horse, and the candidate himself.
  • not one but TWO new songs by cousin Rick Perry: a country number titled “Fed Up” and a Susan Boyle-inspired ballad called “Lone Star”. Think of them as bookends on the empty bookshelf that is Rick’s Texas brain.
  • brief comments by Jack Ossont of the Coalition to Protect New York at an anti-fracking rally in Utica, NY.
  • a blues number culled from the first-ever demo recorded by a group called Big Green.

The last item, a Taj Mahal number named “She Caught The Katy”, which was part of our live show, was recorded back in 1986 in a garage studio (analog Tascam 8-track deck) owned by John Danison – brother of Big Green co-founder Ned Danison – who worked for the band Blotto back in the day. We threw together a four-song demo to promote the band; this was one of those tracks. I’m doing the vocal and plunking on Ned’s electric piano. Matt’s playing bass. Ned is doing the electric guitar and organ parts. The drummer was an Albany guy named Pete Young – he was with us for this recording and that was about it. (We had some drummer issues in those days.)

So hey, what the hell … enjoy. And if you go to Mars this week (or next), bring some ice.

Usual Rubbish

Mars calling.

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Looks good, Mitch. Can you make it move forward a little bit? You know… just roll a little towards that crater-like object. That’s a crater? No lie? Hmmm….

Oh, hello. Just watching the Curiosity rover on Mars. No, we’re not glued to the NASA web site staring at the same low rez images everyone else is poring over. God, no. When you have friends in the world of science, that gets you access, my good fellow. Big Green, of course, has an official mad science advisor in the form of Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and thrice honored diplomate of the international college of lunatic physicists. When he heard about this Mars rover at a recent loony conference, he built himself a little home made telemetry device that allows him to … well … take command of the Mars rover. (“Oh, no you didn’t!” we said. But oh, yes he did. )

This telemetry thing isn’t about science, though. Don’t say it’s about science. It’s about much more selfish pursuits. Let us face it – Big Green is hungry, friends …. hungry as a dog. We haven’t had a paying gig since… well, since last year. Our promoters at Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., have yet to shell out the money for an interstellar tour. Plainly, Big Green has to take matters into its own hands. And whereas some bands turn to their trusted manager, agent, tour promoter, etc., we have only Mitch Macaphee. And as mentioned before, he’s freaking crazy. That’s what is called a telemetry-producing situation.

So how do we leverage this? Well, I’m trying to get Mitch to send commands to the Curiosity rover. We need it to be our arms and legs on Mars. Why? Because there’s this little venue at the foot of Mount Olympus (tallest known mountain in the solar system) that would hire us for a three-night run if we could just get their attention. Can’t afford to ride out there ourselves. (Not in this economy, damnit.) Curiosity can act as our booking agent on Mars. And before you ask, don’t sweat it. We’ll give him the standard 15%. We’re not bad people.

So, okay, Mitch … can you make the Rover say, “private dressing room, behind the stage”? How about, “pitcher of gin and tonic every half hour”? Well, try again, damn your eyes! He’s letting that owner off way too easy.

Usual Rubbish

All’s well that ends.

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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.

Usual Rubbish

Poditis.

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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.

 

Usual Rubbish

Settle. Just settle.

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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.

Usual Rubbish

Thing is.

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What’s that? What’s that you say? Can’t hear ya, young man. You’ll have to speak up a bit. Nah, I’m not deaf. I’m either old or living on top of a fracking operation. Or maybe both.

Yeah, hey howdy. Welcome back to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, where the winters are cold and the derricks run day and night, pulverizing the shale that supports the very ground we walk on to squeeze every last iota of value out of the battered slag that is America. Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, our once and future corporate overlords, are working this little piece of borrowed real estate like it’s Irian Jaya and they’re Freeport McMoran. But…. I digress. Always like to start on a bright note. Now on to more serious matters.

Well, it took some doing with all of this earth moving and earth shaking (movers and shakers are we), but we managed to post the June episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Another titanic installment of … well … nothing in particular. Though we have included not one but two first-draft recordings of Rick Perry songs. Could be worth a listen …. just advance over about half an hour of insane blather and you’ll hear the first one; a funky little number called “Aw, Shoot.” It offers, in its own ludicrous way, a thumbnail sketch of cousin Rick Perry’s trajectory from simple country dummkopf to dummkopf on a national stage already. Sounds vaguely like an early 80s soundtrack cut. Think Bam-Bam on Mars. Some of you know what I’m saying.

The other Rick Perry song is, well, an ode to his staying power. He’ll be there, that’s all he’s saying. Wherever there’s a law beatin’ up a gun, he’ll come on like a burning sun. And so it goes.  Big Green will be putting out a collection of cousin Rick songs later this year, with polished up and enhanced selections from these podcasts, plus additional material. (I’m not going to say what kind of material. It may be music, may be fracking fluid. Not sure there’s a difference.)

This month’s podcast also features a Big Green number from back in 2004, called The President’s Brain is Missing. It’s about our old friend George W. Bush, who seemed to fancy himself something of a martial type back in those days. Seemed like he should have a “Green Beret” type theme associated with his heroic exploits, so we just made him one.

Well, there’s the work whistle. Won’t be able to hear myself think for the next 12 hours, so I’ll sign off now.  WHIRRRRRRRRR……

Usual Rubbish

Dig it.

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Hmmm. That drill bit looks a little large. As in, larger than the entire building. Perhaps if we moved the hammer mill a little to the left. No? Hokay.

Oh, well…. hi there. Just negotiating a small issue with a representative from Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., the entertainment branch of the titanic multinational that has agreed to, once again, sponsor Big Green – take us under their cold steel wing, as it were – in exchange for mineral rights to the land upon which our adopted squat-house home, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, now sits. What is it about these Hegemonic guys that even their A and R people wear full body armor? They seem a little, I don’t know, nervous. This guy I’m talking to has a very twitchy trigger finger. Wish to hell he’d put that Kalashnikov down.

Hegemonic, as some of you may recall, was our corporate label back in the early 2000’s. We had a little falling out…. though I guess you could almost call it a “falling in,” since they took us hostage for a few weeks during a brief stay in Indonesia, where Hegemonic does a lot of its business. Bygones be bygones, right? The rope burns have long since healed. Anywho, we’ve got an arrangement with them now that I think has the potential to make everybody happy; a real “win-win”. We want worldwide distribution; they want the natural gas locked within the stack of shale that sits between this building and the Earth’s chewy nougat center. What could go wrong?

Thing is, they want that methane, and they want it NOW. So I open my curtains this morning and see this colossal drill bit parked outside the mill. I asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to got out and investigate, and he comes back in with Mr. AK-47. And he’s like, “Hey!” and I’m like, “What?” and he’s like, “Face down on the floor, MOVE! MOVE!” and I’m like, “Ow! That rifle butt hurts!” And…. well, we had a little talk after that. Cleared up a lot of things. Turns out, his mother went to a completely different school than my mother. Talk about coincidences!

So where does that leave us? Well, I was going to ask his thoughts on compulsory integration, but he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the enormous, earth-crushing drill. Oops.

Usual Rubbish

Total recall.

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No, no. Good monster. You don’t want to kill your benefactor, do you? Here … have some more porridge, there’s a good chap. (Hoo boy.)

Oh, hi. Yep, that’s right; I’m in the process of talking down one of Mitch Macaphee’s greatest creations (at least in his own estimation). Yes, it seems that Freakenstein, once set loose by Dr. Macaphee, did a tear around the neighborhood, pulling up lamp posts, opening fire hydrants, and generally making a nuisance of himself. He went into the local pawn shop and got a few items out of hock – items he, of course, had no personal connection with (since he was only just invented and has never known the joys of personal property) but nonetheless liked anyway. What did he use for money? No cash needed … when you’re Freakenstein.

Okay, so … predictably, the complaints start rolling in from all over town. And it’s clear that we need to do something about this. It was a bit like when Big Zamboola first got here and started throwing his hyper-energized magnetic fields all over the place. Or like Matt’s used vegetable stand (every item guaranteed recovered from passing produce trucks).  What do those things have in common? Not much, except the fact that people complained mightily about them. That’s what happened with Freakenstein, prompting us to ask Mitch to call his sorry ass back to the mill.

Well, so Mitch deputized Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and put him on the task. He was clever enough to fire up Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device and point it in the general direction of the monster. Well, land o’ goshen, that worked like laying out breadcrumbs – he just followed that beam right back here, his arms loaded with ill-gotten swag (mostly from the pawn shop), some worn-looking Bean boots on his oversized paddles. Now it falls to me to talk him out of trashing the mill … even worse than it’s trashed now, that is. And hell, he’s feisty. (I don’t mean he likes listening to Feist, either. Literalist.)

Well, somehow in the midst of all this pointless activity, I had time to post another episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, now available on iTunes. Check it out, manzie. And keep an eye on your fire hydrants. Never know.