Tag Archives: Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm

Usual Rubbish

All the king’s robots and all the King’s pens

Leave a comment
Get Music Here

We got another one of those notes, man. One of those neighbor notes about the uncut lawn. Let’s say they’re a little disappointed in us. I have to admit, I’m disappointed in us, too. We really SHOULD have mowed that lawn, but we were too damn LAZY and SHIFTLESS. (Please share this post with our neighbors so that they will feel validated.)

Anyway, here we are in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, no validation in sight … not even for our parking. You know, I think we might be the subject of yet another community effort to rid the neighborhood of ne’er do wells. Frankly, I object to being termed in such a way. I may not always do well, but I certainly sometimes do well. I can’t speak for any of the other members of our entourage, but I for one try to remain on the straight and narrow. (It’s been a bit too narrow lately, though.)

Call in the lawn robots

Now SOME people I know, and I won’t say who, hire robots to mow their lawn. I’m not super comfortable with that idea. The part I’m not comfortable with, I should add, is the “hire” part. Why buy the milk when you own the cow, right? We have our own damn robot, thank you very much. His name is Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and if you Google his full name, you’ll come up with about twenty years of posts on this very blog. Or some nonsensical artificial intelligence story. Same damn thing.

Thing is, the lawn robots descend onto your property in a swarm and cut the grass in about ten minutes – just a big flurry of activity, then they’re gone. Marvin could NEVER do that. If he tried to get a job with the lawn robots, he would never get past the first interview. They would laugh him out of Utica, for chrissake. Think of that: Laughed out of Utica. Good name for a band, I think. But I digress. I can’t ask Marvin to do our lawn. It’s a matter of principle. Marvin was created for greater purposes, like vacuuming the hall. I can’t allow him to lower himself in that way.

Sign ’em if you got ’em

What Marvin really needs is a contract. We used to have one of those, with that crazy corporate label Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., of Indonesia. It was signed in red ink, actually, though it may have been blood, now that I think of it. Those guys were kind of rough. They weren’t getting us to do shit by using Jedi mind tricks. It was more the truncheon and tire iron method. But hey, you don’t want to hear about our contract signing ceremony under duress. This is supposed to be a HAPPY occasion.

Mow the damn lawn. Stuff it!

It’s actually a good thing we’re no longer under contract to Hegemonic. We can release our new songs into the wild like birds and let them fly on their own volition. Labels always make you do dumb shit you don’t want to do, then cut up your albums to make two or three. You call that value? Jesus Christmas. What an industry! Even our mad science advisor, exploiter of the intergalactic time warp, Mitch Macaphee thinks that’s unjust, and he’s crazy as a loon. Maybe crazier.

From green to red

Yeah, so there are drawbacks. And the first is no money to pay the damn bills. A smarter band would just let them do what they want with their music, but nobody ever accused us of being smart. At least not to our faces.

Usual Rubbish

I said, Oh man, God Damn that Dream!

Leave a comment
Get Music Here

I told you, I don’t have the money. You can look in my guitar case – go ahead. Here’s he key to the padlock. Rummage through the back of my amp. There’s nothing in there but decades-old cigarette butts and some tortoise shell picks I never use. Hey, get your hands off me! Where are you taking me? HALP!

What the …. ? Oh. So it was just a dream. What an em-effing relief. Thank you, Jeebus. Sorry, folks – I must have dozed off in the middle of our conversation. Dreamland is a bizarro world. Squares look like circles, time collects in puddles, and people eat potato chips with a fork. And that’s just in my normal dreams. Thing is, I almost never have bad dreams, unless I’m dreaming about our old corporate record label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. Which is what I was dreaming about a little more than five minutes ago (according to the time puddle).

Bad old days

I know most bands tend to reflect back upon their careers and celebrate their own youthful missteps and flights of folly. Yeah, well, that’s not us. We’re constantly re-litigating the past, and as a result, I’ve gotten at least one grisly visit from a knuckle-scraping denizen of our former label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. And yes, it was in dreamland, that’s true, but tell that to my dream self – to him, it’s just land, right? Does a fish know she’s underwater? Well, does she?

Dream or no, it brought me back to those bad old days when sinners were murdered for the greater good. No, wait – that’s a song lyric. What I really mean is those days when we were laboring under the watchful eye of our multinational record label, which was actually just a subsidiary of a big ass mineral extraction company that was busily grinding Papua New Guinea to a pulp. Like most capitalists, they just squeezed the juice right out of us. And when they got tired of drinking Big Green juice, they demanded pomegranate juice, I think because of its antioxidant properties. (Capitalists are nothing if not guarded about their own well-being.)

No redoubt too remote

I’m assuming I don’t need to repeat for this audience the full details of our sordid parting-of-the-ways with Hegemonic. Suffice to say that they didn’t take the announcement of our divorce with equanimity. Turned out that a contract meant a bit more to them than it did to yours truly, and so Big Green was kind of in the soup for a few weeks … or months … or maybe eight years. You lose track of time in deep space, and the further out you go in space, the further back you go in time.

Think it's safe to come out yet?

What am I talking about? Good question. Here’s a mediocre answer. When confronted with the hired thugs of our deeply disappointed corporate overlords, we turned to the one man who could help us in our hour of need: our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the man who closed the space warp up again (bet you didn’t know that!), and so on. With his help, we were wisked into deep, deep space where no thug would ever find us. Until now, that is …. now that NASA has uncovered the primordial star field that was our exclusive recluse. DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!

But it was just a dream

Fortunately, we won’t need the hiding place, at least not yet. Unless Hegemonic’s dream thugs break out into the waking world. Or continue to confront us in our REM sleep. No doubt those guys are back to doing what they love best – poisoning indigenous water supplies in remote areas of the world for quick profit. That’s the ticket, boys.

Usual Rubbish

Time off.

Leave a comment
2000 Years to Christmas

Hey … did I mention we had a special going? I did? Okay. Well … I won’t mention it again. Just pretend I didn’t say anything. Right, then …. night night.

Oh, hi. Just got off the phone with our manager. Yes, that’s right. It may surprise some of you to know that Big Green has management. Sure, it doesn’t look like we do from the outside. This band has always had a certain quality of randomness to it …. or perhaps an uncertain quality of randomness. Now, I’m not suggesting that that’s some kind of clever management ploy meant to drive buzz and idle speculation about the band …. what will they do next? Nah. It’s more that we simply have the worst management in the history of the music business, hands down.

Now, I don’t mean to sound overly critical. It’s just that we haven’t had a gig in the United States – yay, on the planet Earth, even – in more than 25 years. Our records go nowhere, unless it’s by accident (like our song Volcano Man, which is benefiting from a prolonged case of mistaken identity.). No hits. Not even any misses. Our three albums have performed as what used to be called “drugs on the market”, wanting for promotional investment in addition to being, well, strange. This is the kind of management that can be really discouraging, you know? Then there was the time he told us to wear matching orange Chuck Taylor high tops. God, those things looked stupid … especially on Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who doesn’t even have feet.

Big Green has always had this kind of problem with management, labels (like Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc.), hangers-on, that sort of thing. Back when we were kids, we had management for a brief time that booked us around the Albany, NY area. Our equipment was trash. I had a broken down Fender Rhodes piano, our PA was from hell – mixed components patched together in a haphazard fashion; a 100-watt QSC amp powering two Cerwin Vega cabinets … and belching smoke while it did it. We also had two Shure tower speakers, which were hands down the worst PA invention since the megaphone Rudy Vallee used to sing through. One time they booked us and another band to play alternate sets, except they had an actual PA system, pumping out a wall of sound while we were soldering patch cords on stage. It was like Loverboy vs. junior high electronics shop class.

So, yeah …. in retrospect, I guess our current management isn’t that bad. I’d rather take all this forced time off than play dozens more of those really lame gigs we used to play, back in the day.

Usual Rubbish

Backyardvarks.

Leave a comment

Did you bring a blanket? No? Nah, neither did I. Never think of these things when you’re in a hurry. Fortunately, it’s the middle of the summer, and it’s freaking eighty degrees. So … eff the blanket.

Yeah, I’m sure you expected this. We met our ornery neighbors upstairs in virtual battle – a war of words, let’s say – and they prevailed … because they’re just bone mean. So we have been temporarily expelled from our beloved abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and have taken up provisional residence in the mill’s backyard. Humiliating, yes, but it’s not the worst kind of humiliation we’ve had to endure. Nothing near as bad as what we experienced on Neptune some years back, nor the depredations of Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., our erstwhile corporate record label. Still … not good.

Hey, we’re pushovers – what can I tell you? When neighbors say jump, we jump. When they say run, we jump, mostly because we’re not real good at running. Our encounter with the obnoxious bunch on the third floor did not come to blows, thankfully, but it was contentious enough to convince us that we should spend a few nights in the courtyard with the mansized tuber. If you’re wondering why we didn’t set Marvin (my personal robot assistant) after them, the answer is simple … he’s just too simple to be effective in a situation like that. Though his claws should be registered with the local police department as near-lethal weapons. When he clacks those suckers together, you could literally laugh yourself to death.

Hey, Tubey ... is there room for a few more in that shed?

This could be worse, of course. We can pitch a tent or two, start a little fire, maybe play the banjo. We can roast marshmallows over the flames and toss them, molten, at our enemies. Our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee can whip up some kind of force field that will keep us safe from predators and bailiffs. (Anti-Lincoln claims he’s being followed by a bail bondsman, but I think he’s forgetting that the 1860s ended more than a century ago.) I’m actually surprised at how easily Mitch is taking this eviction. Typically, he goes ballistic on people long before any dispute ever reaches this level of action. (Not sure, but I suspect he may be taking something to calm his nerves. High strung, these mad scientists.)

For the time being, if you want to reach us, use the comment form on the blog or send your notes to: Big Green, Behind the Potting Shed, Central Courtyard, Abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Little Falls, NY. (Or just address it Joe / Potting Shed – I’ll get it.)

Usual Rubbish

Ned-scapades.

Leave a comment

Step one: fill the little box with letters. It’s a letter box! Step two, check your work on step one. Step three: press “publish” and watch the blue smoke come out. You are now a “blogger”, Charlie! All you need now are decipherable opinions.

Well, here we are at the mill, still waiting for the next episode of our Podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN to roll off the back of a truck. Late again. Must be short on key ingredient this month. Actually, as I pointed out last week, the main ingredient is work on our parts, which is rare indeed. A jem of great price … that price being the sweat off of our collective brows. Work, work, work … that’s what a podcast is all about. The internet is a slave-driver! Small wonder we chose to outsource its production to some nameless third world country. Working through a social media broker, we have been assured of a good and reliable product, voiced by people who sound exactly like Matt and I, their Indonesian accents just barely detectable … (Oh, what a giveaway!)

Looking forward to hearing how they handle the Ned Trek episode. This one was a challenge – another musical, no less. There are six … maybe seven songs included in the script, all brand new production. Those poor folks in Jakarta have their work cut out for them. (And yes, I’m sure you’ve guessed that our “brokers” are actually our old corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, also known as Hegephonic. They’ve likely got sweatshops on four continents toiling 24/7 to pump out this episode.)

That's the stuff.What have we been doing with all of our free time? Thought you might want to know. Actually, Matt’s been chasing Peregrine falcons around downtown Utica, like the very good fellow he is.  (You can check on his efforts – and even contribute to them, if you like – on the Utica Peregrine Falcon site.) My efforts have been of a more pedestrian nature, actually. I spent the last few weeks working on our new Ned Trek site, posting a few episodes extracted from our podcast, and making it look as ridiculous as possible. Here it is, mobile-ready and set to roll: www.nedtrek.com

So … yeah, that happened. What’s up with you? Let me know. You know how I worry.

Usual Rubbish

Time wasting.

Leave a comment

Ever see that episode of Lost In Space when they’re rushing to get the piece-of-shit Jupiter 2 spaceworthy before the planet they’ve been living on for an entire television season explodes beneath them? Yeah, well … that’s sort of where Big Green is right now.

Big GreenNo, a stereotypical t.v. gold miner named Mister Nerim is not fracking the Cosmonium out of the living rock beneath us (at least, not yet), but it’s nearly as bad. Our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (also known as Hegephonic) has arranged for an interstellar tour to support the release of our most recent album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, which – while it hasn’t done squat down here on earth – is selling briskly on Aldebaran, I hear.  (Great music always finds its audience. And, well, ours does, too, if it travels far enough.)

Of course, Hegemonic subcontracted the tour arrangements to some underworld figures, as they typically do. That has its upsides, like … I don’t know …. valet parking on Aldebaran? Free breakfast for gamblers? No, it’s the downsides I’m more concerned with. Like the fact that the contractors just handle the booking; the transportation is completely up to us. So as you saw last week, we’ve been scrambling to pull together some kind of interstellar space vessel – quite a challenge in the continued absence of our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who is sunning himself in beautiful Madagascar right now.

Well ... a little ambitious, perhaps. Don’t know if you know this, but underworld booking agents take breach of contract kind of seriously. That’s why we’re resorting to just about any means of getting from one planet to the other. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) helpfully suggested a design for a new space craft, but it seems a little ambitious, to be perfectly frank. I’m not certain that we need anything with forty-story legs and a cavernous exercise room. I was thinking something more on the modest size. Maybe a step up from the 1954 GMC city coach, but not a large step.

Hey, however we do it, we’ll need to have it done in a few weeks. Got suggestions? Put them behind the hot water pipes. I’ll find them.

Usual Rubbish

Dig it.

Leave a comment

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

What next.

Leave a comment

Sweepin’ up after that big storm. Man, the weather these days. Good goddamn thing that global warming story turned out to be a hoax. If it’d been true, we’d be worried about all this extreme weather. But no, no…. everything’s fine. Experts agree.

No, today’s not contrary Wednesday. It’s contrary every freaking day here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. I’m spouting that stuff about global warming in hopes of ingratiating ourselves to a potential corporate sponsor. Who, you may ask? Well, it’s someone Big Green worked with before – Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., king of the extractive industries. Tearing Earth a new Asshole since 1953™. From the tar sands of Alberta to the gold mines of Irian Jaya to the fracking fields of Pennsylvania, the name Hegemonic has been synonymous with … well, with making big piles of money out of big piles of slag. Who better to shake down for some cash, right?

Oh, yes… I know what you’re going to say: This will lead to evil and sadness. Stop the hurting, you’ll say, and start the helping.  But fear not, my friend. Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm (also known as “Hegephonic”) is an enlightened actor in the extractive industries. It says right here in this May 2007 press release when they began work in Mindanao. Back when there was a Mindanao. Okay, bad example. Nonetheless, our “friends” at Hegemonic can be of great assistance to us, and as luck would have it, we have something of value to them as well. Something they want very, very badly.

Wait for it!

It’s mineral rights to the Cheney Hammer Mill. You see, by happy geological accident, the Utica Shale and the Marcellus Shale converge right below the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. That means there’s an Auntie Maude’s Fortune of natural gas right below our feet. And no, this isn’t another one of those mad schemes cooked up by Mitch Macaphee. Unlike the mercantile tunnel to China (now plugged), this is a sure thing. All we have to do is let them rip down the mill and gouge their way into the Earth’s crust like a titanic bloodsucker, drawing the lifeblood from our dying planet and selling it by the cubic foot to heat the McMansions of exurban neo-yuppies. Nothing to it.

One other thing that interests them: Freakenstein. I think they see him as some kind of secret weapon against union organizers. We tried to interest them in Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but he’s simply not intimidating enough.