Tag Archives: International House

News

Who the hell are we? It’s all a blur to us now.

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Remember those blurry shots of us romping around Forest Hill Cemetery back in our old home town? Sure you do – we’ve used them a million times. There we were, just posing with the marble angels, when the photographer decided to take shots of us running as he ran backwards in front of us. That’s when the world went all wiggly.

Well, that was back in the early nineties. As I said, we’ve been using those as publicity shots for decades, mostly because they’re some of the few decent images of us from when we were youngish. In those days, people didn’t have hi-def video cameras in their pockets. Phones were something wired to the wall (pretty much) and cameras were a thing. (Ask your mother.)

Unlike a lot of nobody bands at that time, we were fortunate enough to know some first-rate photographers, like friend of Big Green Leif Zurmuhlen. (He’s still shooting up a storm for pubs like Nippertown in Albany, NY.) The blurry images were taken by somebody else competent. But the point is that our best shots are from those days when skilled people with cameras happened to be our friends.

Case of mistaken identity

Given that we spent a fair amount of time in a blur, it’s not surprising that we might get confused with other people. I mean, look at the photo – that could be anybody. And frankly, with a name like Big Green, one might expect to encounter doppelgangers. It has two common words, and one of them is a color, for crying out loud.

Well … it happened. Not sure exactly how, but our catalog of poor-selling music got mixed up with that of another act named Big Green. (I believe there’s more than one, actually.) It’s a hip hop artist, and a number of their works were attributed to our account, just as a few or ours have (and continue to be) attributed to their account. As we’re working on a new album, we thought this might be a good time to kind of untangle that mess.

We’ve had some success in this, but it’s not finished. We haven’t heard from the other Big Green, but I imagine they’re grateful for our efforts, as I believe their music is a hell of a lot more popular than ours. I’m expecting a fruit basket from them any day now.

Pump up the jam

Speaking of streaming services, now might be a good time for you to add Big Green (um … THIS Big Green) to your playlists. In fact, while you’re doing that, maybe let our songs run for a few hours and rack up some plays – We’re wearing cardboard belts!

Here’s where to go to find our sorry asses:

This is us on Amazon music. Don’t buy anything – just use your account to play your favorites from our various releases.

We’re also on Spotify. And no, we don’t know Joe Rogan. We’re just on the same streaming service, that’s all. Again, put us on continuous loop – Daddy needs new shoes.

We also have an artist site on Apple Music. This one is a little confused, as they haven’t included our album Cowboy Scat. (That one is still attributed to the hip-hop Big Green, poor sods.)

Big Green is probably on other services that are downstream of the majors, as we’re distributed by The Orchard and by CD Baby. (2000 Years to Christmas and International House are through the Orchard; Cowboy Scat is through CD Baby.)

Free stuff

If you don’t have a hay-penny, god bless you. But if you don’t have access to streaming services, you can listen to our music for free – just let us know that you want to and we’ll make it happen. Be nice to us and we’ll send you a genuine first-edition Big Green button, designed by photographer Leif Zurmuhlen, hand-pressed by Big Green co-founder Ned Danison back in the eighties, and stuffed into a box for 35 years. Just ask!

News, Recording

New year is here: Back to work, lazy mothers!

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Well, that was a nice little holiday break, and we all had a bit of a laugh. But now it’s 2024, dudes – time to get back down to it. No more messing around, no more late rising. You had your vacation, damn it! Nose to the grindstone, my fine little friends.

That’s my version of a pep talk. I’ve never been much in the way of a motivational speaker, especially when the audience is me and my brother. Neither one of us wants to take any of THAT guy’s bullshit. And as you know from long experience, Big Green is a leaderless collective. We don’t subscribe to self-imposed hierarchies. Nor do we subscribe to the daily paper, or even a monthly newsletter. But I digress.

A far safer Forbin Project

I’m not sure, but I think we’re in year two of producing this particular album. And if you include the year or so we spent working out which album we were going to make (new songs or retreads), call it three. Why does it take Big Green so damn long to make a record? Well, there are three reasons:

  1. We’re slow as a mother. Always have been, always will be. That’s just the speed we’re built for, man – can’t help it. What the hell, it took us five years to finish International House, and it takes less than an hour to listen to the s.o.b.
  2. We’re oldsters. That’s part of the reason for #1. Not much we can do about that shit. Stick around long enough and you’ll be old, too.
  3. We’re busy-ass mo-fo’s. Matt in particular has a raft of responsibilities. I myself don’t have a raft, but I have responsibilities. Hence, we record maybe once a week, whether we need to or not.

Thing is, we tend to approach each album like it’s the Forbin Project. Whether you’re building Colossus or Guardian, it’s a heavy lift. Though thankfully, unlike the Forbin project, the fate of the world doesn’t hang in the balance … and Patty Duke’s father plays no role whatsoever in our production process.

Leftovers and tailings

Some of you (and you know who you are) have asked if there won’t be a sample or two of the current project available at some point. No man can say! We like to toss random recordings out there from time to time – some are leftovers, some are tailings or abandoned experiments. (As you know, Dark Christmas was one of those from our first album, 2000 Years to Christmas.)

The truth is, we haven’t even done any rough mixes yet, which is kind of nuts. We’re also in the process of upgrading from Cubase 9 to Cubase 12 (yes, I know – they just released 13, the motherfuckers) and changing platforms. And hell, we’ve got at least 25 songs under serious construction, with another 15 to 20 started. And another thing …. OUCH.

We’ll get this sucker done, trust me. Or my name isn’t … uh … whatever it is.

Random Lyric

Here’s an old one by Big Green co-founder Ned Danison:

Now the picture in my mind is hazy
Just like the number’s washed off my hand
I’m just another nameless no one
She’s just another faceless one night stand

From the song “A Name and a Face”. Listen to the demo we recorded in 1986:

BIG GREEN 1986 DEMO

News

International House without the pancakes

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What’s up, Big Green visitors? As previously reported, we’re still at work on our splendid new project (as of yet unnamed), tracking, listening back, swearing, deleting, tracking again … rinse and repeat. You know our process: no process! It’s working as well as ever.

Busy as we are, we are finding some spare time to sort through some old file boxes, clean out the attic, etc. We thought this might be a good time to post our second album, International House, on YouTube. We’ve got a couple of tracks posted to a playlist so far (Welcome To It and For Your Majesty’s Amusement), and we invite you to check it out, subscribe, etc., particularly if you haven’t heard the album before. Give it a spin and tell us what you think!

Okay … back to the slog. Cue up the next song, folks! Roll tape!

Usual Rubbish

If you’re built upside-down, walk on the ceiling

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Get Music Here

Hmmm. That’s kind of catchy. How about this one? Right …. nothing on the applause meter. Okay, your turn. That’s just goddamned awesome. Now let me try one. Sucks. WHY WAS I BORN?

Oh, hi. Yes, we’re working. As one of those performing rock/pop groups that composes its own material, we, of course, need an editorial process. You just walked in on one of our markup meetings. Here’s how it works: we write out a lyric on a big sheet of white paper, then hang it up on the wall. Everyone gets a chance to cross words out and add words in. We decide with a roll of the dice who goes first. If the winner of the dice roll is Marvin (my personal robot assistant), I have to put a bucket on my head. Then Matt is invited to draw a face on the bucket with magic marker. Got all that?

Sausage making 101

I’ve written about our creative process many times on this blog. Think of my posts as helpful tips for songwriting, especially for those who aspire to be as commercially unsuccessful as we’ve been. Now, let me just say right here and now that not everyone is cut out to reach that lofty goal. It takes a certain special something to be this big of a flop. You either got it or you don’t, as the saying goes. And baby, we got it.

How do you write a massively non-commercial song that almost no one will be able to relate to, except perhaps your neighbor’s dog? Well, it’s not as hard as it sounds. You start with subject matter – something real niche-y, like the history of cardboard. We, for example, chose Rick Perry for one of our albums. Now that may seem like a crass attempt at capitalizing on someone else’s fame, drafting behind them as they sail along. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, it’s so far from the truth, it circled the globe and bumped into the truth from the other side.

The ballad of Cousin Rick

Look – if you’re going to be as unpopular as Big Green, you need to pick something to write about that’s even more unpopular. Rick Perry was low hanging fruit in that regard (see Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick). So Matt wrote a boatload of songs about him, and I wrote a handful. That’s our usual ratio. You could say I’m more careful when I write, but that would be a lie. I rely on found words, forced rhymes, and a bottle of tempera paint so that I can squeeze it all over my lyric sheet when I decide it’s garbage. It’s cathartic, trust me – just give it a try.

Does this look convincing enough?

Thing is, as a band we’re kind of built upside-down. I mean, Big Green started out with the weird songs. You know what I’m talking about – Sweet Treason, The Milkman Lives, Going To Andromeda, all that stuff, then those umpteen million Christmas songs. After that, it was International House weirdness, then Cowboy Scat, and finally, Ned Trek. Now we’ve got a boatload of songs about … wait for it …. interpersonal relationships. You know – the stuff that most bands start with before they go all weird and shit. We’re like freaking Benjamin Button, except that I hate that stupid movie.

Where next?

I don’t know, man …. we’ve got some recording to do. Lots of songs, damn it. There’s certainly at least one album’s worth of unreleased material, and maybe even a box set. That’s right – we could record all the songs, put them in a cardboard box, set the box out into the middle of the road, and hope our fans chance upon it. That’s called “marketing”, kids. Ask your mother.

Usual Rubbish

Put it all in the basket, if it fits

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2000 Years to Christmas

Well, now, I’m not sure we need that. At least, not in that quantity. And for god’s sake, none of those. What are we, made of money? Budget, my little friend, budget!

Oh … hi, everybody. Allow me to pretend that I didn’t know you were there. (Thank you for that indulgence.) You just caught us in the midst of a semi-monthly shopping trip. We go to the big market in the middle of this very humble little town and wheel a cart around. Then, once we’ve realized that we don’t have enough money to fill the cart, we push that aside and pick up a shopping basket.

No trouble like money trouble

You know what they say. There’s no reek that beats ass, and there’s no trouble that beats broke. (Is that really what they say? Well …. someone says it somewhere, I’ll wager.) Shopping trips always remind us of how little capital we have to work with. And before you crypto currency freaks start jumping all over my shit with investment opportunities and NFTs, let me emphasize that NO, WE DO NOT HAVE ANY MONEY. WE CAN’T EVEN FILL A SHOPPING CART.

Now that I’ve said that, let me contradict myself. We can afford small things. Not small diamonds, mind you, or little bits of gold. No, things like leeks, individual walnuts, an apple or two. (If we keep going with this, we could end up with a waldorf salad.) In any case, I don’t want to paint too grim a picture. We don’t want any pity – no pity, no thank you. No THANK you. (For more about the significance of this phrase, see Rod Steiger in In The Heat Of The Night.)

Just forget it, Abe. We ain't got the scratch.

Shameless plea for help

Okay, now I’m going to contradict myself again. The thing is, with prices on the rise (and I know you’re heard all about it), we’re getting less and less into that little shopping basket. For instance, instead of five leeks, we’re down to three. We even have to ask the nut monger to cut a walnut in half for us. Can’t imagine the dirty looks we get when we make these requests. It’s humiliating …. JUST HUMILIATING.

The thing is, you can help … and it won’t cost you a dime. Let me ‘splain. There’s a little thing out there called the internets. Turns out, you can listen to music over the internets through a variety of means. Maybe you have Spotify, or Apple Music, or Amazon Music, or whatever the fuck. Okay, so go to one of these services and look up Big Green – particularly our albums, 2000 Years To Christmas or International House – and play any one (or several) of the tracks. In fact, just build a playlist of both albums and run them on a loop while you cook dinner (and perhaps listen to something else on another device).

Mother lode of sorts

Now, if you’re subscribed to one of these services, the fee for playing our songs is zilch. But we get valuable revenue. It’s an astronomical return. By that I mean, like with a distant star, you need a telescope to see it. I think we get $0.000978 per play on our tracks, but I may be exaggerating. That’s the miracle of the digital marketplace at work, my friends.

Of course, that adds up over the centuries. Who knows – there may come a time in the distant future when we can afford maybe six or seven leeks in out shopping basket.

Usual Rubbish

Celebrating a little early this time.

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2000 Years to Christmas

Man, it has been a long time. But not THAT long. Still, I forgot how the hell that last song ended. And track number seven I don’t remember doing at all! My head is like a cotton swab. Mother of pearl.

Hi, everybody. Now, I don’t want to create the impression that Big Green is one of those old man groups that just reflects back on their own sorry history. That said, I was archiving some old recordings this week. As it happens, that’s what bands sometimes do when they … I don’t know … reach a certain age. I DON’T WANT TO DISCUSS IT.

Whoops – sorry. Anyway, got the chance to listen back to some stuff and it occurred to me that our second album, International House, is nearing a kind of significant anniversary. Quite a coincidence, that.

What’s the coincidence, Joe?

Well, I’m gonna tell you. As you will see in my Political Rant this week, this is also the twentieth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Who can forget those heady days back in the early 2000s, when the ground was still smoking from 9/11 and W. Bush was heating up the pork and beans, getting ready to watch some good bomb-dropping? I know I can’t (though fuck knows I’ve tried).

The coincidence is this: it is also the 14th anniversary of International House, which included a number of songs that bear on the early war on terror. The one I kept thinking of today was Enter the Mind, a song Matt wrote about the CIA black sites. Now, some might say that 14 is not a significant anniversary. I beg to differ! I’ll have you know that 14 is the ivory anniversary … or is it the one when you give your spouse the box set of Electric Light Orchestra’s greatest hits? Always get those mixed up. (They’re both the same color, you see.)

A fitting observance. Or not.

There are a lot of ways we could observe this ivory anniversary of International House. We might, for instance, move into a house and out of this drafty abandoned mill. We might throw stones into the middle of the street and hope that passing baptist ministers happen upon them. Or we could, I don’t know, put the whole damn album on YouTube. Either way, we could do something other than talk about it.

Frankly, I’m not a big fan of promoting old product. International House was our album-length retrospective on the W. Bush years. Some of the shit we were complaining about back then is still in effect today. But it’s still a period piece, if you will. We wanted an exclamation point on that sucker, not a period, but there you go.

There’s a place in time

Hey, look – we all have history. We all came from somewhere and are headed somewhere else. Maybe those two somewheres are the same-wheres – who knows? The way I see it, if we concentrate on the present long enough, it will be the past. And if we turn our eyes to the future, that future will soon be the present. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

And so, I’ll listen to more old recordings this week. You gotta know where you’ve been before you work out where you’re going. Had enough of cliches? There’s more where that came from!

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: September 2021

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Big Green emerges from its long slumber to deliver a pasted-together program of songs from their back catalog recorded live by Joe – a virtual basement mini-concert, if you will, served up on toast. Hey presto.

This is Gig Green

This is Big Green – September 2021. Features: 1) Put the phone down: Where the hell we’ve been; 2) Joe rehashes the sordid history of Big Green, again; 3) Song: Round Up, by Big Green – live solo version; 4) Song: Hey Caveman, by Big Green – live solo version; 5) A humble non-COVID cough; 6) Song: Do It Every Time, by Big Green – live solo version; 7) Song: Meet Me In The Middle, by Big Green – live solo version; 8) Song: Johnny’s Gun, by Big Green – live solo version; 9) What’s behind Johnny’s Gun, aside from Johnny; 10) Song: Rich Man, by Big Green – live solo version; 11) Coming repulsions … I mean, attractions; 12) Time for us to go.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Usual Rubbish

Getting all the flashing lights straight

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2000 Years to Christmas

There, that’s got it. Perfect execution. Couldn’t do another one like that if I tried. Okay, Marvin, you can hit the stop button. Wait, what? YOU DIDN’T HIT RECORD?

Hi, everybody. While this seems like the very next moment in my blog post, it’s actually several hours after wrote that intro. It takes me that long to disassemble Marvin (my personal robot assistant) piece by piece and then put him back together. And as I am not particularly mechanically inclined, I usually get something wrong on the assembly side. (Last week I somehow incorporated our toaster into his torso unit.)

Okay, so those of you who are musicians (and I know there are a few of you out there) can appreciate what we’re going through these days. Performance venues are flagging, people are afraid of going out, money is scarce – situation normal, right? Our response to this crisis is exactly what you would expect from Big Green – we pull the shades down and get back into bed. Then, first thing the next morning, we sleep until noon. Then, THEN, we go down and look for snacks. That’s how we roll.

We’ll do it live!

I was the first to suggest that we start recording live performances right here in the Cheney Hammer Mill. My bandmates met that suggestion with a resounding silence. Anti Lincoln thought it was a good idea, but he was drunk on the news that his positive-polarity counterpart had been named #1 President of all time once again by the C-SPAN Historian poll. (How that would be a positive reflection on him is another question.)

Well, when it came time to record some live takes, uh … I was the only one who showed up. Now, maybe I forgot to distribute the memo. And maybe I forgot to write the memo. And maybe it never occurred to me to send a memo around in the first place. But for whatever reason, it became clear to me that I would be the only one doing this shit. Just me and my tape opp Marvin.

Choosy mothers

Of course, the question always comes down to which songs I should try to do. It’s actually and easier question than you might think. Since I am equally unpracticed on all of our songs, it really doesn’t matter what the playlist turns out to be. So I pulled some from International House, one or two from Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, and a handful of numbers we haven’t included on any of our albums.

Next step, I put the songs in a blender and ran it on Frappe for 45 seconds. That gave them a smooth consistency they never had before, frankly …. maybe a bit too smooth. So I poured that bilge down the drain and limped back into the studio, guitar in hand, looking for trouble. Then trouble found me.

Uh, Marvin ... shouldn't you be minding the board?

Know-how? No how!

Now, as some of you know, I attempt to play many instruments. When I say many, I really just mean three – piano, bass, guitar. I am probably most technically inept at the guitar, so naturally, I chose to record most of my live numbers on six string, without accompaniment.

Why? It’s the challenge, my friend. We cannot make things too easy on ourselves. How far would mankind have gotten if we had taken that attitude. Do you think for one moment that we would be anywhere near the brink of total destruction if we had chosen to be content with the way things are? Not a chance.

Anyway, my lame attempts at covering our own damn songs should be dropping sometime soon. Stay tuned.

Usual Rubbish

Another week on duty at the recycling center

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2000 Years to Christmas

No, man … I think it starts like this. Or maybe it’s a little slower than that. But it’s in E for sure. What? It’s in A? Are you sure? Damn ….

You know, I’ve never been very good at total recall. I don’t think my time at the Cheney Hammer Mill has improved my memory, either. So, what the hell am I talking about? Well … I’m gonna tell you. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and I have been pulling out the old numbers. No, I don’t mean numerals in Old English script. No, I don’t mean stale joints. I mean songs, damn it!

Sorry. That came out a little stronger than I meant it to be. Suffice to say that we’ve decided to take a few hours to dust off some items from our back catalog. It’s a catalogue of mostly Matt’s songs, as he is the more prolific writer, by far, but regardless of authorship, there’s a lot of shit in there. (And by “in there” I mean in a recondite side room of the hammer mill where they used to keep the machine tools.)

Invisible chestnuts

Now, of course, we have a process. Marvin finds a song in the machine room. He dusts it off, as I suggested earlier, and hands it to me. Because we don’t write songs out in standard notation (or any other kind, for that matter), it’s a little hard to get a grip on a thirty-year-old song, particularly when it only exists in the vaguest metaphysical sense.

I’ve often (or perhaps never) said that Marvin’s sole super power is his ability to carry around insubstantial things. Once I saw him pushing an invisible hand cart stacked ten high with invisible cases of Nehi cola. That makes him the ideal automaton for the job of retrieving song ideas from the dustbin of history. Lord knows, there’s likely to be a chestnut or two in there. Perhaps more.

Twang!

Entering fram-a-geddon

Okay, so once Marvin trundles in with a brass armload of decades-old songs, I get right to work. I pick up my superannuated Martin guitar and start twanging until the neighbors begin throwing things. That typically takes as long as five or six minutes. Then I close the window and start over, slapping the strings with my thumb and fingers like I just don’t effing care.

Why, you may ask, don’t I use a pick? Very simple, my friends. I don’t freaking know how, that’s why. Also, you can drop a pick, but try … just try to drop your thumb. Not so easy, is it? And before you ask, yes, my right thumb gets sore and calloused and all the rest of it. And yes, my chaotic framming sounds kind of extra twangy. But a dude has to do what a dude has to do. And dis dude does dat ding. (Yes, I said that. I’m ashamed of it, but I did, in fact, say that.)

Time for the round up

Like I said earlier, there are a few of my songs in that basket. One of them is called “Good Old Boys Round Up”, which was slated for our second album, International House, but never got off the ground. I think we started to record it, but it went all pear shaped. Not that there’s anything wrong with the shape of pears, but … anyway.

I’ve been jangling that sucker a bit and will likely do some “live” virtual recordings of that and other selections, then post them somewhere, somehow, maybe with some video, who the hell knows? Well … you’ll be the first to know.

Usual Rubbish

Taking the words WAY too literally.

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2000 Years to Christmas

Jesus, man … another song about geoscience? Just wait until Mitch gets his hands on that. What’s the topic this time – gravitation? I guess he’s already fucked with that sufficiently. Still, I worry.

Yeah, that’s right. No one wants to see your friends in Big Green just moping around the abandoned hammer mill like a bunch of sad sacks, bickering with one another. So we make an extra effort to smile when we get visitors. And if we’re not in the mood, we get Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to do it for us. No, he doesn’t have anything like what you might call a mouth, but he’s got some grill work to show, and that will do in a pinch.

What’s the beef? Nothing serious. Just interrogating my illustrious brother Matt about the subject matter of his recent songwriting. Some of you may recall that his lyrics have spawned some trouble in the past. No, they’re not controversial or obscene in any way, but they do give Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, some bad ideas. And he tends to take our song lyrics very literally.

The Question of George

A couple of years ago it was Matt’s song “Why Not Call It George?”, the lyric for which has always sounded to me, in part, like a bulleted list of mad-man items:

Gravity can: (a) make your mind flow out from your tongue; (b) take your eyes downtown to see the nuns all bunched up on the tiles; (c) pull your lips back from your smile

(Hear it yourself: Check out our live version of the song on our YouTube channel.)

Parts of that song made Mitch think he could (dare I say it?) rule … the world! Or at least reverse continental drift and reclaim Pangaea. I got nervous when he started spending months at a time in the lab … and the ground started shaking. Not. good.

This doesn't seem like such a good idea.

Eruption Imminent!

Then there was “Volcano Man”, a track from our 2nd album, International House. Mitch started obsessing over that one as well. You know how grade school kids sometimes build those baking soda volcanoes for school projects? Well, that’s a miniature version of what we had to deal with around this dump. Of course, Mitch had to open a vent straight down to the Earth’s molten caramel center, just so that the ‘cano was authentic. He was doing it with an upside-down rocket, Crack In The World style. What a mess!

Anyhow, I’ve tried to encourage Matt to write songs about less volatile things. You know, like …. butterflies, or cobblestones, or vegetable stew. Maybe you’ve got some suggestions that don’t suck (like these do).