Tag Archives: music

Usual Rubbish

End game.

Leave a comment

I’ll hold the ingots, and you swing the hammer. No, wait. We have to heat them up first. Where’s my butane lighter? Left it on the stove, I think….

Oh, hi. Just caught the core members of Big Green (and its motley entourage) in the process of preparting our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, for publication and distribution. Very complicated process. You know how bizarrely complex our creative process can get; the very task of writing and recording these albums involves no less than 14,000 individual muscle actions per song (and that’s not including all the grimacing). Christ on a bike – by the time we got our last album International House to market in 2008, my face muscles were frozen in place until well after the holidays.

So, how does the manufacturing and distribution work? Simple. We melt down the .wav files into a slurry, pour them into rectangular forms, and cut them into shards – or “ingots” – about the size of a pack of cigarettes. We get Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to sand the edges off of each block of music, then carefully insert them through the mail-slot like hole in the specialized distribution mechanism our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee fashioned for us during his last vaction in Barbados. (He was bored with all of the waterskiing.) That sends the ingots deep into cyberspace and the hungry ears of listeners all across the universe.

Now, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick presents a special challenge. Let me explain. Our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, had 13 tracks. International House had 16. Cowboy Scat promises to include no less than 21 tracks! An unheard of bonanza, true, but think of the ingots! So many corners to sand down… Poor Marvin! What’s more, because Cowboy Scat is rumored to be the soundtrack to a lost musical, each track is attributed to a different music group that sounds strangely like us. That simple fact complicates its distribution in ways that I cannot describe here … for reasons … I cannot describe here.

Anyway, none of these difficulties will dissuade us. We will release this album – you have Mitch’s personal guarantee. (Just leave me out of it, okay?)

Usual Rubbish

Scatology.

Leave a comment

That’s right, it’s “crab nebula”. What does it mean? How the hell should I know? What am I, some kind of astronomer or something?

Jesus Christ on a bike (which he may well could have been, had he lived in modern times), your brother goes and writes a song lyric and the next thing you know people expect you to tell them what the Sam Hill it means. If I knew that, then I would know what the hell Matt is talking about half the time when he talks … and I clearly don’t, even though he is my own flesh and blood. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. It’s his songs that are heavy. Mucho heavy, baby.

What song am I being asked about? Well, it’s one of the tracks on our forthcoming album … I mean, collection, entitled Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. (Rumor has it the songs are part of the soundtrack of a musical about our cousin Rick Perry, but that the musical itself was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe.) The song in question is called “Evening Crab Nebula”, and it takes the form of three pieces of sage advice to Cousin Rick from one of his political consultants; one pep talk regarding his primary opponents; one cautionary trope about unseating a president; and this observation about the dangers of being too devout in your beliefs:

If you’re gonna’ follow that evening star
better be sure how wise you are
If you’re gonna’ follow that evening star
better not follow it all too far
or you’ll be choked and froze in the vacuum of space
Can’t treat the Crab Nebula
like it’s there to direct yuh
by pointing out some pertinent
biblical place

Now is that so hard to decipher? Well, of course it is. All political advice is that way, right? That’s why those consultants get the big bucks. (Where have I heard that lyric before? Hmmmm….)

Usual Rubbish

Enter the pod.

Leave a comment

The thing is, you have to take a crowbar to the lid, like this. Unggh. Unggggh. Arrrgh! Okay, that’s harder than it looks.

Visual Approximation of Podcast
Visual Approximation of Podcast

Oh, hi, stalwart friends of Big Green. It is I, Joe of Big Green. Just caught me in the process of trying to get the lid off of the latest episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our very popular (in the plant kingdom) monthly podcast, just posted over the last couple of days and ready for download. We want to give people an idea of what they can expect when they download this sucker – all 1 hour and 45 minutes of it, or thereabouts. Wouldn’t want you having to cope with a pig in a poke, especially a porker of those dimensions. You have a right to know what’s in that great big bag of stupid… and know you shall.

Here’s what’s included in March Fiendraiser 2013 (our bogus fundraising episode), to wit:

Ned Trek VIII: The Corn of Ozark Five – Captain Willard Mittillius Romney and First Officer Mr. Ned (the talking dressage horse) are invited down to a little get-together with Louie Gomert, governor of Ozark Five … only to find their commander thrown into a titanic battle, mano-a-mano, with a hideous creature from beyond space already. Introduced by former Secretary of State and War Criminal at Large, Dr. Henry Kissinger.

Put The Phone Down – Our monthly gab session covering a range of topics, from birthday wishes to the entire universe, this month in dead famous people, strange reappearances, and so on. We also shake the tin cup for financial support. Or at least moral support. (We have even less morals than we do financials.)

Previously Unreleased Big Green tracks – We toss up three recordings like skeet and invite you to blow them to bits with your pump rifle of music criticism (talk about tortured metaphors!). Two demos from our 2008 International House album project; one that didn’t make it onto the final album, a song called Round Up; the second a demo version of Matt’s song Come Back Home. There is also a new, first-draft recording of a song we used to play in our terrestrial live performance days – a song called The Milkman Lives.

So listen in good health, friends. As always, let us know what you think … even before you think it.

 

Podcast, Uncategorized

This Is Big Green: March Fiendraiser 2013

Audio Leave a comment

Big Green shakes the tree of perpetual folly with three previously unreleased tracks, a new episode of Ned Trek, and shameless kvetching. Give generously.

Features:

1) Ned Trek VIII: The Corn of Ozark Five;
2) Put the phone down: Matt and Joe shake the tin cup for freedom;
3) Happy birthday, universe;
4) Departures and arrivals: Chavez, Achebe, Pearle, and others;
5) Song: Quality Lincoln (lame live version), by Big Green;
6) Song: Come Back Home (demo version), by Big Green;
7) More bogus fundraising;
8) Song: Round Up (demo version), by Big Green;
9) Conversations at the seed store;
10) Song: The Milkman Lives, by Big Green;
11) Over and …over

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Usual Rubbish

Cheer up.

Leave a comment

Get out of my room, Marvin (my personal robot assistant). You too, tubey. I’m having one of my captain sunshine days, as you can tell. In fact, I’m rear-admiral motherfucking sunshine today, mister.

This means war
In a bit of a mood today.

Oh, fuck…. I mean, fudge. Didn’t know you were listening in. Sorry you had to hear that outburst. Nerves are getting a little frayed around the hammer mill just lately. What the hell, I’ve been sleeping in an abandoned hammer-stock storage silo for the last 10 years, springs poking out of my mattress like in those old cartoons, the windows leaky and cracked, the mortar crumbling to dust between ancient bricks. Not to put too fine a point on it – this place is a DUMP. Now I know why they abandoned the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill.

What’s that? They condemned the place? What the hell, Marvin … you had that in your memory banks all this time? Weren’t you just dying to tell me at some point before this? Irrelevant?!? I’ve obviously got to talk to your inventor about upgrading your relevance sensor. To say nothing of your gaydar. The freaking boy scouts should hire your ass. (Damn, there I go again! Sorry, people of Earth.)

I’ve got a case of what’s called Dyspepsia Engineeris, an affliction that usually strikes individuals in the middle of a large music post-production process. Mixing an album consumes every ounce of your creativity, and hell … I’ve only got two ounces to begin with. Needless to say, we haven’t been producing new material, just finishing what’s already in the can. We have, however, dug up some old, previously unreleased stuff that we can play on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, in the spaces where we might ordinarily have published new production. We’ll pour some of that in before it posts, I promise you. And one day, one day, we will return to making music (as opposed to merely mixing it).

Well … now that I’ve chased all of my friends away, I guess I can get back to … to … mixing. Arrgh.

Uncategorized

This is Big Green: Hangover Edition 2013

Audio Leave a comment

This Is Big Green: January 2013

Big Green shares the agony of the morning after with another installment of Ned Trek, space travel’s only talking horse, plus three Big Green songs and some assorted groaning. Cheers.

This is Big Green – Hangover Edition 2013. Features: 1) Song: Volcano Man, by Big Green; 2) Ned Trek VI: The further adventures of Romney’s talking horse; 3) Song: Johnny’s Gun (demo version), by Big Green; 4) Put the phone down: Our sucky science fiction future, and other topics; 5) Song: Oh, Larry, by Big Green; 6) Turn it down, the radio; 7) Talk of language; 8) Ignominious implosion.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Usual Rubbish

Back pages.

Leave a comment

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

Preppin’ for Tex.

Leave a comment

Got your cowboy hat yet? Oh. Okay, why the hell not? Just go downtown, walk into the cowboy supply store, and pull a ten-gallon hat off the rack. What’s so hard about that?

Oh… hey, man. Caught me, once again, in the midst of lecturing the help. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) refers to it derisively as “reprogramming”, but you know better. All I asked him to do was to purchase his own cowboy gear – that’s all. Is that so unreasonable? Am I expected to pay for everything around here? What the hell – I’m the “job creator”, right? I’m the one using “air quotes” left and right. Haven’t I done my part in this employer-robot assistant relationship? Huh?

Okay, so why am I asking Marvin to dress up like Tex? So that he’ll match the rest of us, of course, when we start shooting videos to support our upcoming album of Cousin Rick Perry songs. What the hell, we can’t release an album of songs nominally by the governor of Texas without donning ten-gallon (or, at least, 5-liter) headgear. That would be tantamount to malpractice. And what is malpractice but a crutch for cats who can’t blow? (Okay… I murdered that quote, but it had it coming.)

Admittedly, there is more to making a new album than getting matching cowboy suits. Much more. Like shoes. And pizza boxes. Bubble-stuff in a plastic jar. What else? Hmmmm. Corn husks. Put them all in a cement mixer and flip the switch, baby. Round and round they go, and after a few hours, pour it out into a six-up mold and start stamping out those CD’s. Nothing to it.

What about the music part of it? Details, details. We’re working on it, that’s all I can say. All of those first-draft podcast songs? We’re polishing them to a sparkling luster. We’re patching them up like ten miles of bad road. We’re turning knobs, flipping switches, and cranking …. cranks. We’re making the little lights flash like glow-bugs. That’s a bit of doing.

So, yes… we will have an album. Big Green will crawl again across the shattered landscape of American music anyhow. In cowboy hats. Yee-haw.

Usual Rubbish

Thing is.

Leave a comment

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

Albumination.

Leave a comment

We’re out of the big box retail business. Easy come, easy go. Now what do we do for scratch? Start scratching? What am I, a dee-jay? (Perhaps I am…. )

Leave us face it. As so many of our closest friends and advisors have told us, Big Green’s money-making gene is recessive. The cash bone definitely is not connected to the Green bone. Even when we have a hole to China’s most productive consumer good factory – literally a tunnel to the bank! – it blows up in our faces. The gods want us humble. They have given us a mission, and we must fulfill it. Live simply in an abandoned mill. Make music. Travel to other planets via questionable means. Go forth and do as I tell you. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

What the…. got gods for three minutes and they’re already demanding as hell. Well, you should know that we’re not letting the grass grow under our feet. (Except the mansized tuber, of course – that’s his natural state.) As you may be aware, Matt and I have been busy with our podcast. A grueling monthly broadcast schedule, now in its eighth grueling month. Ever eat gruel for eight months straight? Just try it sometime, Ebeneezer. Even you will be calling for more bread, damn the ha-penny extra. Right…. where was I? Ah, yes. Work. Work, work, work. The podcast demands a great deal out of us – namely, that we turn on the recorder, stand in front of studio mics, and talk total, rambling nonsense like we always do. Then we press stop. (I told you – it’s a great deal.)

Then there are the songs. We’ve done a lot of Cousin Rick Perry songs – it’s becoming a bit of a theme, like Christmas or rare foot diseases. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been good enough to help track some of the numbers. In fact, we’re thinking about pulling it together into an album – finishing the songs we threw together for the podcast and putting out an album of Rick Perry themed material. Would the resulting product be an abomination of sorts? Perhaps in the Eyes (or the Ears) of the Almighty Rick. He is among our more sensitive cousins, to be sure.

So, yes, our hands are full, our hearts (and wallets) light, our spirits…. I don’t know, I’ll go with spongy.