I told you to drop it on Sunday. Did you drop it? No, no …. the PODCAST, not the quart of milk. I KNOW you dropped the milk, for crying out loud. Jesus Christmas.
Hah … speaking of Christmas, we had a little present for you this week in the form of a new installment of our long-running podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Call it Christmas in July, or call it swiss cheese … whatever you like. The audience is always right, am I right? (Only when I’m in the audience.) Sure, it wasn’t as … um … generously proportioned as many of our previous installments. There was no Ned Trek episode, true. And there was no Matt, but we will do something about that soon, my friends. I just have to pry him away from the falcons and beavers long enough to talk into a mic for half an hour. Should be child’s play. (NOT).
Anyway, so what was in this episode, eh? Here’s some of what we inserted, minus the leavening – a veritable audio flatbread of goodness:
Put the phone down. I talk a whole bunch of trash about Big Green’s origin story, its origins, and its origins’ origins. We did, as it turns out, embellish the truth a little bit, but not so much as to cause discomfort. Then I tell the tale of our first demo, which we’ve posted on this very blog. Knowing that most who listen to the podcast never visit our site, I then elected to PLAY the four-song demo on the podcast.
Song: A Name And A Face. Written by Big Green co-founder Ned Danison, this song is actually a pretty apt description of hook-up culture in the 1980s. Ned and I do the singing, Ned plays guitar and some key parts, I play piano, Matt’s on bass, and club drummer Pete Young is on drums. Somewhat sloppy recording, but it sounds clear enough after 30-odd years in the closet.
Song: She Caught The Katy. This is a Taj Mahal song we used to do as part of our club show. I do the singing and the piano part, Ned does guitar and keys, Matt plays his Rick bass, and Pete Young joins us on drums.
Song: Bad Boy. Lennon and McCartney song that Ned loved. He sings, and the rest of us play our various instruments. The only switch here is that the drums are played by singer/songwriter Dale Haskell, friend of the band and school chum of Ned.
Song: Slippin’ and Slidin’. Our attempt at a Little Richard number. It’s a little beyond me, frankly, but I give the vocal a try while Ned, Matt, and Pete Young back me up.
Song: Just Five Seconds. This is a recording from the early nineties, after Ned left the band. Matt wrote this one and does the main vocal. Recorded in Bob Acquaviva’s studio in Utica, NY. Pete Young or Dale on drums? Trick question – it’s a freaking drum machine.
Song: Grandfather’s War. I stumble through an impromptu rendition of this old number from the eighties. Frankly, it sounds better with the beer hall banter in the background.
Song: Nutcracker. One of the many Christmas songs by Matt that didn’t get on to 2000 Years To Christmas. This is a kind of hard-driving number, cheaply recorded on a cassette portastudio back in the late eighties, I think. 1989? Probably.
Song: Honest Man. A song of mine from the nineties, recorded with Matt on my old eight-track DTRS system. Another scratch demo, fit for nought but our tattered old podcast.
That was about it. Enjoy the show. And if you don’t, well … there’s more where that came from.
As part of our 
Put The Phone Down – Matt and I sit down for our usual rangy discussion of whatever floats into either of our tiny brains. This month’s random topics include a recap of the Ned Trek episode you just heard; a brief riff on a local meat market and its longstanding sausage-based slogan; Matt’s recollection of a backstage fight between actors playing Buffalo Bill and Jesus Christ in a locally-produced musical back in 1978 or so; Our thoughts on the unusual, perhaps singular, playing style of our late friend and one-time guitarist Tim Walsh; Some news of beavers and sweet potatoes …. and so on.