That doesn’t sound much like a Sousaphone. What if you cup your hands over your mouth … like this? Wa-wuh-wa-wuh. How about that? Too much like a muted trombone? Very well.

Okay, I admit it … sometimes it’s hard to arrange a song when you’ve only got two musicians in the room, and one of them is me … and the other is my brother. (That’s brother of the same mother, Matt Perry.) The palette is limited, let us say, and of course Matt can’t play guitar and bass at the same time. (I’ve had more than one talk with him about his shortcomings.) And my keyboarding is, well, mostly confined to piano like objects, organs, etc. We’re recording new, mostly very silly songs, and they call for stuff we can’t do ourselves. At least, not without some modifications.

These are songs for the podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, and more specifically, for our next Ned Trek episode. Matt wanted a sousaphone like sound, so he attempted to make it himself. On one song, I wanted a harp-like sound, so I fashioned one out of a hair comb and an electric razor. That, too, didn’t work out so well. In any case, we end up just resorting to the usual axes, with a few weird noises dropped in from Neptune. Then we go on an interstellar tour. That’s the Big Green way.

Matt and I have thought about adding members, but I have to tell you, this Hammer Mill is overcrowded even with just the two of us here. I think part of the reason is that this old barn of a place is so stuffed full of creepyness, there’s no air leftover for the rest of us. So the rest of us go celebrate Festivus. And there is much rejoicing. Like when I got those bottlecaps nailed on the bottom of my shoes so I could walk across ice in the winter. That worked … not so great.

Okay, I’ve wandered a bit. Thing is, you might just see us out with a horn player at some point. And maybe someone on kazoo. Stranger things have happened.