Tag Archives: This Is Big Green

Usual Rubbish

Inside Christmas.

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Well, so that was Christmas, eh? What the hell. Kind of … over, isn’t it?

Play it again.Hope all of you are having a good holiday season. Sure, there comes a time when the plate is empty, the music falls silent, and the final champagne bubble pops. But take heart, friends … that time has yet to arrive. So for the nonce, as Governor Scott Walker would say, Molotov!

So, what is your holiday story? Can hardly wait to hear it. Here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we’ve been observing the season in the usual way. All the traditional rituals. And of course, the annual holiday podcast. Kind of puny, actually. I don’t know, maybe … 36 minutes of pure lame-ass awesomeness. WE BRING THE AWESOME.

I think you can imagine what the low lights might be. Here are some of the highlights:

Gold And Silver – Captain Romney sings a song of Christmas cheer from the perspective of an acquisitive, rapacious, mammon worshiper, bent on gain at all cost. Very festive indeed. Easy to waltz to. Contains a twist on every holiday music convention imaginable.

Winter Lock – A new version of a song Matt wrote for one of his Christmas tapes back in the day. What day? Not sure even I remember. Nineties sometime. Probably about the same vintage as most of the songs on 2000 Years To Christmas. Matt penned the majority of his Christmas songs between 1986 and 1996, so pick a year.

Head Cheese Log – This is a cut from 2000 Years To Christmas that we tagged on to the end of this super-skimpy holiday special just to round it off a little bit. Another waltz, for chrissake. What the hell – have we suddenly gone all Wagnerian on you?

Okay, well … it’s a humble gift, even by the standards of Big Green, but it is all we have to offer. We had the choice between too little and too late, and we chose the former. So hell … enjoy. Happy new year and all the rest of it. Now … back to work with me.

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: December 2014

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Big Green delivers the holiday goods with a Special Romney Christmas Special, featuring some uninvited yuletide guests, festive songs, and more. Or less. Either way, enjoy!

This is Big Green – December 2014. Our Annual Christmas Special Broadcast, featuring Willard Mittilius Romney, Captain of the Free Enterprise, his talking dressage horse Ned, as well as special guests Henry Kissinger, the Android Nixon, Big Green (a.k.a. poptacular singing sensation Hansen), and some very special holiday music: 1) Gold and Silver, by Big Green; 2) Romney Christmas Time, by Big Green; 3) Christmas Bombing, by Big Green; 4) Winter Lock, by Big Green; 5) I Can’t Lose, by Big Green; 6) Head Cheese Log, by Big Green (from 2000 Years To Christmas)

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Usual Rubbish

Yule be sorry.

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Marvin (my personal robot assistant)! Can you come in here for a few minutes and vacuum up all these fragments? No, not with your mouth! Use your upholstery attachment. Silly robot.

I don't know about this, Lincoln.Lots to do around the holidays, as you well know. Some tasks are more challenging than others. I’ve always found bending candy canes particularly difficult. A lot of breakage. There’s got to be a better way! (Matt is thinking about taking a correspondence course in pretzel-bending, so maybe some of those skills will be transferable. We shall see.)

As I was saying last week, we have some holiday traditions that we try to observe on a yearly basis. Some of them could be described as strange; others, just a little off the beaten path. Occasionally we try out a new “tradition” and see if it sticks, like that year we put the man-sized tuber on an upside-down wash basin and decorated him like a Christmas tree. I think that was Anti-Lincoln’s idea. Anyway, it lacked that kind of stickiness I was referring to earlier. (Tubey still isn’t talking to Anti-Lincoln … not that tubey talks all that much ordinarily.)

Probably our best-known tradition is writing, recording, and releasing a parcel of Christmas songs – that is, Christmas-themed pop songs. That stretches way back to the late 1980s when brother Matt used to hand out cassette tapes to all and sundry on Christmas eve. Our first album, 2000 Years to Christmas, was a collection of some of our favorites from those ancient tapes – 13 songs drawn from what was easily a catalog of about 60 to 75 songs in total over eight years or so. (That was a large component of Matt’s musical output, though by far not the majority of songs he wrote over that period.)

Now we put them out on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Some of the ones we’ve put out in recent years are additional selections from Matt’s cassette tape holiday basket, re-recorded in our basement studio. Others are more recent concoctions.

So, look under your tree this Christmas for another parcel of holiday cheer from Big Green. Got a laptop and wi-fi? Plunk it under the tree and point your browser to big-green.net/pod. It’s that simple. Santa works in mysterious ways.

Usual Rubbish

Inside the November podcast.

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That was close. No, not the comet – that didn’t end up being close at all. I mean the November podcast. We almost didn’t post before Thanksgiving week, and that would have been a tragedy beyond measure. (Well, beyond my measure, anyway. Not real good at reading the old tragedy yardstick.)

Really big show (or shoe). Anyhow, now that Earth is out of danger (at least from external forces) we can take a few minutes to dissect this month’s episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast and the only avenue we have left for artistic expression. (Cue the violins.) So let’s pop open the hood and see what’s inside, shall we? Here goes …

Ned Trek XXI: Old Maple Glory. Our episodes of the space horse-opera Ned Trek are loosely based on installments of classic Star Trek, as you probably know, except that the ship is named the Free Enterprise and it is commanded by Willard Mitt Romney and his talking dressage horse, Mr. Ned. This episode follows The Omega Glory, roughly speaking, with cousin Rick Perry as the renegade commodore who takes over a primitive, divided planet. The precious resource in contention is syrup. Lots of fist fights.

New Songs. Strewn carelessly throughout the Ned Trek episode are rough drafts of new Big Green songs that loosely describe the emotional currents of the program. Most of these have a sixties rock vibe about them; two are positively psychedelic, particularly the Nixon robot song, “Yorba Linda Mybalinda”. Ned’s song “Nobody Ride” is kind of trippy as well. Doc sticks with the sixties rock milieu with “Doc’s Flapjacks”, and Rick Perry does a celebrity comeback number called “Sugar Shack.” Willard Mitt Romney chimes in with “Super Sugar Christ”, a snappy little swing number. Spotlight on Richard Pearle for “Motherlode”, another ode to unbridled greed. We’ve even included a College pep song for Rick Perry entitled “Hi-Yi-Yi-Yi-Yi,” sung a capella.

Old Song. For good measure, we tossed in a replay of our number from last year, “Don’t Tell Rick!” – our frantic plea to the listener of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick not to blow us in to Governor Perry.

Random Conversation. Our “Put the phone down” segment includes some very impromptu singing, a dissection of the 2014 mid-term election, and other random rants.

So hey … give it a listen, then give us a shout. We always read our email. (Explains a lot.)

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: November 2014

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Big Green arrives nearly on time with its November installment of pure audio glory, featuring a new episode of Ned Trek, seven new Big Green songs, and some strange hooting noises. Hold tight.

This is Big Green – November 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek 21: Old Maple Glory, including seven new Big Green songs, listed as follows; 2) Song: Doc Flapjack, by Big Green; 3) Song: Yorba Linda Mybalinda, by Big Green; 4) Song: Sugar Shack, by Big Green; 5) Song: Motherlode, by Big Green; 6) Song: Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi, by Big Green; 7) Song: Super Sugar Christ, by Big Green; 8 ) Song: Nobody Ride, by Big Green; 9) Put the Phone Down: Matt and Joe discuss the 2014 election, and get the vapors; 10) A visit with Secretary Kissinger, author; 11) There’s a caveman in my soup; 12) Matt looks forward to hunting season (not); 13) Song: Don’t Tell Rick, by Big Green; 14) Joe’s green screen antics; 15) Ignominious exit.

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Usual Rubbish

Tick, tock.

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I don’t know. That looks like a relative of mine. Are you sure this isn’t my family album? Striking resemblance.

Not sure about the shirtless lookOh, hi. We’re just thumbing through a book on the ascent of man. If I were to pick one that looks most like me, it would clearly be Australopithecus, from maybe 3.5 million years ago. Old school, if there ever was one, and yet a mere wink of the eye in evolutionary terms. So I’m a throwback, for chrissake. Curvature of the spine. Small brain case. Predisposition for randomness. (Good thing old Australo had thumbs, or I couldn’t thumb through this thing.)

I guess we’re thinking about evolution around the Cheney Hammer Mill because, well … hell, somebody has to. It’s about time Big Green got down to the hard work of advancing the species. God knows we have precious little else to do. No gigs on the horizon. A podcast waiting to be recorded and edited. Songs standing unfinished. Come to think of it, we DO have a lot to do, just not a lot of will to act. I guess that just boils down to being lazy mothers. And maybe that’s just okay. Sure, we live in an abandoned hammer mill. Sure, our audience is scattered throughout the galaxy with the exception of the planet Earth. But we still have our pride … even if it’s only pride in lethargy.

I suppose if we were going to work on human evolution, some might suggest we consider starting with the development of a little organ called ambition. That seems to have been left our of our band’s DNA, and rightfully so. Lookit – Big Green is about making music of dubious quality, not the business of hawking said music to all and sundry. Some people are born with the sales chromosome, some just the beer chromosome; some both. It’s not for us to decide, my friends. I have concluded my opening statements!

Wow, that got a little heated. It’s almost like I grew that ambition gene just in the last five minutes. Could do with a new pair of genes.

Usual Rubbish

Genericville.

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Do we have 1.5 children? Only if you double-count the man-sized tuber. Let’s ask anti-Lincoln to do the counting – ever since the war, he sees everything twice.

Stupid comet!Oh, hello. Just working up our census form. Don’t mind me. Didn’t know there was going to be a 2014 census, but I guess that’s understandable, since we don’t get a lot of news flowing into the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our squathouse. Just yesterday some dude in a Fedora knocked on the front gate and handed me a questionnaire. He said I had to finish it by Saturday or his friend might set the mill on fire. (I think the friend’s name was Giancarlo.) How old is Mitch Macaphee? No … I mean before the youth serum?

Questions, questions. Way too much on Big Green’s plate lately, I can tell you. We’ve got the THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast, of course – always time-consuming. Our next episode of Ned Trek, for instance, will feature as many as 6 or 7 new songs, never before heard (and probably never again), all apropos of the ridiculous story line. This is part of the biggest crop of new material to come out of Big Green in, I don’t know, twenty years or so. Over the past year or so, we’ve written and began recording something like 30 new songs; that’s since we finished Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick last year.

Then there’s the pressure to get out and play in front of an audience, for chrissake. We considered doing a gig or two on Mars this month, but given the fact that the red planet is going to be buzzed by comet Siding Spring this weekend, we thought better of it. We have had run-ins with comets before; can’t say that we ever got the better of those confrontations. Chilly little hunks of ice, those comets. No pity. Who can blame them? They’re billions of years old, and only get a little sun once every million years or so, then it’s back to the Ort cloud. But I digress.

Hmmm…. Should I account for multiple personalities on this census form? Yes, I’m back on anti-Lincoln again (and his alter ego, anti-Edgar Allan Poe).

Usual Rubbish

Inside October.

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I think time may be stretching, or rather, elongating. I don’t know the correct term – get a physicist on the phone. Or call our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee – he may have the answer. All I know is that July turned into August, September turned into October, and so on. I can feel the holidays crawling up my ass.

How did I end up on this crapfest?In any case, you may have noticed that the October installment of our THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast has been posted, sent out to ipods and other devices, RSS’ed around the globe, and played on somebody’s smartphone somewhere. Better late than never, I always say … but then, I am one of the people producing the podcast, so from another perspective, late may not be better than never. Be that as it may, here is a look under the hood of this latest audio crapfest:

Ned Trek 20: The Shamesters of Quadzillion. In this, the lastest episode of our ongoing bizarre-ass Star Trek parody, Captain Willard Mittilius Romney and his senior officers are captured and held prisoner on the planet Quadzillion, where they are compelled by the resident oligarchs to compete in the political media arena with other mindless also-rans. Guest stars include Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Chief Justice John Roberts, Sheldon Adelson, Charles Koch, and Foster Friess. (Classic Star Trek fan reference: Gamesters of Triskelion)

Song: The Bishop. This is a selection from our 2008 album International House. Matt wrote, arranged, and I believe even mixed this track. A mostly acoustic number with some nice-ish choral parts.

Put the Phone Down. Our conversation this month has a number of minor themes, probably the most prominent of which is a virtual visit from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is apparently hawking his new book so broadly it even got onto our lousy podcast. Matt excoriates me for my technical ineptitude, then talks about his encounter with Egbert Bagg. Kissinger joins us for a song.

Song: North Camp Pasture. One of my songs from our most recent album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. This one is about Rick’s hunting camp, which used to bear a remarkably offensive racist name before that became politically inconvenient for the ambitious Rick and his kin. More broadly about the legacy of racism, Jim Crow, in modern American life.

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THIS IS BIG GREEN: October 2014

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Big Green greets Autumn with another blockbuster episode of Ned Trek, a couple of Big Green songs, some wisdom from Henry Kissinger, and more. Avaunt, foul Summer!

This Is Big Green – October 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek 20: The Shamesters of Quadzillion; 2) Song: The Bishop, by Big Green (from our album International House); 3) Put the Phone Down: Matt and Joe argue over technical diffulties (and are interrupted by technical difficulties); 4) A visit with Secretary Kissinger, author; 5) Matt’s encounter with Bagg; 6) Song: North Camp Pasture, by Big Green (from our album Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick; 7) Kissinger joins us for a song; 8.) Exit, stage wrong.

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Usual Rubbish

Post haste.

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What the hell, was that September just then? Fricking amazing. This is truly the meltaway year. We’re almost down to the chewy caramel center. (I think of September as mostly nougat, frankly.)

THAT'S where we'll be? Huh...Well, I suppose it’s safe to say that we won’t be posting a September podcast. Yes, we recorded one. Yes, we still have a computer and internet access. No, I didn’t leave it in my other pants. It’s still under construction, okay? It’s in far more capable hands than mine, I might add. And I am confident that those hands are hard at work, editing wav files, and not shuffling cards or clicking a remote or (God forbid ) tapping on a phone. (This would not be a good time for me to get a text with a link to some lame video.)

I guess it’s hard to deny that we have essentially departed from our monthly podcast schedule. That is, in part, due to our titanic laziness, but also to the fact that our Ned Trek productions have become much more ambitious in recent months, demanding more and more resources, elaborate sets, casts of thousands, pricey special effects, craft services for the crew, exotic oils for  Marvin (my personal robot assistant), you name it. It isn’t easy to produce an epic. Nor is it easy to produce a hack-job podcast, but (and this is important) doing so is easier than the thing with the epic. Are you following that? Good.

I have to think that more than a few of you are wondering, “Well … he’s got time to write this stupid blog post. Why doesn’t he just use that time to finish the podcast, or write a song, for pity’s sake?” Good question. We in Big Green have always been of the belief that timely and accurate reporting is key to the success of any band. If you don’t know what we’re up to, we won’t know either, and THEN where will we be? In Coventry, that’s where! (Actually, I hear that’s quite pleasant this time of year.)

Anyway, where is this getting us? Must get back to finishing that September … I mean, October podcast. Stay tuned.