Tag Archives: This Is Big Green

Usual Rubbish

Plastic baloney.

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Is that all we have to eat around here? Jesus Christ on a tricycle. I thought there was some more of that plastic cheese sitting around. Never mind. Just give me another slice of plastic bread. Sigh.

Balogna ... now with more plastic!Oh, hi. Yep, it’s that time of year again. The ba-roke period, as our dear departed friend Tim Walsh used to say. Fighting the cat for scraps, except that we would never do that. In times of want, we have occasionally resorted to eating doll house food. Dibs on the plastic baloney! (Hey, don’t scoff … it’s actually not that much worse than tofu baloney.)

So, why exactly is Big Green wearing a cardboard belt this month? Why, you may ask, would a band with more than 300 songs under copyright need to scratch the floor for discarded fragments of past meals? It’s starving artist syndrome, my friends, pure and simple. Yes, we suffer for our art. Just the other day, I got my leg caught in a banjo string. Hurt like hell, dragging that banjo around behind me. Got a lot of dirty looks, too. Now I know what Paul McCartney was singing about when he did that Christmas record ditty called “Please don’t bring your banjo ’round” or something like that. Folks get real sensitive about that sort of thing, I’ve discovered.

Hey, well … I’ve wandered a bit, banjo or no. It got cold around the Hammer Mill last night, so we wrapped the place up a bit … at least the parts we live in. The unseasonable cold weather has at least given me the opportunity to finish my Ned Trek 20 script and pass it along to Matt, so that he can add about six pounds of weird to it. We’ve recorded our voice parts and are in the editing stage right now, so podcast fans … keep cool. We’re almost there, man. Don’t. Freak. Out.

Well, got to get back to my evening meal. Kind of chewy. Polystyrene really sticks to your ribs, though. (Though what it’s doing in the vicinity of my ribs I have no idea.)

Usual Rubbish

Sweep up.

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Oh, sweep up! I’ve been sweeping up the tips I’ve made! I’ve been livin’ on Gatorade, planning my getaway!

Grab a broom, hey willya?Apologies to Paul Simon. Actually, except for the Gatorade part, that sounds like the story of my life just lately. Trying to tidy up the cavernous squat house we call the Cheney Hammer Mill ahead of the coming winter months. Nothing worse than a dusty house when the snow is up to the rafters – ask anybody who’s spent a few frigid seasons here on the dark side of the year. So, just plying the old broom across the brick floor.

Marvin (my personal robot) is running the vacuum in the background. Not a vacuum cleaner, you understand – an actual time/space vacuum he created with the orgone generating machine Trevor James Constable left behind so many years ago. Amazing how that thing still runs after years of neglect, no one to tend its complex servos and circuit boards, not even our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee, who used to tinker with the thing from time to time before he relocated to his new lab in Madagascar. (Don’t go there! It may no longer even exist, the way he messes with the space-time continuum.)

While I’ve been occupying myself with domestic duties, I’ve been listening to a one-off CD of some of our Ned Trek songs. They need a little work, but I don’t doubt that we’ll release them in some more finalized form one day. I’m contemplating a late year holiday release or two on YouTube, maybe a collection of Ned songs sometime after that. It’s adding up to a lot of material, actually – about 25 songs and counting, pretty much all of which have showed up on THIS IS BIG GREEN in draft form. I know, I know … sounds like another Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Yep, well … that’s how we roll these days.

Hey, listen to me, right? Interstellar tour, new album, YouTube videos. Slow down, maestro, you move too fast. You got to … hoo boy, there’s Paul Simon again. Stop it, man. More later.

Usual Rubbish

Bloody script.

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Where are my thumbs? Without my thumbs, I can’t type. Or at the very least, make spaces between what I type. Wait … did I say that? Is someone speaking?

You can start pulling your weight any time.Sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m hip deep in finishing the script for our next episode of Ned Trek, as featured on the THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. And though I write for a living, writing has always been a teeth-pulling process for me, resulting in sleepless nights, even more sleepless days, and other trepidations too numerous to … to enumerate. Am I making sense? (Possibly not.)

I know what you’re going to say. (Either that or lack of sleep is causing me to hear voices in my head.) Why the hell am I concentrating on a script for a stupid, knock-off podcast horse ballad instead of spending my time working on new songs, producing an album, preparing for another interstellar tour, etc.? My response? Meh. No man can say. I do it because I do it. And because Matt tells me to, which should be enough for anyone. (Or not.)

I would parcel this work out to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but he really does not have any thumbs, so typing is merely an impossibility for him. Otherwise, he is amply qualified to churn out the kind of poorly constructed melodrama / farce you have come to expect from yours truly. Maybe I ask to little of him. Maybe I shouldn’t let him hang about all day, talking to the electronic stapler, getting machine oil on my vegetables, and so on. Maybe it’s just time he PULLED HIS WEIGHT AROUND HERE. (This is how we communicate with one another. It’s cheaper than texting.)

Anyhow, I expect I’ll see Matt for another recording session this week, then return to my keyboard for another tortuous night of scriptwriting. Oh, the pain of creation! Where is my bourbon, my absinthe, my pain killers, my … I don’t know. I like cat videos. WHERE ARE MY CAT VIDEOS?

Usual Rubbish

Plan ahead.

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Is that where I left it? Oh, Jesus. Well … I’ll have to pick up another one, then. It’ll be long gone by now. Bloody inconvenient.

Work harder, not smokier.Oh, hi. Yep, I left my hand-carved walking stick at the bakery again. Second time this month. Last time, some old guy walked off with it … and yes, he was older than ME. Not exactly an heirloom, you understand. It’s actually just a branch that fell off the poplar tree in back of the Cheney Hammer Mill, by the canal. I cut some bits off of it, peeled back some of the bark, and voila! Cheap crutch.

Not that I need a walking stick. Fact is, I’ve been trying to stay close to the Mill as we plan our next interstellar tour. Nothing particularly ambitious, you understand – just a couple of the major star clusters, maybe a jaunt out to Aldebaran. (Matt’s not real crazy about that last one. The gravity’s a little strong for his taste.) I’ve asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to crunch some numbers on possible itineraries that might result in, I don’t know, a few extra shekels in our pockets. There’s some smoke coming out of his head, so he must be working on it. Good man.

Where’s the next episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN? Still in development, my friend. These things take time, particularly when you’ve got as full a plate like yours truly. Suffice to say that I am straining myself to the limit simply taking these few moments to write this post. Our production manager, the mansized tuber, is literally hitting me over the head for that script. Yes, tubey – I’m working on it! (Pssst … Don’t tell him I’m not.) It should be another extravaganza, perhaps unprecedented in its sheer stupidity. But don’t take my word for it …. Take …. someone else’s. Not sure where I was going with that.

Well, better get back to work. I’m typing, Tubey! Can’t you hear me typing??!

Usual Rubbish

Rainy day schedule.

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Okay, kids. Line up for lunch. No, we’re not going outside. Rainy day schedule today. Break out the coloring books and the tunafish sandwiches.

I got my process, man. Or somethin.

If you’re anything like me, that was your favorite kind of lunch hour in grade school. No going out on the playground and putting up your dukes against whatever red neck wanted a piece of you that particular day. Why the reverie? Not sure. I guess all that rain beating down on the roof of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill has made me think of some of the other sprawling, musty barns I’ve inhabited for years at a time. Other squat houses, apartments, schools, lean-to’s … hell, submarines, even. Don’t knock it! It can rain all it wants, and no leaks (unless you opt for the screen door).

What’s up this week? Just toiling away in the vineyards of Big Green-ville, scratching out weird new numbers, honking noisily into microphones, tapping away at Ned Trek scripts. Mostly just making stuff up on the fly – that’s what we’re best at. And when I say “best”, I mean “not worst”. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) gets into the spirit of honest creative toil once in a while, running his internal adding machine until spools of tickertape unravel from his nether regions. It’s a marvelous … or, rather, Marvin-lous sight to behold.

Some people (mostly derelicts along the curb outside the hammer mill) have asked if we’re working on a new album. I have no answer to that. Matt and I just work, and then one day maybe an album appears. It’s a kind of alchemy. I’ve described the process on this blog before, so I won’t bore you with the details of our songwriting and recording methods. Suffice to say that it looks more random that it is, and yet still, it is fundamentally random … and random-mentally fun. That latter part is what’s important.

I’ll keep you posted on our projects. Just enjoy your sandwiches … and try to color within the lines. There’s a good chap.

Usual Rubbish

Inside August.

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Posted another podcast, as you can see, and it’s chock full of whatever the hell we’ve been doing for the past three months. If after listening to it you can explain to me what that may have been, I’d be eternally grateful. Just contact me at:

Joe Perry of Big Green
Behind the hot water pipes
Cheney Hammer Mill
Somewhere in Upstate New York

I’ll get it.

Anyway, here’s what we have on the menu for August:

Ned Trek 19 – Careact
This episode is loosely based on “The Changeling”, an episode of classic Star Trek that features a killer space-probe named Nomad that thinks Captain Kirk is its long-lost mother. In our version, instead of killing everything in sight, the probe gives every living being it encounters single-payer health insurance. Hilarity ensues.

The episode includes six new Big Green songs that sort of drag the plot forward in a somewhat haphazard way. These include:

Spiro’s Song (Die-de-die) – A surprisingly introspective number for the android ex president, featuring android Spiro Agnew on backing vocals and a big beanfeast singalong.

Sick Poor Jerk in a Herd – Ned’s song about his assessment of health care in the good old U. S. of A. …. I mean, Confederacy of Planets.

Sonny who?Some Health Care – Mr. Welsh pulls it out again with a posthumous number about how crappy coverage hastened his untimely end. Perhaps the first song in the English language to use “Space Probe Machine” as a refrain.

Romneycare – A jazzy little number about just what it says, and what Mitt plans to do about it.

Well, Well, Well – Richard Pearle’s ode to profitability and health. A bit overproduced, but perhaps appropriately so, given the singer’s high opinion of himself.

Medicare – Doc Coburn rock out plaintively about the bane of his existence … that damned socialist menace, concocted by LBJ.

Put the Phone Down
Yeah, we talk about some stuff. Mostly disposable, but give it a listen. You never know what we’re likely to say, right? We read out of a 1991 recording magazine, Matt does some funny voices and threatens to sue the memory of Sonny Tufts. That sort of thing.

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: August 2014

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Big Green comes roaring back to life in the dog days of Summer with a gripping new episode of Ned Trek, six new Big Green songs, and more. Oh, yeah.

This Is Big Green – August 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek 19: Careact, featuring six new Big Green songs, listed as follows; 2) Song: Die-de-die (Spiro’s song), by Big Green; 3) Song: Sick Poor Jerk in a Herd, by Big Green; 4) Song: Well, Well, Well, by Big Green; 5) Song: Romneycare, by Big Green; 6) Song: Some Health Care, by Big Green; 7) Song: Medicare, by Big Green; 8) Put the Phone Down: Matt and Joe read from Recording Magazine, May 1990; 9) Suing Sonny Tufts; 10) Matt’s boid report; 11) News of tunnels and more; 12) Joe’s diploma; 13) General collapse of show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Usual Rubbish

Crackpot diary.

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Twelfth day before the mast. I see a ship on the horizon. The Dutchman? Nay. ‘Tis nothing but a garbage scow. Or perhaps a pleasure craft that’s lost it’s way. Avast.

That sounds odd.Oh, hello, there. I was just engaging in a little imagineering, to borrow a term. It gets kind of quiet around this big old barn of a hammer mill, so you have to think of other things and more exotic places. I am certainly not alone in that. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) went on a flight of fancy this past week. I think he imagined himself a paper shredder in a busy office. Hard to tell, really, except that he kept muttering “stapling machine” to himself, as if he were talking to a neighbor. Then he would make this grinding noise, and confetti would blast out the equivalent of his blowhole. Not my choice of fantasy, but hey … whatever floats it, right?

I’ve taken a few moments between sessions to scroll back through some of the music we’ve made over the last year or so, under the name of Big Green but in support of the Ned Trek program segment of This Is Big Green. In the aggregate, it definitely constitutes a crackpot diary of sorts, kind of like Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, only even more bizarre, in a way. I think it’s the horse voice, and the fact that all of Mr. Ned’s songs have a kind of dressage horse dance meter to them. Then there’s those forties guys. Not sure what to make of them.

Is there an album in this? Glad you asked. I wouldn’t rule it out, but that goes into the project hopper alongside our long-planned “resurrection of songs past” album. We’re halfway between recording systems right now, still using our distressed old Roland VS2480 system with enhancements; hopefully moving to a standard open Mac-based system, perhaps Cubase. Whatever we can get to work for us. We’re semi-primitive, you know, so we have to try things for a while before we make a change.

More on that later. I’ve got to listen to some of those crackpot songs again and see if maybe there’s grounds for having one or more of us committed. They don’t do that so much anymore? Right. Just as well.

Usual Rubbish

Slumming.

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Sure, it’s the middle of summer, the doldrums, as it were, and more often than not my feet are dangling off the end of a plank in the courtyard as I sit, hose in hand, splashing water on the dandelions. Hey, weeds have to drink too, you know.

Here comes another oneNot much getting done here in Big Green land. I think you’ve probably guessed as much. Personally, I think productivity is very overrated. All it means to me is more work for less compensation – how can THAT be a good thing?

Still in all, I did take the time yesterday to catalog all of the songs Matt and I (though mostly Matt) have written for our respective Ned Trek characters over the year or so since we finished Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. I have to admit to being a bit surprised … there were fully 25 songs on that list, including one or two asinine fragments. I had no freaking clue! (Of course, that’s evident to anyone who has listened to more than one or two of these Ned Trek numbers.)

I’ve got to hand it to brother Matt. Who the hell ELSE am I going to hand it to? No, really … the man is a songwriting machine. Back in the old days, say, 1980-95, he would crank songs out at an alarming rate sometimes. I reached the point in the 2000’s when I thought, with all the other stuff he has going on – his various naturalist duties, for instance, as chronicled in his very excellent blog, Tales from the Wild, that he wouldn’t find time to write songs. But what the hell – he writes them out on the trail, records them on his phone, patches them together. He’s a ma-ma-machine, I tell you!

Me, my process is the same as it’s ever been. I start singing in the shower, and when my wife comes in and hits me with a brick, I lapse into a dream state that produces, more often than not, useable song ideas. What I do from that point forward depends on how ambitious I’m feeling. Back to the doldrums … often that means, I do nothing at all.

Still, it’s a good alliance, Big Green, a creative collective that is surely not in it for the money (for there is none) or the fame (for there never was) or the glory (for there is no such thing). Just for the hell of it. Yay.

Usual Rubbish

A la post.

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Hey, it’s a nice day. Think I’ll spend it in the courtyard. Or maybe on the road to Old Forge. Or not. Any suggestions?

Kind of quiet around the Hammer Mill these days. Maybe it’s just the dog days of summer howling a little louder than usual. Everyone seems to be taking a pass on everything, regardless of how little effort may be involved. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) couldn’t be bothered to plug himself in to his wall recharger, complaining that it took too much energy. How does that make sense? Maybe in robot-ville, but no place else.

I’ve done some minimal work on recordings this week, pulling together one mix, tweaking another, enhancing this, pouring chocolate sauce on that. Exhausting effort, as you might imagine. Tonight brother Matt and I will work on this again, with brother Marvin and brother mansized tuber standing by to assist. As I mentioned before, we’re working on six new numbers that will appear in the next episode of Ned Trek, the Star Trek parody series we include in our now less-than-monthly podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN.

Didn't you plug yourself in, Marvin?If you’re not familiar with this … um … form of entertainment, go to our podcast home page, scroll down to some of the earlier installments, and give it a listen. Ned Trek is usually the first item in the podcast. At some point, it may acquire a life (or podcast) of its own, but for now suffice to say that it is a monthly skit based on old “classic” Star Trek episodes, starring a crew of modern day neocons headed by Captain Willard M. Romney, his first officer and talking dressage horse Mr. Ned, and others. (Oddly, there’s one hold-over from classic Star Trek – Mr. Sulu, who basically plays the one sane person in the room.) It, well, makes us laugh, if nothing else. Pretty much the reason we do anything, I suspect.

Hokay, well … I’m kind of toasty after having played a set with Puttin’ On The Ritz up in Old Forge last night, so I’ll stick a fork in this. Be free.