Tag Archives: This Is Big Green

Usual Rubbish

Inside August (2019).

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Sure, it’s hard to put out a podcast when you’re sleeping in a potting shed. But hard shouldn’t stop you when there’s important work to be done. Unless it gets too hard. Then, well …. maybe you could do a blog post instead. Man … that’s roughing it.

Well, you may have already noticed, but our August 2019 installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN was posted this week, and unlike our July episode, this one includes Matt and a non-retread episode of Ned Trek. So if you scratched over the last TIBG, don’t miss this one. Here are some highlights:

Ned Trek 40: Day of the Dopes. Amazingly, we’ve reached the fortieth episode of our Star Trek political parody space opera. This episode is adapted from the classic Star Trek script, “Day of the Dove”, with not unexpected modifications and substitutions. Look for bad imitations of Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as other fripperies.

Put The Phone Down. We talked another green streak this time out, touching on fledgling falcons, turtle eggs, Monte Markham and Frank Zappa, among other things. Matt and I also take a moment to revisit the racist cartoons of our youth, from wartime Popeye to Johnny Quest. Quite an upbringing we had, right?

Song: Pagan Christmas, by Big Green. A selection off of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas. It’s a rocking little number that I want my jockey to play. (Oh, wait … that’s another song. This one is about Christmas dinner.) Big favorite among the wiccan community, so we hear.

Prepare to launch podcast!

Song: For Your Majesty’s Amusement, by Big Green. This is one of the tracks off of our second album, International House. Kind of a subversive take on royalty of all descriptions, inspired in part by a scene from the movie Orlando. Any song that ends with people carrying torches has to have something going on, right?

Song: The Bishop, by Big Green. One of my favorite tracks from International House. I can tell Matt mixed this one, because it sounds pretty good. What is so important? Ask the Bishop.

Song: Aw Shoot, by Big Green. We’ve played this number from our third album, Cowboy Scat, before on the podcast. It’s partly inspired by the theme song from the bizarre-ass caveman movie Yor: Hunter of the Future. We do pretty bad Scandinavian accents, as you’ll hear.

Song: Box of Crackers, by Big Green. While it never appeared on one of our albums, Box of Crackers started life as a Christmas song, then morphed into something else. It’s a close relative of our song One Small Step in that they were originally produced as part of the same project. A period piece to be sure, but it still has some relevance re “Kentucky Mitch”.

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THIS IS BIG GREEN: August 2019

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Big Green hails the closing days of Summer with a brand spanking new episode of Ned Trek, some tracks from their studio albums, and some troll-like jabbering that amounts to naught. Get your green right here!

This is Big Green – August 2019. Features: 1) Ned Trek 40: Day of the Dopes; 2) Put the phone down: Swimming in lush pools; 3) Fledgling updates; 4) Swapping voices; 5) Peddling conspiracy theories; 6) Turtle eggs that look like the moon; 7) The story of Monte Markham; 8) The show so far; 9) Zappa talk; 10) The racist cartoons of our youth; 11) Song: Pagan Christmas, by Big Green; 12) Song: For Your Majesty’s Amusement, by Big Green; 13) Song: The Bishop, by Big Green; 14) Song: Aw Shoot, by Big Green; 15) Song: Box of Crackers, by Big Green; 16) Buying Greenland; 17) The dairy area; 18) Time to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Inside July (2019).

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Look, I know it was a hard assignment, but frankly … you’re more cut out for that sort of thing. Why don’t you sit and relax for a while. Oh, right … best stand.

The squatters upstairs got a bit louder this week. Of course, it was the fourth of July holiday, so they started shooting off bottle rockets, M-80s, and what sounded like quarter-sticks of dynamite. We sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) up to read them the riot act, and he got his ass handed to him. I mean literally – they removed his ass and handed it to him, then kicked him down the stairs. Not sure who to send next … maybe anti-Lincoln?

Well, with all that going on, I did squeeze in enough time to post another installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN, though it’s kind of a clip show, frankly. Some of the material will seem familiar to longtime listeners, some not. What can I tell you? It’s a little hard to mix new Ned Trek episodes with gun-happy muleskinners living upstairs, keeping us up all night with their noisy parties and other goings on. Partly as revenge on those mothers, I chose to include some vintage live recordings of Big Green’s club days, cranking them up as I listened back the episode, shaking the rafters a bit. (Some of them, I understand, like rafting in the Adirondacks … and are, therefore … rafters.)

Maybe if we just play super loud ...

So, here’s what we have this month:

Ned Trek 18: Captain Frickasee. This is an episode we originally cast back in 2014, based on the malevolent doppelganger episode of classic Star Trek … uh, just to narrow that down, the one where Kirk gets duplicated by a transporter malfunction (they used that plot device more than once). Willard’s evil twin, instead of being the very pinnacle of toxic masculinity, turns out to be a southern conservative politician … the one most Republicans pretend to be. (Apologies to those easily offended by jokes about southerners.)

Live Songs: This month’s TIBG features six “live” tracks of Big Green, circa 1990-1994. These include performances recorded in front of audiences and demos recorded live to tape in a somewhat more controlled environment. All tracks feature John White on drums, Matt on bass and vocals, and me (Joe) on keys and vocals. The songs are:

  • How ‘Bout The War? – This track, poorly recorded at some dive in upstate NY, features Tony “Ace”  Butera on guitar.
  • Greater Good – This was recorded at a backyard music fest at Jeremy Shaw’s house and features Jeremy on guitar.
  • Sensory Man and I Hate Your Face – Two excerpts from a video demo we recorded with Jeremy Shaw in 1993, clips of which can be seen on our video page.
  • Merry Christmas, Jane and Special Kind of Blood – Selections from a 1994 live-to-DAT demo we did at Jeremy’s house, featuring him on guitar. (We released these on our Live From Neptune EP. )

Anyway, that’s the week that was. We’ll be posting another show before too long with a new Ned Trek episode … as soon as we find our asses with both hands.

Usual Rubbish

Water under the bridge.

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Where’s the list? Damned if I know. It’s somewhere in the forge room, I think, under a mountain of iron filings. Well, you TOLD me to file it! Jesus.

Yeah, looks like I blew it again. So what’s new? We were compiling a list of Big Green songs we’ve written and at least cursorily recorded since our last CD release – Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – some six years ago. Lot of water gone under the bridge since then, and a lot of music along with it. It’s almost like there was a little boat all loaded down with songs, and the water carried it under the bridge. Along with, well, a lot more water. Or something like that.

Of course, this is a list of all of the songs we’ve written and recorded for the Ned Trek portion of our THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. There are about 70 or 80 of them, all tolled. So if we decide to release another album, it will either (a) have 70 or 80 songs on it, or (b) be the product of a sane mind. Or maybe it’s two or even three albums. After all, it’s been six years, and before that it had been another five years, and before that, like, nine years. Yeah, we’re slow …. slower than most bands. But hey … most bands don’t have a personal robot assistant (Marvin) or a mad science advisor (Mitch Macaphee). If they did, well, recording albums would take a hell of a lot longer.

Right, but ... which one?

Now that I think of it, we almost never mark the anniversary of CD releases. Last year was the 10 year anniversary of International House, our second album, and no celebration, no party streamers, no commemorative live performances, no fireworks, no flagrant branding exercises hoping to chew the last dollars off of its rotting carcass. We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of our first album, 2000 Years to Christmas, and my guess is that we will do TWICE as much celebrating as we did for International House. At least that. Hell, I still have signed CDs from the tenth anniversary of 2000 Years to Christmas. Want one? Post a comment to this post or email us and we’ll see what we can do.

Till then, I had better get started on that pile of filings. Or that file of pilings.

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THIS IS BIG GREEN: February 2019

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Big Green celebrates the new year two months late with a rollicking show that includes a new installment of Ned Trek, eight brand new songs, and some incoherent rambling of the sort you’ve come to expect. Let us begin.

This is Big Green – February 2019. Features: 1) Ned Trek 39: Patterns of Horse, featuring 8 new Big Green songs; 2) Song: Find Yourself a Nazi, by Big Green; 3) Song: Oh, V-2, by Big Green; 4) Song: Now More Than Ever, by Big Green; 5) Song: Nazi Lunch, by Big Green 6) Song: The Nicest Nazi, by Big Green; 7) Song: Can’t Do It Without Nazis, by Big Green; 8) Song: Can’t Go Wrong, by Big Green; 9) Song: Soldier of Fourchan, by Big Green; 10) Put the phone down: Popeye cartoons; 11) Remembering Peter Tork; 12} Jonathan Harris on YouTube; 13) Singing about shutting up; 14) Writing the next Ned Trek; 15) Playing with Dave Barber, back in the day; 16) Who’s all dead; 17) Time to go – a strange medley.

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Usual Rubbish

Inside December (2018).

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It’s called snow, Marvin. The white stuff, falling from the sky? That’s not hard rain, it’s freaking snow. What the hell kind of weather station are you, anyway?

Oh, hi. Well … we’re getting into that time of year when larger mammals hibernate. That’s not how we roll, of course, but we do get a little more sedentary (if that can be imagined) as the winter months wear on. Fortunately, we have our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN to keep us hopping this December. Here’s what we’ve packed inside this hollow tree:

Ned Trek 38: The Squire of Mara Lagos. Our new installment of Ned Trek is a takeoff on the classic Star Trek episode entitled “The Squire of Gothos” and features me doing really, really poor imitations of both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Perle turns out to be a compulsive gambler this week in a Lost in Space-style plot twist. See what you think … and feel free to play it back at 125% speed.

Put The Phone Down. Matt and I begin our yak session with a rendition of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which maybe goes on a bit too long (we are joined by a Dalek after a few choruses). A little later on we go into dueling Sagan mode, give a nod to talking like a chimp, discuss the merits and demerits of the Ned Trek episode, and take a closer look at Matt’s various medals.

Marvin: It's 37 degrees. Me: Wrong.Song: Christmas is Over Here. I mentioned that we included some warmed-over holiday numbers in this episode – this isn’t one of them. This is just the two of us making up a ridiculous song that has never been sung before and likely will never be sung again. Ain’t that Christmas?

Song: Up North. One of Matt’s very first Christmas songs. This recording is, I think, from the late 1980s, a cassette 4-track master, and one of probably 4 versions of this song we’ve recorded over the decades. We include this one because of the ape-like backing vocals towards the end. Not to be missed.

Song: Quantum Christmas. This is an outtake from the sessions that resulted in our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, back in 1999. We did the mix then decided to leave it off the final collection. Matt wrote this, of course, and it plays with the observer’s paradox in quantum physics as a metaphor for avoiding your relatives.

Song: Dark Christmas. Another outtake from the 2000 Years To Christmas album. It think we thought it was just too long to fit on what was already a longish album, but … there were likely other reasons as well. This kind of sounds like what we sounded like back then as a band, so give it a go.

Song: Ornament. This is another 4-track cassette recording, this from Matt’s 1990 Christmas collection (among my all-time favorites) that he gave to family and friends that year. We did a version of this for 2000 Years To Christmas that didn’t end up on the album, but I much prefer this one.

Enjoy it, folks. Now … back to tracking the weather.

 

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: December 2018

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Big Green reconvenes after yet another extended vacation with an all new episode of TIBG featuring the long awaited Ned Trek 38, four classic Big Green Christmas songs, and some serious crazy talk by yours truly. Did you miss us? Tell the truth!

This is Big Green – December 2018. Features: 1) Ned Trek 38: The Squire of Mara Lagos; 2) Put the phone down: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, rendered by Big Green with help from the Daleks; 3) We’ve got responsibilities, too; 4) Not a scientist talk; 5) That Ned Trek episode: how bad was that?  6) Dueling Sagans; 7) Song: Christmas is Over Here, by Big Green; 8) Chimp talk; 9) Song: Up North, by Big Green; 10) Song: Quantum Christmas, by Big Green; 11) Song: Dark Christmas, by Big Green; 12} Apologies to the world; 13) Matt’s medals; 14) Talking about boyds in the forties; 15) Song: Ornament, by Big Green;  16) Time to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Big thanks.

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Don’t suppose I ever thanked you for that, right? Well … thanks, man. Thanks a heap. Now get the hell out of my sight.

Oh, hi. Hey … no worries. Just practicing. This, as you know, is the time of year when you show gratitude to all and sundry, even your worst enemy. I was just practicing what that would look like in real life. Say, for instance, my worst enemy (whoever that may turn out to be) should pound on the hammer mill door one cold morning, maybe the day after a long, hard gig on the planet Aldebaran 12, where the bars are open until #$@ o’clock (which, for the record, is pretty late). After dragging myself out of bed, limping downstairs, and pulling the door open wide, how would I properly express my thankfulness for the many gifts of microaggression my worst enemy has bestowed upon me? Suffice to say, it takes thought and practice.

That said, I am thankful for many things. For the leaky hammer mill roof over our heads, for one. I’m thankful for the fact that vacuum tubes are still being manufactured (without those, Marvin’s metronome and inertial guidance system would cease to function). On behalf of the mansized tuber (because he can’t speak for himself), we’re all thankful for plant food. And I wouldn’t want to run through this litany without thanking Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, for not blowing us sky-high this year (third year in a row!). Thanks, also, to anti-Lincoln, whose Gettysburg Address is even more inspiring recited backwards.

Thanky, yankees.But more than anything else, we are thankful to you, our listeners and readers. (That includes all you little Russian bots – I see you!) And that’s why we have chosen to express our gratitude by posting a warmed-over installment of Ned Trek entitled “Ned Trek 29: Error of Mercy”. Check it out at NedTrek.com. This originally ran on our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN back in August of 2016, in the thick of the presidential election. Highlights include the usual assortment of bad imitations, such as Matt doing James Carville and me doing Bill Clinton. Fun fact: our first read of the script was done in a hospital examination room, waiting for test results. (We were cackling so loudly I think the staff considered declaring a code red and breaking out the restraints.)

So … thanks for the laughs, and for listening to us laugh like idiots.

Usual Rubbish

Fascist songbook.

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Sure, you’ve played that one before. You remember. It’s the one about the fascists dropping over for Christmas. Don’t remember? Go back and look, dude!

Hiya. As you know, we’re still shut up in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, working diligently on the next episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. And when I say “next”, I mean the next couple of episodes, each of which is in a different state of non-completion. This is all about Ned Trek, of course … that time-consuming mashup of space opera crossed with horse-based comedy and political satire.  If I recall correctly, we dreamed that concept up on the planet Neptune, but don’t quote me. Matt probably pulled it out of Uranus. Either way.

So … the most proximate of the “next” episodes is being edited and finished as we speak (are we speaking?). The second “next” episode hasn’t been recorded (or even completely written) yet, but that one’s a musical, so we’ve been working on songs that will go into the episode. That installment of Ned Trek will be based on the Nazi episode of Star Trek, so pretty much all of the songs are about fascists, past and present. That’s right, folks …. around the studio lately it’s been Nazi this and Nazi that. We’re calling the fuckers out, people, and in the most ridiculous ways. Word.

Okay, how about a song about that?Not that we haven’t cultivated that particular field before, you understand. It’s just that we’re digging in a bit this year. It’s partly due to the specific Star Trek episode we’re mocking, but hey, let’s face it … there are a lot of neo-fascists taking power just lately, including the clownish variety we have here in the states (to say nothing of the right-wing brown shirt organizations we deal with at the street level these days), so these songs aren’t exactly historical documents, per se. We’re jamming on current affairs, people. Ripped from the headlines, as it were.  It’s enough to make Marvin (my personal robot assistant) blow a fuse or two. Just so long as he doesn’t grow a little mustache.

I know … we’re on a slow roll here in Big Green land, but we will get back to posting podcasts in the weeks ahead, honest. Look for a new episode soonish …. now with more Nazis.

Usual Rubbish

Reading me?

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CQ, CQ … come in, Rangoon. This is ground station Hammermill calling all ships at sea. If you read me, come in. Ahoy, ship! Damn it. Turn the crank a little harder, Marvin. There’s a good chap.

Yeah, well … just trying something a little different this week, since our latest episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN is still under construction and I’m too freaking lazy to post any songs or other media files. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) dug up an old radio transmitter down in the basement of the mill, and we’ve been trying to fire the thing up ever since. This should come naturally to us, as Matt’s and my father was a Ham radio operator, but alas … I spent my childhood assiduously avoiding the acquisition of any useful knowledge or skills, and if I do say so myself, I was remarkably successful at that endeavor.

Anyway, the old radio works like this. I pick up the microphone, put on the metal headphones, and tell Marvin to start turning the crank in the side of the big old metal box, which apparently turns some kind of generator inside. Now, I’m not a scientist, but (and this is a big but) it seems to me that a few turns of the crank would be enough to power this antique for a few minutes, but no. The little on-air light blinks off almost as soon as Marvin stops turning the crank. Looks like Rangoon will have to stay out for a while longer.

Where's the ham?There are a lot of things a grown man can do in his spare time, particularly someone with so many half-baked hobbies such as myself.   Why I spend even five minutes with this hunk of junk is beyond me. And then there’s the radio. (Sorry Marvin – that was low hanging fruit.) I suppose I could become an inventor like Mitch Macaphee, or an antimatter president like Anti-Lincoln, or a large sweet potato like the mansized tuber, but there are individuals already filling those vital roles in society. Perhaps wisdom, in part, is recognizing your place in the world and trying to make the best of it. Or perhaps not … perhaps wisdom is something else entirely … in part. (And perhaps my favorite hobby is sophistry.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try to make contact with someone – anyone – in Madagascar. CQ … CQ ….. Come in, Madagascar!