Tag Archives: tuber

Density rising.

You may say I’ve got a lot to learn. Seems like this is the perfect spot to learn. No, I’m NOT playing Vegas … not yet, anyway. (Though I did spend a summer in Reno once. Long story, which I’ll spare you.)

Raining like hell here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. Wish we had invested in that new roof a few years back, when we were overflowing with Neptunian shekels from our last interstellar tour. Those were the days …. NOT. Yeah, the water is coming in like … well … water from the sky. The mansized tuber is loving it. Not Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though. His brass finish is getting tarnished in the humid summer weather we get up here in upstate New York, and this is certainly not doing it any good. (Kind of vain, actually, that robot. I think he sees himself as a Tyrone Power lookalike. He needs to download some newer movies.)

Over the last few weeks the humidity has been rising. Our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin, insists that it is atmospheric density, not the humidity, that is rising. He has been hammering away at some kind of device that he claims will control the weather, or something to that effect. I could share with you what he told me, but it might cause you some distress. Suffice to say that throughout his diatribe, he managed to end each sentence with the term (and I quote) “BWA-HA-HA-HA!”  I have asked Y'know, I kinda see it.anti-Lincoln, our resident language history scholar, to find me a gloss on that. So far no luck.

We’re still working on our next album, working title “WORKING TITLE”. (We were thinking of renaming the band “Various Artists”, just so that we would show up in the Columbia House 8-track tape catalogs.) It’s slow going, to say the least. We’re re-thinking parts that we put down over the past two years, building on old tracks that were hastily recorded and shipped out via our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Some are rougher than others. And we’re starting with the roughest ones … I hope. (These are pretty freaking rough!)

So, we’ll keep scratching. Keep your eyes open …. especially if you’re driving.

 

Pulling it together.

Holy Moses. Where did all this snow come from? The sky? That’s where it ordinarily comes from. There have been exceptions, sure, but … how likely is that?

Now, that's a better fit, tubeyWell, here we are. First days of the year and we’re already snowed in. Mountains of the stuff piled up against the front door of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. Just as well that it’s relatively congenial in here, that is if you don’t mind being cooped up with crazy people. There’s Matt, of course, though he mostly occupies himself with tending the wild creatures and feathered friends. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) does have some annoying habits, much as I’ve tried to program them out of him. (I’m not a scientist – I just play one on the internet.)

The most troublesome companion we have in the Mill is anti-Lincoln, the antimatter doppelganger of the Great Emancipator, who was chrono-teleported into our midst some years back by Mitch Macaphee, using Trevor James Constable’s patented orgone generating device. The device is, shall we say, a less-than-optimal time portal/matter transportation gizmo, so it made an antimatter copy of Lincoln as he was passing through the wormhole on his way to his future, our present. Lincoln has since returned to his Civil War glory days, while anti-Lincoln has remained behind to vex us unceasingly. Arrogant, selfish clone!

Our companion the man-sized tuber is not that bad, though he does require some tending. He had retired to the courtyard and was beginning to take root, but his retirement planning didn’t take Winter into account, and as the days grew colder, he yanked himself out of the ground and rolled back inside, taking his place in a terracotta planter we had lying around. Of course, one of us has to bring him water, plant food, reading material, etc. He’s been asking for wi-fi lately. I keep telling him, just get a freaking data plan, but he won’t listen.

Right, so … distractions aside, we are planning the next phase of Big Green’s conquest of the universe. Well … not the WHOLE universe; just one little tiny corner of it. Namely, this web site, where the next episode of our podcast will appear at some point. Come snow or high water.

A la post.

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.

Missing month.

Could have sworn I left it around here someplace. Have you seen it, Marvin? Oh, right. You’ve deactivated yourself for the holidays. Sounds nice … enjoy your break. How ’bout you, mansized tuber? Oh, yeah. He planted himself in the courtyard, out of earshot. Smart move. Wish I’d thought of that.

What am I searching for? The lost month of June, that’s what. It was here a minute ago, seems like, and now, POOF! Gone-zo. And with it, apparently, the June episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Okay, well … it’s not quite as mysterious as that. Our promised June episode is still in production, and not quite finished. Part of the reason is that we are lazy slags, but aside from that, frankly, it’s been a very complicated episode. A full-on, hour long episode of Ned Trek incorporating no less than six original Big Green songs. I am only now finishing out the songs, adding some incidental parts, mixing, etc. Working like a dog over here. (Well, a lazy kind of dog, anyway.)

Like a dawgOkay, I know what this sounds like. It sounds like pretty much every month this year, right? January’s podcast got pushed into February, March’s into April, April’s into May, and now June has evaporated. Four shows in six months is not exactly a land speed record, even for Big Green, so what can I say. As we try to raise our production values from the sub, sub-basement where they reside to the dank level of goodness just above that, we are finding that it takes a bit more effort than just plain sucking.

This is kind of how Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick was born. We started out with a bunch of hastily recorded sketches, then started tracking those, making them marginally more complex until they reached the same level of quality (or lack thereof) as our officially released albums, International House and 2000 Years to Christmas. We’re beginning to do the same deal with these Ned Trek songs, though they make the Cowboy Scat numbers seem, well, normal by comparison. This is some weird shit, man.

Stay tuned … we will post sometime soon. If it takes longer than we anticipate, we might toss in a clip show or something. Another cop out! Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Inside the May podcast.

Well, I’m back from watering the man-sized tuber. Never thought his personal life decisions would so dramatically affect my schedule, but apparently so. He has to be watered two or Could have picked a better spot.three times a day, and it looks like I’m nominated to be his personal gardener. By default. (Well, I can’t leave it to anti-Lincoln. He’d set the poor bastard root vegetable on fire!)

Anywho, this seems like a good time to talk about our May THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast and what you’re likely find lurking inside that largish mp3 file. Here’s the rundown:

Ned Trek XVIII: Captain Fricassee – This is a riff on the “classic” Star Trek episode “The Enemy Within”, in which the captain – in this case, Willard Mittilius Romney – is divided by a transporter malfunction into a good half and a bad half. Our version features a Romney doppelganger that embodies the southern reactionary buried within every conservative candidate for higher office. Gluttony saves the day. Don’t ask … just listen.

Song: Brotherly Love – a half-assed, live rendition of a tent revival gospel song originally sung by Robert Goulet on an episode of The Big Valley. Again… don’t ask. Sometimes we just do stupid shit, and sometimes the audio recorder is running … and sometimes those two things happen at the same time. That’s how a podcast is born.

Song: Going to Andromeda,  by Big Green – This is a song produced on a 4-track cassette portastudio back in 1991, I believe. Matt wrote it, and as it happens it’s one of my favorites of his songs (and that’s saying something). Lo-fi but worth a listen.

Song: Good Old Boys Roundup (Demo Version), by Big Green – This one we’ve played on the podcast before. It’s one of mine, and we’ve never finished a full-blown version of it. So it’s just me howling and strumming a guitar. And banging a piano. (And by banging, I mean playing … don’t put words in my mouth.)

The rest is talk … talk about dumb stuff. Bad movies, etc. You get the picture. Give it a listen sometime and tell me what you think. No, really – tell us and we’ll post your comments right here. Promise.

Loserville.

It’s the last train to Loserville and I’ll meet you at the station. Wasn’t that a Monkees song? No? Okay … that earworm crawled away decades ago.

Big GreenWell, here we are, kicking around the mill, just me and my shadow … and Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Brother and bandmate Matt Perry has taken up residence in some other abandoned structure. We get together for recordings, podcast sessions, etc., then he goes home to his shack and I to mine. The mansized tuber has planted himself firmly in the courtyard; I bring a bucket of swill out to him every couple of days. Livin’ the life, as they say.

As you can imagine, the utility costs here are fantastic. The abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill is, as I have said many times, a drafty old barn of a place, and most of the heat goes straight out the window (the same window, incidentally, that the rain and snow comes in through). Whoever is paying the fuel bills must be ripping his/her hair out by now. And then there’s the occasional rap on the door by, I don’t know, the bailiff, perhaps? U.S. Marshalls? If I looked more like Cliven Bundy’s militia crew, I wouldn’t worry about it much. But I yam what I yam, as the sailor said.

well-maybeIn all honesty, I’m considering moving back to a lean-to type housing arrangement, like what we had back at the beginning of this current chapter in the history of the Big Green musical collective. That’s probably more appropriate accommodation for the collective as it currently stands, which is to say … big enough for me, Marvin, and anti-Lincoln. A little tight for my taste, perhaps. And then there’s the question of plugging Marvin in for the night. (We need at least one outlet for his AC power supply and a second for my electric piano.  Oh, right … and one for my amp. Shit … my Mr. Coffee! Make that four.)

See what happens when you try to simplify? That’s when things start to get really complicated. Now pardon me … I have a podcast to finish, for chrissake.

Exodus.

Lincoln has returned to the 1860s via the Orgone Generating Device intertemporal portal, and best of luck to him. Hope he doesn’t run into any dental problems while he’s back there. Whiskey and pliers, that’s what he’ll have to look forward to in that grisly century.

Big GreenWell, that kind of solves his problem. What about the rest of us in the Big Green collective? A kind of dwindling party, it seems. Lincoln is back in Washington (though his evil doppelganger Anti-Lincoln remains). Washington is presumably back in Lincoln (Nebraska). Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, is still on an extended tour of resort hotels, attending mad science conferences and watching the sun set on five continents with a glass of bourbon in one hand and a Cuban cigar in the other. Now that our interstellar tour is over, our occasional guitarist sFshzenKlyrn has returned to his home planet of Zenon in the Small Megellanic Cloud.

Let’s see … what else is in the news? Oh, yeah … the mansized tuber has decided at long last to take root in the courtyard. He’s pushing twenty now, and feels it’s high time for him to settle down and start a garden. Hard to argue with a root vegetable. We’ll see how long THAT lasts. Christ on a bike, about the only ones around here I can count on are my brother Matt and Marvin (my personal robot assistant), This looks like a good spotthough I caught the latter thumbing through the want ads the other day. It seems there are more opportunities out there for personal robot assistants than there were just a few years ago. I may have to start PAYING him, for chrissake.

The bottom line is that, with all of these departures and major life decisions going on, it’s getting pretty quiet around this big old barn of a place. We’ve talked about finding someplace smaller to squat, maybe opt for another three-room lean-to of the kind we occupied back in our Sri Lanka days. So long as it’s big enough to produce a podcast in, we’re good.

Release minus … what?

Still watching that space? Well, give it up. That was a joke, damn it. Don’t take me literally … that way lies madness.

Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of RickWell, here we are, inching closer to the release date of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, Big Green’s third and perhaps silliest album ever. Fully 21 tracks of pure, unadulterated goofiness, each one performed by what is nominally a completely different combo. We’ve got the master all set. We’ve designed the packaging for our limited run of CD-Rs and the graphics for our digital distributors. Now all we have to do is, well, complete the arcane process of acquiring ISRC codes for all of the tracks, manufacturing the discs, doing a run of wax cylinders for those listeners still enamored of that format, and so on.

What is the release date? Good question. Ask our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., a.k.a. Hegephonic. They make all the big foot decisions. (By that I mean, they actually have a sasquatch  serving as their Chief Operations Officer. Explains a lot.) Like many artists (and it’s in deference to the mansized tuber that I include us within that rubric), we get impatient with red tape. So when you see the disc – if you see the disc – you will see our own imprint on the package; a logo for Hammermade Records, and well, it doesn’t exist, but it sounds right, so what the fuck.

The mother of all imprintsSome have told us that we should have called the label Hammermaid, like Milkmaid condensed milk. We don’t listen to some people, particularly if they are Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has a particular liking for condensed milk products because they remind him of motor oil. In any case, we don’t take a lot of pains over trifles like imprints and logos, because in all honesty, that’s not what we’re about. We are the original discorporate rock band. We say no to corporate hegemony. We’re off the grid, man. (Aside from all that stuff involving money, paying for things, etc.)

So again, be forewarned. Release of Cowboy Scat is imminent. After which, we will likely go into hiding (or perhaps the witness protection program) assuming Cousin Rick Perry catches wind of this. (Don’t tell ‘im!)

Settle. Just settle.

Listen, Marvin. I know you want to go to summer camp like all of the other robot assistants. That’s understandable at your age. But you have to understand, we just can’t afford it right now. It’s not that we don’t want you to go … it’s money, Marvin. We’ll try to save enough to send you to robot assistant camp next year, okay?

Sheesh. Another dejected look. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has now officially joined the ranks of the disgruntled. That makes about nine of us, if you count both Lincolns. We are in the dog days and, apparently, the doldrums of summer here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, and I can tell you personally, nobody’s happy around these parts. I blame our persistent lack of gainful employment. Most band entourages, as you know, can occupy themselves with the somewhat questionable benefits of touring. Big Green, though, has not done a tour yet this year, and I fear that fact is beginning to wear on us all.

Aw, now look…. mansized tuber is getting fussy again! Matt! Lincoln! Mitch! Somebody else take a turn, for chrissake! I’ve repotted him twice today already and it’s only noon.

Jeebus, just listen to me. Listen to all of us. It’s the sound of domestic life, that’s what it is. We have been in one place far too long, my brothers. I feel the road calling me, once again. Ah, the aroma of poorly prepared meals, the clatter of ancient window-mounted air conditioners, the inviting patina of a well-used shower stall. Okay, so there isn’t a lot about touring that I miss. It’s the lack of touring that worries me. For one thing, it makes us prone to lethargy (well….. more prone, let’s say). For another, it drains our modest resources to what can only be described as a negative value. You see …. oh, jesus. Wait just a minute, my friends…

Not that pot, Mitch! I used that one earlier today. Give tubey a fresh one from the garden shed. Use your head, man!

Right. Where was I? Doesn’t matter. We have to get another interstellar tour together. Just as soon as we finish our upcoming album / rock opera / whatever the fuck it is, titled Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Check out our July podcast, soon to be posted, for details.

Crash of 12.

Call out the marines. Get the cops down here. Somebody plugged our money hole… and this could be a problem.

Yeah, I know … all good things come to an end, right? We were just starting to get traction as the next big-box store. Our theme is that of an abandoned mill… all of our stores look like abandoned mills. (Note: we only have one store, and it’s in an abandoned mill.) We have a mascot, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and a jokey spokes vegetable, the mansized tuber, who we were thinking would wheel his way through quirky television commercials, speaking in a British… no, Aussie accent. Perhaps German accent. We haven’t worked out that part yet. He would show up in board rooms and on cruise ships … at least the ones that don’t tip over or catch on fire.

And hell, with the help of our marketing advisor, Noname, on loan from the A and R representative at our corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, we even had an expansion plan on the board, with a big map and hexagonal icons representing new store locations in Boise, Idaho, Keokuk, Iowa, Redmond, Washington, and about a thousand other locations. Big Green was even planning to go global, with outlets in Spain, Qatar, Estonia, Sri Lanka (of course), and down under somewhere (or something). It was a bold, ambitious plan … one that made our militant cartoon neighbor, Gung-Ho, fairly salivate with envy. All of the lands HE wanted to conquer, spread out invitingly before him on a topographical map. Oh, the envy!

But… that was then, this is … OWW! (Forgive me. Marvin just rolled over my right foot.) One day this past week, the free consumer goods, once so plentiful, simply stopped flying out of that hole in the floor Mitch Macaphee burned with Trevor James Constable’s Orgone Generating Machine. (I know… that’s a little hard to parse. Just look back a few weeks, you’ll get it.) We just sold the last programmable toaster yesterday. All out of custom! Even worse, the hole emitted a parting gift of sorts – namely, a bill of lading for everything that had flown out over the past three weeks. And it’s considerable. I didn’t know a number could have that many zeroes behind it. (A google-plex, perhaps?)

So there you have it. The once mighty Green-mart empire, brought low by an interloper on the other side of this wretched globe. Curses! (Ahem…. hurt my throat, there.)