All posts by Joseph

News, Recording

It’s the time of the season for mixing

Damn, it’s hot out there. Hot enough to boil a monkey’s bum, as Monty Python used to say in a mock-Aussie accent. Mind if I call you Bruce, just to avoid confusion?

Well, it is, after all, summer in the northern hemisphere, which means balmy weather for the lot of us. But for your friends in Big Green, this year the solstice means that the season for mixing has arrived. Yes, brother Matt (a.k.a. “Mr. Ears”) has left the premises to keep a keen eye on his Peregrine Falcon charges … but not before recording his final tracks on our upcoming album, titled [INSERT WORKING TITLE HERE]. After two years of tracking, it’s time to start pushing those faders. (And, of course, pulling them occasionally.)

The job ahead: hard as f#ck

Make no mistake, we have a big project ahead of us: making sense of between 20 – 25 new recordings and arranging them in the general shape of what is still somehow called an “album”. But hey, Big Green has faced challenges before. Remember when we were almost captured by Captured by Robots? No? Well, perhaps I imagined that. Nevertheless, it hasn’t always been an easy road for us. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes down, but there are always plenty of potholes and no freaking shoulder. (Not mention the fact that it’s a toll road.)

Getting back to mixing, we try to keep things in perspective. Like all modern DAWs, ours has a virtually endless number of tracks and tools to work with. And yet, our favorite albums are mostly from the analog four, eight, and sixteen-track era. Multitrack recording was mucho expensive in those days, and most non-famous bands had zero access to it. In the 1980s, we got into a proper studio maybe three or four times total; the rest of the time we were bouncing takes between stereo cassette machines while playing kazoos into live mics. (Ah, those were the days.)

Placing the lime inside the coconut

Anyway, despite the distinct technological advances we now enjoy that weren’t available in the 1960s, we rely heavily on our musical forebears for inspiration. In other words, if they twiddled a dial a certain way to get a certain effect, that’s good enough for us. If they put a speaker and a mic in a big closet to get reverb, well …. maybe we won’t do that, but perhaps we should. The one thing they did that we won’t do under any circumstances is work super hard. Those are our principles. And if you don’t like them, we have other principles. (Shout out to Groucho.)

Now, that doesn’t mean that we want to imitate the previous generations. I mean, there’s no point in putting the lime in the coconut again, right? That’s been done. We have to break new ground, like any other band. Maybe put the plumb in the artichoke, then mix them all up. (See illustration.)

Unpredictable prognostications

Okay, I’m not going to be irresponsible enough to predict when this album is going to be finished, released, etc. All I can tell you is that [INSERT WORKING TITLE HERE] is fully recorded and on its way to completion. Looking into my magic crystal mixing bowl, I see a Fall release on the horizon. Fall of what year? No man can say, but Fall is a good bet. TO THE MIXER!

News

Did Neil blow it? Song sheds dim light on old controversy.

My pappy always told me that, before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. (Actually, scratch that – I’m thinking of someone else‘s pappy.) Anyway, whoever the source might be, it strikes me as a valid point. That’s why whenever I hear someone criticizing Neil Armstrong for flubbing his first words as he stepped off the lunar module, my first impulse is to say, “Hey … did YOU walk a mile on the moon? Huh? Did ya?”

The thing is, now we’re being told that Armstrong didn’t necessarily botch his little lunar speech – we just heard it wrong. In other words, he’s not the eff-up … we are for not keeping up with his speedy elocution style. Though, in fairness, the poor quality of interplanetary radio communications in 1969 should take some of the blame. I mean, listen to the dude – it sounds like he’s talking through a freaking kazoo.

As it happens, Big Green has weighed in on this contentious issue. Allow me to explain.

Art Imitates Life (Warts and All)

Some of you (and you know who you are) may be familiar with a song we did twelve years ago by the name of One Small Step. It’s a jumping little record I want my jockey to play! (No, wait – that’s Roll Over Beethoven.) Anyhow, as you can see from the video, we grapple with the vexing question of what Armstrong said as he stepped onto the moon. And by “grapple”, I mean bat it around like chimps in a bouncy house.

One Small Step, by Big Green

The chorus gets right to the point:

One small step for one bald man
Giant gaffe for all time
We did it!
Now let’s go do the other thing
for Jack-O!

Clearly, we settled on a point of view. But was it the right one? And what’s with the backing vocals? I mean, who sings “mooooon!” and “thing! thing! thing!” as a refrain? But I digress.

The Other Thing

Of course, amateur historians will tell you that the “other things” JFK was referring to in his Rice University address in 1962 had nothing to do with the moon. God, no – they were (1) climbing the highest mountain, (2) flying across the Atlantic (even if you’re a Hitler-admiring freak), and (3) some football game.

Now, it took three days to get to the moon (one-way, non-smoking, off-peak pricing). Climbing Everest took an afternoon, from a running start. True story! How long does a college football game take? Don’t ask me … just wake me up when it’s over. THE POINT IS: going to the moon took longer, so Neil and company deserve extra credit, overtime pay, and so on. That was what we were getting at. Somewhat.

And In Other News …

Work continues on Big Green’s next album. As I reported previously, we’ve got about 23 or 24 songs under construction. Right now we’re patching some rough spots, adding backing vocals, dropping in some additional parts (mostly keys). We should be in the mix phase by sometime this summer, so my wild prediction of a Fall release is still possible. (Or the whole thing might blow sky high. Who can say?)

Look for updates in the coming weeks. Or months. Try tomorrow.

News

Big Green albums are hard to finish. Here’s why.

2 Comments

Did you survive the total eclipse of the sun? Well, if you’re reading this right now, chances are the answer is yes. Now that we’ve fully recovered from that harrowing experience, the time is right to talk about music. (As the killer probe Nomad said on classic Star Trek, “Think about music…”)

Let’s face it – albums are never easy. They require time, patience, and great care, not to mention a crap load of luck. Of course, that dynamic is not exclusive to Big Green. What sets us apart is our process for completing an album. What process, you may ask? Allow me to offer you a brief look under the hood of this smooth-running machine.

Joe on keys

I’ve written at length in previous posts about how mother-effing slow we are. And while sloth may be our secret sauce, here are three key elements that go into building a Big Green album:

1. Specific Gravity

While it’s kind of hard to measure, we like to ensure that our songs maintain a high level of density relative to that of water. Often that process prompts us to add strings, horn sections, chunky guitars, or over-driven organ parts. We come up with arrangements, track them, then burn a rough mix to CD-R. If we drop the disc in a bucket of water and it bobs to the surface, we know our work is not done.

2. Valence

As we record a song, we ask ourselves, “How well will this song bind with other songs on the same album?” After noodling this for a few minutes, we try to put some concrete numbers together. We usually start with the total number of tracks on our last album (in this case, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick had 21). From that number, we subtract the number of valence electrons associated with a specific track. (Note: if you try this at home, you may need to borrow an electron microscope.)

3. Lyric Intelligibility

Hey, we’ve all been there, right? You listen to a song for a year, a decade, three decades, then one day you discover you’ve misinterpreted the lyrics. Instead of “There’s a bathroom on the right”, he’s singing “There’s a bad moon on the rise”. Well, here at Big Green, we try to keep that to a minimum. And when I say minimum, I mean a minimum of thirty instances per album. Sure, it takes work, but the more you confuse people, the more memorable you’ll be.

Matt and his Gibson.

Stream Our Asses

Hey, don’t forget – you can find Big Green’s full catalog on many (if not all) of the major music streaming platforms, including:

Add us to your playlists!

(Image by Julien BLOT from Pixabay)