All posts by Joseph

News

What kind of monster is it – Gumby or Ghidorah?

Hey – any of you out there remember Milton the Monster? You know, the cartoon show about the big-hearted Frankenstein-like creature that … um … well … talked like Jim Neighbors and … oh, ask your mother!

Well, brother Matt and I find ourselves kind of reviving the role of Professor Weirdo as we continue our work on the upcoming Big Green album (our fourth, by the way, and the first one in more than a decade). As you will see from the intro to Milton the Monster (if you can stand listening to it), we too are struggling with the question of how much tincture of tenderness we should add to the mix. Milton’s theme lays the problem out pefectly:

Six drops of the essence of terror
Five drops of sinister sauce
When the stirring’s done, may I lick the spoon?
Of course, hah hah! Of course!

Now for the tincture of tenderness
But I must use only a touch
For without a touch of tenderness
It might destroy me!
Oops, too much!

Okay, so … this time around we’re a little light on the essence of terror. And we left the sinister sauce out in the rain a little too long. And as Matt tried to add a touch of tenderness, well … I bumped his elbow and the whole damn thing poured into the mix. Damn it all!

Sentimental jerk ass

This, of course, begs the question – is Big Green going soft and sentimental in its old age? Well, that question begs an answer: Hell no, man! We’ve ALWAYS been sentimental. Ask anybody who likes us. And if you can’t find anyone who likes us, then you’re just like everybody else we know. And we HATE people like that!

Seriously, think about it – what is I Hate Your Face if not a sentimental song? There’s a lot of sentiment in that sucker. Sure, maybe not the Gumby kind of sentiment, but more the Ghidorah kind. In any case, you can expect a whole lot of sentiment in our next album. That’s my personal guarantee: a sentimental monster.

Knob-twiddling our way forward

As I’ve said previously, we’ve got a lot of tweaking ahead of us on this project. We’ll be pushing sliders, twiddling knobs, occasionally pulling sliders (but mostly pushing) and plugging things into other things. I will be wrestling computers like a live thing, swearing at them bitterly as they fail and fail again. But (and this is important) we are making progress, completing our first swipe on about one third of the songs.

We will keep you all posted on how the snail is faring as it climbs Mount Fuji. One way or the other, new music will be coming your way in the foreseeable future. Whether it’s the kind that makes Gumby happy or provokes the wrath of Ghidorah, only time will tell.

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.