Category Archives: News

News (and some olds) about Big Green

News

Let the sleigh bells play and the reindeer ring: your Big Green holiday playlist

Well, it’s that magical season again, people – the time of year when otherwise fairly normal people enter a state of frenzy, turning themselves inside-out to purchase holiday consumer items for family and friends before the 25th of December. Where’s the magic in that, you may ask? No man can say.

For your friends in Big Green, it’s time to look back at where the hell we’ve been all these years. We are more than a quarter century past the release date of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, and while it hasn’t achieved holiday classic status as of yet (give it another fifty!), it does get a few plays here and there. And yeah, we DO listen to some of them, goosing the numbers a bit I suppose. Anywho, here’s my personal Big Green yuletide playlist:

Pagan Christmas

As I mentioned last year, Pagan Christmas tends to be a holiday favorite around this time of year among a select few, typically wiccans and assorted pagan. They’re always good for a few hundred streams, and it does well on YouTube (by our standard, which is pretty small potatoes). It’s kind of upbeat with a pretty simple lyric:

You’re a standing invitation
You’re a complete stranger at the top of the list
You’re just like a relation
You’ll be right there with us while we’re tearing away at our gifts
And you’ll stand there gleaming with a ton of decorations

You’re not very different
In a couple of minutes I’ll be heating you up
You’re not very different
In a couple of hours I’ll be serving you up on a plate
And you’ll sit there gleaming with a ton of trimmings at your side

Have yourself a Merry Pagan Christmas Sacrifice

Hear it on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.

Merry Christmas Jane

One of my personal holiday favorites from the broader Big Green catalog is the live version of Merry Christmas Jane, which we tossed up on YouTube some time ago. This one features the nimble-fingered Jeremy Shaw on guitar, and it goes something like this:

Christmas Is All Done

Okay, this one was never commercially released, but we dropped it on YouTube a couple of years ago. It’s a song Matt wrote and we recorded sometime in the nineties, one of the first tracks we finished on our Tascam DA-88, the deck we would later use to record 2000 Years to Christmas. I always liked the atmosphere of this one, though I think Matt wanted to choke me for posting it. (He’s more of a perfectionist than I am … he and nearly all the rest of humanity.)

One Small Step

Okay, now I know what you’re going to say – that ain’t no Christmas song! Actually, it started life as a holiday number, the original version recorded with the group that included Christmas Is All Done. We resurrected it years later, added parts, then released One Small Step as a single. It is one of those rare Big Green releases that has an actual video associated with it. The original Christmas reference in the lyric was written out – it was pretty obscure, in any case.

All Saints Come

This is another number from 2000 Years To Christmas. I particularly like this track because it probably sounds more like we actually sounded as a performing band than any song on that album. It’s a bit of a dirge, but it’s got some crunch to it, and there’s nothing I like more around Christmas time than a little crunch.

What’s new for the New Year?

Well, it’s coming down fast, isn’t it? In 2026 we should be starting production on our next collection of songs, most of which have been written but not tracked. We plan to release a new single sometime early in the year – I’ll be posting about that in the coming weeks. Until then, keep the cards, letters, emails, posts, and rocks coming, have a safe and happy holiday, and don’t forget to tip the wait staff – they work effing hard and deserve every cent.

Joe offers a fine holiday howdy

PEACE OUT, PEOPLE!

News

When you’re a hammer, every song looks like a nail

Sure was a long, long hot summer night. Wait … was that more than one night? THREE MONTHS? Jesus, I slept late. Stupid alarm!

We’re coming to the close of a very quiet summer in Big Green land. Hey, you know how it gets – you spend two years on an album, drop the mother, then you’re on to other things. Matt’s holed up in his private compound deep in the woods of Central New York, churning out songs, writing a book, feeding the beavers at Spring Farm (pictured above), and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Me? I’m flying in my taxi, taking tips and gettin’ …. wait, no, that’s not it. Just keeping the home fires burning, folks. We’ve got pieces of the next project under construction, pre-production if you will (and even if you won’t), and some tracking. It’s a slow roll, but it’s a roll.

Friends in Manila (and Jakarta)

Funny thing about our latest album, In Retrograde, is that it’s doing better in The Philippines than pretty much anywhere else. Who’s number 2 in the Big Green fan club? Indonesia, that’s who. Could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me that. Longtime readers of this blog may remember our shaggy dog tails about our Jakarta-based corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm. If THOSE dudes find out people are listening to us over there, lord only knows what comes next.

What’s their favorite song? Far and away, it’s Matt’s “Could Be On Your Way“, one of my personal favorites on that long-ass album.

It’s a bit of a sleeper, but I like it because it makes us seem like we actually work up arrangements rather than just play random instruments about a million times until it sounds like something.

They got it the wrong way round, see?

Other groups (and they know who they are) look at us like we have two heads because of the way we work. My response to them is, yeah, we have two heads because we’re two people. What’s confusing them, though, is that we use digital recording tools – computer workstation, digital instruments, etc. – but record in a super old-school way. We’re just playing parts, overdubbing, punching in, etc., like we were running a Tascam 8-track deck. No sequencing, no virtual stuff, aside from drum patterns.

Call us Luddites. Call us cavemen. Call us anytime – we’re always glad to hear from you. Yeah, we’re set in our 80s counterculture ways, so what’s new? We may have it the wrong way round, but it’s the right way to our dumb asses. Thing is … how is it that these Southeast Asia listeners are finding “Could Be On Your Way” when it’s seventeen songs into a remarkably obscure 24 song album?

It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma then dunked into conundrum sauce. Sounds delicious!

WTF is next, anywho?

Well, that’s anyone’s guess. We’re in pre-production for another new music project, and then there’s all the Ned Trek stuff that needs to be remastered. Suffice to say, there’s no rest for the weirdies.

News

What the hell are they saying, anyway?

Kids say the darnedest things, at least according to Art Linkletter. (Ask your grandmother.) And I’m pretty certain that if they heard Big Green’s latest album, In Retrograde, they would more than meet old Art’s expectations. It’s the darnedest collection of songs we’ve ever released. You can quote me on that.

Thing is, we’re not talking about kids here, my fine friend. We’re talking about reviewers and listeners. That, as they say, is where the rubber meets the road. And with an album like In Retrograde, they’re leaving skid marks.

The big picture

So, what the heck are they saying about this box of two dozen songs? Let’s start with the reviewers. Here’s what Leif Zurmuhlen (friend of the band) had to say about the album in Metroland Now:

Don’t let the cold, soulless retro robot on the album cover fool you; Big Green’s In Retrograde is brimming with songs filled with so much humanity and compassion that it could reduce a full-grown mechanical man to a weeping puddle of rust.

Damn, he’s good! Sticking with general comments, check out what reviewer Jenna Sents had to say in NYS Music:

In Retrograde, takes an overall turn away from their usual ironic and humorous writing and steps into a more sentimental territory. “There’s a lot of pain and there’s a lot of angst. “I’m not really sure a lot of that was consciously put into the songs,” Matt Perry said about the lyric writing process. He notes himself as a “compulsive songwriter.” For Matt Perry, writing poetry for this album was like doing a psychological evaluation, he said.

True that. But these are professionals. What about the ordinary folks? What does the person on the street think of this particular bag of tricks? Well, Ben on Facebook calls it “Garbage”. Not everyone on Meta wanted to leave us at the curb, however. John’s comment was “Cool art”. And Charles said, “Sounds great ….. if you like dead silence.” (I’m calling that a maybe.)

In Retrograde - Big Green's newest album

Down in the weeds

Here’s what reviewers had to say about individual tracks:

Matt goes Cat Stevens-y with the delicate stand-out track “Tear Inside My Eye” and “When Will I See You Again?”. His electric guitar is Neil Young-crunchy on “Where is the Sun” and his acoustic is Lindsay Buckingham-nimble on the folky “Follow You”.  Meanwhile, Joe’s keyboards are funky like Billy Preston for “Sound Asleep” and churchy like Procol Harum on “I Found You”. 

The catchy “Meet Me In The Middle” bounces along like the theme song from a ‘70s sitcom that never existed. Matt argues that meat is murder in “Can’t Be Without You” singing, “What’s it like to be tied and then boiled alive?”. And “Don’t Unfriend Me” tramples in like an XTC track with Joe expressing that he is willing to take all manner of abuse, so long as he still gets likes: “I saw your anger emoji under the pictures from my destination wedding, but I don’t care if you offend me, please don’t unfriend me, don’t walk away…”.   

– Leif Zurmuhlen

The album begins with “Alone for a Day,” a 70s-inspired funk rock song with layered vocals and warbly synth. The driving snare beats and distorted, yet distant guitar make the listener feel like they are floating through space.

“Is It Wrong” takes a darker turn on the album, creating a feeling of someone walking aimlessly around with their thoughts. The haunted vocals further this feeling with lyrics about being unsure if you’re in the right relationship. It starts out with a simple love-song-esk line: “I love you // So I wrote out this song.” By the chorus confliction and self-doubt plagues the speaker: “Is it wrong, is it wrong, // Is it wrong for me to want to be with you, // Is it right, is it right, // Is it right, I should tolerate the solitude.”

“Don’t Unfriend Me,” written by Joe Perry, is a humorous song about a social media stalker. The track makes fun of the parasocial relationship a needy stalker can have over someone they “follow” on social media. Meanwhile, the person being “followed” barely known of their existence. In the penultimate track, “You Can’t Help,” takes the listener on a journey about the doubts and struggles of a relationship. Each verse adds a new though around the inner conflict about letting someone see your most vulnerable self.

– Jenna Sents

Your turn

Got comments on In Retrograde? Share ’em with us! Leave a comment on this post or drop one on social media.