Category Archives: Usual Rubbish

Usual Rubbish

Home for the Hella Days.

2000 Years to Christmas

There it is again. See it? That white stuff, floating down from the sky to vex us. Why, Lord, why? I only just pulled the tarp off the hole in the roof last Saturday, and now this! MITCH!!

Sorry, folks. Didn’t mean to melt down all over the blog post. It’s this damnable weather that’s got me riled up. Freaking snow, coming down through the sky-wide gap in the roof of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. As it that isn’t bad enough, Anti-Lincoln is in the forge room making snowmen …. like a child! So un-presidential. (Which, I suppose, is to be expected.)

Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Of course, not everyone can do anything about it, and what makes this April snow particularly frustrating is the knowledge that we have here amongst us someone who actually can control the weather. I’m referring, of course, to our esteemed mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee, who has toyed with atmospheric disturbances as a pass time, but seems completely unwilling to use his knowledge for the good of his comrades. You’re no freaking use, Mitch – face it!

Well, I suppose if it’s going to be winter again, maybe we should put together another Christmas album. God knows we have enough numbers. Anyone who has listened to our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, over the past ten years knows that we’ve recorded at least an album worth of ridiculous Christmas songs over that time. Why not package them up, tie them in a bow, and toss them out to the masses? Why the hell not? Happy Hella Days!

Ah, Christmas. Just like I remember it.

As Dylan said, I’ve got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane. None of them are any good, but better to have bad ideas than no ideas at all, right? Or …. maybe not. In any case, I know I’m probably over-reacting to the weather. I’m not sure the world is ready for another Big Green Christmas album. (In fact, I’m not sure Big Green is ready.)

So, maybe put a hold on the Christmas project, and pull the tarp back over what used to be a roof. Then close the freaking windows and stoke up the boiler. I’ll ask Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to put some more coal on the fire. In fact, you go out right now and buy a new coal scuttle. Yes, you do that before you dot another i, Marvin robot!

Damned hella days!

Usual Rubbish

Late to the party.

2000 Years to Christmas

Here comes another one, hot off the presses. Just in time for the presidential election. Wait, what? When did that happen? Five months ago? I’ll be damned.

Oh, hey there. Just plying our usual trade here in Big Green land. (For those of you listening to an audio version of this blog, I don’t mean Greenland’s big sister; I mean the land of Big Green, the indie rock combo from space. Or from time. From somewhere not here and now, suffice to say.)

I’m guessing more than a few of you think we just while away the hours, conversing with the flowers here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where flowers grow up through the cracks in the shop floor. Well, I hate to disillusion any of our legions of followers, but we are far more industrious than that, my friends – far more. (Someone on the internet once claimed we were the laziest band in music. I almost fell out of my string hammock when I heard that one.)

Long-time listeners know that Big Green’s most recent material is mostly topical, ripped-from-the-headlines kind of stuff. And when I say “headlines”, I don’t mean today’s paper. More like last month’s paper … or last year’s. You see, the thing is, whatever the political situation may be at any given time, when things go septic, we start writing songs about it.

That’s the genesis of our second album, International House, which was basically our document on the Bush II administration. Then there was Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, which was made up of songs about the life and times of 2012 presidential candidate Rick Perry, our honorary cousin. Since then, we’ve written and recorded scores of songs for our podcast feature Ned Trek, many of which were about right-wing politicians in general and Trump in particular.

Huh. I guess it's time to release our song about that awesome blimp.

Okay, so you get the topical part. Now here’s the rest of the story – we’re always freaking late to the party. We released International House in the waning days of the Bush Administration – like, the last couple of months. And when did we release Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick? In 2013, a year after Rick Perry dropped out of the presidential race! So in keeping with our long tradition of being far, far behind the curve, we are just now in the process of pulling together some songs from our Ned Trek collection, including a number that focus on Trump, months after the fucker left office. As Mr. Ned himself would say, “What the hell!”

In any case, we’ll keep you posted on any new releases from Big Green over the next year or so. In the meantime, we’re looking at posting International House on our YouTube channel, as that’s the only one of our albums that is not available on the YT. Look for the latest on our Twitter feed or our Facebook page. (There, Marvin – I’ve name checked all of our social media properties. Are you happy now?)

Usual Rubbish

Ear candy.

2000 Years to Christmas

Turn it down, the radio! No, that’s too low. Now turn it up again. Ah, that’s perfect. What’s that you say? It’s not a radio? But it has dials and lights and noise comes out of it. This is strange.

Oh, hi. I was just contemplating a new advance in audio science called the Eight Track Cartridge Player – a bold invention that enables you to copy a two-sided, long-playing record onto a medium that’s broken into four equal parts … so inevitably, one or more of the songs on the LP will be randomly broken in half somewhere in the middle. Or there will be big unexplained periods of silence at various points on the album. Or both. That IS a step up. Now if we could just get a record album onto some kind of medium that would allow us to play the whole thing from beginning to end without any of that nonsense, skip to another track instantaneously, fast forward, etc. Wait …. WHAT??

You know, the thing about living in an abandoned hammer mill is that you’re so isolated from the outside world, you almost literally become unmoored in time. Even your mad science advisor loses track of what decade it is, and starts inventing things that have already been invented in previous times, thinking they are his or her own ideas. Not that anything like that would ever happen around here. Okay …. in fact, that HAS happened around here, truth be told. This week it was the eight track cartridge deck. Last week it was the bicycle. My guess is that, by sometime next week, he will have installed one of his new tape decks in his ramshackle bike and start riding it around the valley, cranking up the tunes, and swearing at the gaps at key points in whatever album he’s listening to. Fun times!

Wow, Mitch. Another breakthrough.

Now, if we could get Trevor James Constable’s patented Orgone Generating Device working once again, we could actually turn a profit on Mitch Macahpee’s retread inventions. How, you may ask? Well …. think of how we managed to bring antimatter Lincoln into our midst – through a time portal generated by Trevor James’s invention. So, Mitch could take his re-invented eight-track machine, set the Orgone Generating Device (or OGD) to 1957, and drop in at SONY to show those fuckers how it’s done. Of course, they would buy up the patent almost immediately, then he could move forward in time to a point when sales are sufficient to shower him with remuneration, which he could then haul back to the future to share with us. Or maybe he would just use the profits to buy himself a tony house in the 1960s and forget our sorry asses. Hmmmm …. maybe not such a good idea.

SCRATCH THAT, MITCH! TRY INVENTING THE BLENDER NEXT – I’D KILL FOR A SMOOTHIE RIGHT ABOUT NOW.