Can’t you hear it? It’s playing the piano. It’s Ingram’s hand… it’s playing down there! The hand… Oh no, wait. It’s not Ingram’s hand. It’s actually my hand — I’m playing the piano. Fuck a duck, I always make that mistake.

Bad old movie fanatics will recall The Beast With Five Fingers, a moody horror flick featuring Peter Lorre and a one-handed piano player. Actually, my brother (and Big Green co-founder) Matt wrote one of his many Christmas songs on the theme of this ridiculous movie. I think he called it “Christmas Piece (written for one hand)”. I’ll post the file sometime, if he promises not to kill me for doing so. It’s an eight-track DTRS recording from about ten years ago, now in mothballs. Dig it up, fucker! Is that what I hear you saying? Very well, then… We’ve got a pretty deep grab bag over here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Lots of old masters (and I don’t mean Rembrandt), including 4 track cassette recordings, scary demos, and unreleased out-takes from our last album, 2000 Years To Christmas.

Yup, it’s been seven years since our last proper album release, though we have archives stretching back to the 1980’s when we knuckleheads first started playing together. I’ve actually put Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in charge of maintaining these archives, deep in the dusty catacombs of the mill. My feeling is, since he’s a machine, he will feel some sympathy towards these fruits of modern technology (tapes, song files, etc.) and handle them with gentleness and sensitivity. I know he has a strong capacity for… for… what the hell was that noise? Sounded like tapes being dropped down a basement stairs. Excuse me… Marvin? Is that you? What the hell are you playing at, you tin-plated moron? Those reel-to-reel spools are irreplaceable! Get your head out of your ass! What the…? Put that torch away. I said PUT IT AWAY! No… NOOOOO!!!

Okay, that was just a bit of melodrama. Got to keep the kids entertained, know what I mean. Marvin is not one bit clumsy — he’s like a wolf on his feet. It’s the man-sized tuber who’s the clumsy clod around this joint. I warn you, never leave him with the cleaning up after dinner. Can’t tell you how many sets of second-hand china we went through because of that ham-fisted root vegetable. Nowadays we just eat on paper plates recovered from the local falafel vendor. And on those rare occasions when we do use actual dishes, I just ask Trevor James Constable to train his orgone generating device on them after dinner. (Just throw the switch and the bioplasmic etheric energy does its magic while you watch the Daily Show.) Hell, I know — it’s not tubey’s fault. His withered abdominal roots can barely hold a coffee cup, let alone a stack of stoneware platters, heavy with leavings from a four-course Mexican feast. (Clumsy fool.)

Yeah, when we finish this album (for years he’s been saying this, for years…), I’ll start sorting through some of our old recordings and post a few of the more listenable examples. Or maybe I’ll just re-do them with one hand tied behind my back. Hey — this is Big Green. Anything can happen.

What is this? More bickering? Jesus Christ on a bike. Can’t you guys ever just let it drop? Always putting the boot in, putting the boot in. Leave it, damn you, leave it. Do I have to come back there again? You’re distracting me from my driving!

Oh, it’s you. Honestly… sometimes I feel like the parent of three-year-old quadruplets. (Or is it four-year-old triplets? Same total number of life years, you see.) It’s especially bad when we’re out for a ride in the woody. No, that’s not a euphemism for some kind of warped sexual encounter between bandmates — we really do have a paneled station wagon, an old Ford country squire. Don’t look at me like that. It’s an old junker, okay? I can’t help it if it belches black smoke into an otherwise moderately breathable atmosphere. For chrissake, if you lived with this crew, you’d have to find a way to get them all out of the hammer mill from time to time too. It gets pretty close in there, even with all that space. Mitch and his cigars. Matt and his cooking. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and his incessant juggling.

We went out for a brief ride in the ‘wagon just yesterday, and I had to pull over at least a couple of times specifically to speak to Marvin about those bloody pins he keeps tossing in the air. (He had the best juggling coach, too… some guy named Sven. Go figure.) Not a lot of headroom in that car, as you might well imagine — this isn’t some suburban land-yacht or Mercedes SUV, friends. Anyway, it was my turn to drive and by virtue of our friend sFshzenKlyrn’s generous holiday gift (a small poke of Zenite snuff), the vehicle somehow ended up in a roadside drainage ditch. I’ve been in a number of crashes in my time; most of them involving space vehicles (or at least one space vehicle and a car of some sort), but this was among the more embarrassing incidents of its kind. For one thing, it transpired within eyeshot of the freaking mill. My comrades elected to walk the rest of the way home, singing the ridiculous round with which they had been bludgeoning me while we were still on the road. That left me to beg assistance from a passing donkey cart. I think you can imagine the ride home, station wagon in tow. Not a pretty sight.

When did it become my responsibility to entertain the troops? I’ve been elected by default, quite frankly. Mitch Macaphee may be able to pilot a spacecraft, but he’s no taxi driver. And don’t even ask me about the man-sized tuber. Why, his little spindly roots can’t even reach the pedals, poor fucker. Matt and John? They like to hang out the windows with their tongues flapping in the breeze. I suppose the most likely candidate for chauffeur would be Marvin, but hell — we get Marvin to do everything. I mean, that robot is entitled to a little down time, even if he is my personal robot assistant. Besides, if you put a robot in the driver’s seat, it’s like riding with Hitler. Don’t ask me why… some truths are imponderable.

With a bullet… literally. Big Green’s acoustic anti-war song Red, Gold, and Green has reached number 250 on Neil Young’s Living With War Today chart — that’s out of about 1,100 songs and without any promotion from yours truly… until now. Get over there and click that mo-fo! (By the way… The President’s Brain is Missing is at #399 and could use a few click, too.)

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Play it again, Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Hmmm… doesn’t quite have the right ring to it. Add a bit more ring. Brass ring is okay; gold is even better. That’s right — a GOLDEN RING. Don’t say we’re not worth it.

Of all the cheap gin joints in the world, she had to pick THIS one to stumble into. No, I’m not doing imitations. Far be it from me to attempt such a thing in a blog. I’m referring to our financial advisor, Geet O’Reilly. I’ve been hiding from her because she has this list of overdue accounts that need immediate attention and, well, I don’ wanna. I jus’ don’ wanna. There’s also the small matter of resources. Not a small matter, actually — a large matter of small resources, more to the point. Simply put, we ain’t got no money to pay dem bills. After almost four years of production and one disastrous interstellar tour after another, the bank is broken, the piggy shattered, the sock empty, the mattress disgorged… you think of a metaphor. (I’m fresh out.) So here I am, sittin’ in a bar, knockin’ em back…

Yes, yes… we are broke again. Break out the violins. (Hmmm… violins. We could use more violins on that track.) Right, well, you’ve certainly heard me complain about money before. I’d be the first to admit that we have a kind of chronic problem in that area. It’s like that old Italian proverb — money she’s-a hard to hold onto. Okay… that particular proverb is only moments old, in actuality. But it’s true, nonetheless. Sure, we live in an abandoned hammer mill in the middle of nowhere, paying no rent, no property taxes, no utilities, no nothin’. We’re off the grid, man. How do we keep the lights on? Innovation. One week it’s plugging into Marvin’s ion generator. The next week it might be running an extension cord from Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating machine. What will it be next week? Only next week can say (and it’s not talking).

You see, that’s why we’re all about the music and Geet O’Reilly is all about the cash. We cloister ourselves into our makeshift studio in the basement of this drafty mill and chip away at the project of the day, never giving a single thought to what everything costs. Isn’t that what you expect of us? I mean, you don’t want a bunch of bean counters serving up your music, do you? Of course not! You expect us to be clueless about finances; to drink away the profits and smoke away the savings; to burn through the night’s take before the night has even begun. Not only that, but you want us to be lazy, shiftless, self-destructive, and random in every endeavor. And the last thing we want to do is disappoint you.

What the hell — I think she’s spotted me over here. I need a bigger drink to hide behind, that’s the thing. Marvin! Get me a large draft. No, bring me the whole bloody barrel, there’s a good chap. Damn… Busted!