Raise the spirit temperature 17 degrees. Good. Now, engage the magneto drive. Switching… switching… got it. Got the diamond drill ready? No? Just the cubic zirconium drill? That will have to do.

Ah, hello. Wasn’t aware there was anyone within eyeshot of our little corner on the Web. One never knows, does one? Caught us all in the middle of an experiment, or as our Italian scientist friend Dr. Hump calls it, an experimento. (My Italian is a little rusty.) Actually, the experiment is being conducted not only by the good doctor, but also on the good doctor. Does that sound unethical? I certainly hope so, or your moral compass is way out of alignment. Better get that sucker looked at, little fella. But I digress… As I’ve mentioned earlier in these pages, we’ve been on a bit of a science kick here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. I’m not just talking about the esoteric stuff, like “how much does the moon weigh?” I’m talking practical, too, as in, “how do you keep the rain out of my bedroom?” The science of roofing, as it were.

Anyway, the redoubtable Dr. Hump — a brain in a jar, as you may be aware — has talked us into helping him acquire something akin to super-powers. Granted, he has no body with which to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He’s concentrating more on mental agility and parapsychological powers of the kind that our friend Trevor James Constable masters through various contrivances, like his patented orgone generating device. In fact, Trevor James is acting as an expert consultant on this procedure… though the actual bull work is being done with great precision by Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Why Marvin? Well, Mitch Macaphee did not want to get directly involved — something to do with professional ethics, I believe — so he asked his invention to serve as a stand-in. (Mitch took the trouble to program the requisite skills into Marvin before the procedure began. Good thinking. Good thinking.)

How does this bear on our ongoing recording / mixing / mastering project, now in its fourth glorious goddamned fucking year? Well, I’m gon’ tell yuh. If we can help Dr. Hump (the brain) to acquire fantastic para-psychological powers, he can be of enormous help in marketing whatever finished product comes out of the other end of our endless recording / mastering sessions. The way I figure it, the good doctor can project an irresistible impulse into millions of people the world over to buy or download our album. Oh, then the money will come rolling in like hay bales in September. By that time, of course, we will need telekinesis just to get the CDs into the shops, as none of us will have the energy to do it ourselves (and, of course, our distributors have long since abandoned us). Good things come to those who wait… and to those who are particularly receptive to telekinetic suggestion. Pass it along, will you? There’s a good chap.

Rest assured, we are drawing closer and closer to the day when our new album will be released into the wild. And you will know it has arrived when you see a strange image of a disembodied brain in your mind’s eye… and hear a sound that goes WOOoooWOOOOoooWOOOooo. That’s called marketing, friends. Ear muffs won’t help you. Neither will Rice Crispies.

Criminy. Is that you making that noise? What the fuck, Mitch, you nearly scared the fertilizer out of me! Put that bloody thing away, will you? Scientists!

Yeah, that’s right — I’m complaining again. So what’s new, right? Hey… you lock yourself into an abandoned hammer mill with an assortment of mad scientists, musicians, automatons, root vegetables, and extraterrestrials, and see where your head ends up. (On a pike, quite possibly.) You’ll be glad to know I’ve given up on the idea of pressing our own CD’s. (Too depressing.) But the spirit of scientific experimentation (sans animals) lives on here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. Unfortunately, where Mitch Macaphee is concerned, this usually involves some kind of explosion, whether intentional or not. Actually, most times not. It’s just that when you haphazardly drop a little of the blue liquid from beaker C into the 60 ml of yellow liquid in test tube 9, you may get a new kind of hair gel… or you may get a big kaboom (which can give you a new “do” just as quickly).

Nobody ever said music was a particularly safe occupation. Well, perhaps someone said it sometime, but they’re probably dead by now. Though I’m willing to wager that most suckers who go into pop or anti-pop music probably don’t expect to have to deal with hazardous materials or mad plans to control the future using a slightly modified VCR remote. Listen up, you children out there — if you want to be a rock musician, it goes with the territory. Don’t believe me? Talk to Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He’s got that kind of honest, open face that people tend to trust. What’s more, he’s hip, fly, keen, blah-zono, and can really talk to the young. Where was I going with this? Ah yes — he knows the scientific / technological hazards of the rock industry because he himself is the product of an experiment… a creature of Mitch Macaphee, a.k.a. Mr. Explosion.

I guess the thing to remember here is… hmmm. I appear to have forgotten. So many things to keep track of here at the mill, you know. Why only yesterday, some local merchant was trying to drum up a little extra business by commandeering Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device and using it as a slide projector. Next thing we know, the son of a bitch lights a bonfire in the street right in front of the freaking mill, and starts handing out hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick. You would think that such irresponsible behavior as this might only draw the attention of the local fire brigade, but in fact, there were some gawkers. I’m a bit ashamed to say that Marvin was prominent among them (though, in all fairness, he was only there for the marshmallows). Suffice to say it took several hours to clear the sidewalk and drag the orgone generating device back into its cubby hole.

Which brings me back to science (see — there was a point to this story). If it weren’t for those pesky scientists, we wouldn’t have to deal with situations like this… at least, not on weekdays. Lock that sucker down, Trevor James!

Put it all in one stack. That’s right. Now step down hard. Harder. Harder still. Good, good. Nope, that’s too hard. Too hard, damnit! I said too fucking… oh, what the hell’s the use?

Whoa, I wasn’t expecting company. Working hard here at the Cheney Hammer Mill, as usual. Sometimes I think I need a sledgehammer to get through the kind of thick skulls we have in such rich abundance around this place. Does that surprise you? Yes, I know — as bands go, we have a relatively high quotient of scientists in our midst, such as the illustrious Mitch Macaphee, the renowned Trevor James Constable, and the inestimable Dr. Hump (a.k.a. our resident “brain in syrup”). But quite frankly, the rest of us are lunkheads, and it is the weight of our collective stupidity that tends to drag the whole enterprise down towards dumbshit land. Ergo, every endeavor involves an enormous amount of effort, plus a whole discover phase at the outset wherein we discuss topics like “Where did the sun go?” and “How fat does a brick weigh?” as a prelude to doing even the most inconsequential lick of work. Arrrghhhh!!

My apologies. Back to our story. What was I trying to accomplish, exactly? Well, as you know, we denizens of the Big Green franchise are pretty much left to our own devices when it comes to producing, publishing, and distributing our wares. Crikey, we have to make all our own noises, play our own horn parts, bang the drum (slowly), mix our own bloody songs, press our own CD’s, design our own labels… even build our own customers, like Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who owns all of our albums. (Okay, so there’s only one so far. There’ll be others!) That’s what makes us, well… different. Is that the word I’m looking for? Or is it… stupid? Has a more familiar ring. Anyway, we are the DTY band, for sure, and that requires a broad range of skills with which we have only a passing acquaintance, at best. And as one of the primary decision makers in the group (I’m the decider!), I’m tasked with training foot soldiers like the man-sized tuber (though, technically, he’s a root soldier).

Yup, last week it was moving the mill around to find the best reverb chamber effect. This week, we’ve been working on our process for pressing our own CD’s. Pretty simple process, from what I understand. Here’s how it works: you take the “music”, which is essentially a physically intangible entity, shape it into a ball, place it on a blank compact disc, and press down just as hard as you can until the two objects become one. Foolishly simple, right? So here’s the question — why the hell can’t the man-sized tuber do it? I keep handing him disc after disc, and he applies his mighty bulk, to no avail. The disc remains blank, lifeless, empty… like a vacant house on a deserted street in a forgotten country… (sounds like home to me). Perhaps I’m being too hard on the tuber. Perhaps I’m not shaping the intangible ball of music in exactly the right manner. (It’s actually harder than it sounds… not the music, but the technique… or as Matt would say, “techy neeky”.)

So, what the hell — if we can’t make our own CD’s, then I guess we can’t do everything, can we? So what I said a bit earlier, that hasn’t held true even for the amount of time it took me to type this lousy column. Fleeting are the truths by which we live. Speechless am I. (Great… now I owe George Lucas money, too. Jesus!)