Tag Archives: 2000 Years To Christmas

Usual Rubbish

It’s about time.

I don’t know, I’m thinking it’s time. What do you think? Not sure? Okay. When do you think you’ll have an answer? I don’t know about you, but … I’m thinking it’s time.

Okay, well … I’ll be frank with you. (Just call me “Frank” from now on.) We are grasping at straws here in Big Green land, now that our interstellar tour has been scuttled. And here it is, the holidays. We were thinking that we’d be traversing interstellar space when Christmas week came, but no dice. Trouble is, that was going to be our excuse for not getting anyone presents – sorry folks, we’re headed to a big gig on planet KIC 8462852. No time to shop! Well, THAT’S out the window. Any other good ideas for cheapskates?

Marvin (my personal robot assistant) humbly suggested we hand out signed copies of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, which appropriately follows a theme somewhat tangentially related to the holidays. Of course, we’ve resorted to that tactic before – it’s been a full 17 years since we put the sucker out, so everyone we know (and quite a few people we don’t know) has a copy. By this point, they’re stacking them under broken table legs and using them for drink coasters. I saw one of our friends re-purposing the jewel cases. Talk about a post-apocalyptic music hell-scape – people are mining our album like it’s a natural resource. (And it’s anything but natural.)

Give them discsThe gift of music is always an early resort for us. That’s basically how 2000 Years To Christmas was born – Matt writing songs as holiday gifts, back in the day. Then there’s the gift of podcasting. There, we have some good news and some bad news. The GOOD news is that we are working on another Christmas pageant as we speak – a Ned Trek holiday classic that will have some new songs embedded in it. The BAD news is that … at the rate we’re going, it likely won’t be finished until AFTER Christmas, so … hot holiday leftovers are coming your way.

For the holiday week itself, we may put out a rerun podcast with some additional “members only” elements. (Oh, right – we don’t have membership levels. Scratch that.) Back to the grind, boys!

Usual Rubbish

Jingle hell.

What are you going to be for this year’s Christmas pageant? A reindeer? A slice of gooseberry pie? As small pile of pine cones? So many possibilities.

I don’t imagine that anyone reading this blog is unaware of the fact that the holidays hold a special resonance for Big Green. God knows, when they start blowing those freaking carols through every available loudspeaker, my head starts resonating like a church bell at Noon. That’s what I call old time religion. And sure, we did do a whole album of Christmas songs, entitled (not surprisingly) 2000 Years To Christmas (2KY2C) – our first formal album.

When I say “formal”, I don’t mean that we appear in tuxedos with massive red cummerbunds and top hats. I mean that we released a number of collections on cassette tape prior to 2KY2C that were anything BUT formal. More than a few of those were Christmas themed albums, from which we drew the 13 songs that appeared on 2KY2C. Okay, so … as we have in previous years, we’re planning on putting together a holiday episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, and in an effort to lard it out with some extra music we are ladling out compositions from those earlier “informal” releases. Last year it was “Merry Christmas from Henry K;” the year before we did “Father Christmas,”  “Christmas Spirit” and a couple of others. Plenty more where that came from.

Gooseberry pie?I’ve often said (and you’ve often heard me) that the difference between Big Green and a successful group is that all-consuming lust for fortune, fame, and higher achievements. Yeah … we ain’t got that. We’ve got the songs – scores and scores of them. We’ve got our modest musical abilities. We’ve got a sense of how to put an album together. We even half know how to record ourselves, with some struggle. But that other stuff – that “I’m the greatest” shit … that particular human chromosome was left out of our genetic inheritance.

So what the hell. Bereft of an Earthly audience, we please ourselves. If that involves putting antlers on for a few hours, so be it.

Usual Rubbish

Inside Christmas.

Well, so that was Christmas, eh? What the hell. Kind of … over, isn’t it?

Play it again.Hope all of you are having a good holiday season. Sure, there comes a time when the plate is empty, the music falls silent, and the final champagne bubble pops. But take heart, friends … that time has yet to arrive. So for the nonce, as Governor Scott Walker would say, Molotov!

So, what is your holiday story? Can hardly wait to hear it. Here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we’ve been observing the season in the usual way. All the traditional rituals. And of course, the annual holiday podcast. Kind of puny, actually. I don’t know, maybe … 36 minutes of pure lame-ass awesomeness. WE BRING THE AWESOME.

I think you can imagine what the low lights might be. Here are some of the highlights:

Gold And Silver – Captain Romney sings a song of Christmas cheer from the perspective of an acquisitive, rapacious, mammon worshiper, bent on gain at all cost. Very festive indeed. Easy to waltz to. Contains a twist on every holiday music convention imaginable.

Winter Lock – A new version of a song Matt wrote for one of his Christmas tapes back in the day. What day? Not sure even I remember. Nineties sometime. Probably about the same vintage as most of the songs on 2000 Years To Christmas. Matt penned the majority of his Christmas songs between 1986 and 1996, so pick a year.

Head Cheese Log – This is a cut from 2000 Years To Christmas that we tagged on to the end of this super-skimpy holiday special just to round it off a little bit. Another waltz, for chrissake. What the hell – have we suddenly gone all Wagnerian on you?

Okay, well … it’s a humble gift, even by the standards of Big Green, but it is all we have to offer. We had the choice between too little and too late, and we chose the former. So hell … enjoy. Happy new year and all the rest of it. Now … back to work with me.