Tag Archives: Cowboy Scat

Usual Rubbish

Scatology.

That’s right, it’s “crab nebula”. What does it mean? How the hell should I know? What am I, some kind of astronomer or something?

Jesus Christ on a bike (which he may well could have been, had he lived in modern times), your brother goes and writes a song lyric and the next thing you know people expect you to tell them what the Sam Hill it means. If I knew that, then I would know what the hell Matt is talking about half the time when he talks … and I clearly don’t, even though he is my own flesh and blood. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. It’s his songs that are heavy. Mucho heavy, baby.

What song am I being asked about? Well, it’s one of the tracks on our forthcoming album … I mean, collection, entitled Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. (Rumor has it the songs are part of the soundtrack of a musical about our cousin Rick Perry, but that the musical itself was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe.) The song in question is called “Evening Crab Nebula”, and it takes the form of three pieces of sage advice to Cousin Rick from one of his political consultants; one pep talk regarding his primary opponents; one cautionary trope about unseating a president; and this observation about the dangers of being too devout in your beliefs:

If you’re gonna’ follow that evening star
better be sure how wise you are
If you’re gonna’ follow that evening star
better not follow it all too far
or you’ll be choked and froze in the vacuum of space
Can’t treat the Crab Nebula
like it’s there to direct yuh
by pointing out some pertinent
biblical place

Now is that so hard to decipher? Well, of course it is. All political advice is that way, right? That’s why those consultants get the big bucks. (Where have I heard that lyric before? Hmmmm….)

Usual Rubbish

Mixing business.

What time is it again? Morning already? Christ on a bike. If I don’t start getting some sleep, you’ll have to take over the bailing duties.

The voice of reasonOoops. Sorry. Didn’t realize I was typing this into a blog post (or that anyone was looking at me from the imaginary wall-side of my three-walled room). We were in the process of working out chore assignments here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on this cold March morning in upstate New York, home of … well, abandoned factories … and crack-head shooters … and nervous deer. Come visit anytime!

The thing is, we are working diligently on the mixing of our next album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – an odd, patchy collection of songs from a forgotten musical about Cousin (Governor) Rick Perry (the score for which, legend has it, was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe back in the seventies. True story). This painstaking work can sometimes last one, maybe two hours at a stretch, over an unrelenting schedule of nearly one evening per week, pushing late into the early evening hours. It’s as much as a person can do to keep body and soul together in this pressure cooker. Stop the madness!

All right, I have pulled myself together. (Phew!) Why are we keeping such a punishing schedule? Well, blame our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (a.k.a. Hegephonic Records). They will stop at nothing. First they send the Indonesian military after us. (That’s usually last for most people.) Then they take the unprecedented step of reprogramming Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into some kind of robotic taskmaster. Every time I freaking turn around now, Marvin’s giving me the dagger eyes and running a tape loop of John Cameron Swayze saying, “Did you do it yet? Did you do it yet?” (Strangely, Marvin also offers us Camel cigarettes, as if Hegemonic implanted some Swayze DNA in his hard drive.)

How to do all this without sleep? I should ask our mad science adviser, Mitch Macaphee, who hasn’t slept in years. (Hell, if I’d done half of what he’s done just during our relatively brief acquaintance, I’d never sleep again.)

Usual Rubbish

Casting bread upon the whatever.

Hey howdee, everybody! It’s your old friend Joe of Big Green. Yeee-haw, have we got an amazing blog post for you this week. Shit boy howdy. (Did I say “howdy” yet?)

"Cousin" Rick
"Cousin" Rick

My apologies. I’m just practicing up for the promotional tour we’ll be embarking upon to plug our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, a collection of songs written by, for, of, and around our dear cousin, Rick Perry, governor of Texas, author of all we hold dear, inventor of the syrup gin, holder of the three-cards (in 3-card Monte … don’t know where I’m going with that). Rumor has it that the album is a recreated soundtrack from a musical that was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe in 1978. Someone apparently went back in time for that particular Nevada vacation. Rumor has it, anyway.

Okay, so … we’re practicing, to be sure. What else? Well, we posted the February episode of our ludicrous podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, just this past week. What kind of trouble did we get ourselves into? That’s a tall order, my friend. Just download the sucker and find out. It’s about 100 minutes of pure audio ecstasy, prepared for pod by yours truly and my somewhat more complicated brother, Matt Perry esq. Here are some highlights:

Ned Trek VII: The Last Moon of Frutoonius – the latest episode in the continuing saga of Willard Mitt Romney, commander of the starship Free Enterprise, and his talking dressage horse / first officer, Mr. Ned. This month, Willard, Ned, and Doc Coburn lock horns with rogue operator Newt Gingrich and his strange, other-worldly (or other-moonly) alien fifth wife.

Songs – We spin “Asteroid” from our album, International House, in celebration of our recent near-miss (or in the words of the immortal George Carlin, “near-hit”) by a large asteroid. We also play a lost demo from that same project, a song called “Say You Will” that never made it on to the finished album. Lastly, we play “Beautiful Grid”, a recording from about 1991 or so produced by Bob Acquaviva of Mere Mortals fame, featuring Tony (Ace) Butera on guitar – this is off our “President’s Brain is Missing” EP.

….and several butchers aprons. Got to get back to it. Time’s a-wasting. Enjoy!