Tag Archives: Cowboy Scat

Usual Rubbish

So anyway.

Music is a universal language and love is the key. Or maybe SOUND is the key. Love is the lock. No, wait … love is the music, language is the universe, and Francis Scott is the key. That sounds right-ish.

Well, we’re coming up on a little anniversary here at Big Green village, housed in the historic abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in historic upstate New York. (A lot of history up here. Did you know that this area is as old as any other area on Earth?) What’s the anniversary, you ask? Thank you for asking. It’s actually the tenth anniversary of the release of our second album, International House, which we released back in fall of 2008. My goodness … has it been that long? Well, I guess it has. It also happens to be the fifth anniversary of the release of our third album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. And in case that isn’t nearly amazing enough, next year will be the 20th anniversary of the release of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas.

Okay, so here are the ratios: 10:2, 5:3, and 20:1. Got all that? Good, because god knows I’m not paying any attention. Don’t get the wrong impression – we’re not one of those neurotic bands that keeps track of every insignificant date in our long history. Lord no, we gave that up on December 3, 1990 when I got that flat tire. WHY? WHY DID IT HAPPEN TO ME? Or was that Matt who got the flat tire? Maybe so. Right, then forget the why, why stuff. So anyway, we put International House out ten years ago. Kind of amazing, seeing as it took us five years to make that album in the first place. Five years, sixteen songs – you do the math. (Don’t ask me how.)

Aw, cheese and crackers!Well, so … how to celebrate? Our plan is to reissue songs off of International House via Soundcloud, so that the people can hear what they’ve been missing all these years. Because, hey listen … it’s all about the people. And what the people need is a way to make them smile. (Fun fact: every single phrase in this blog post is a lyric from some crappy pop song. Well … give or take a few.) All that’s on our Soundcloud site right now is some odds and ends, but that’s going to change, mister. You just wait and see.

And yes, we will get back to our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Patience, my friends, patience.

Usual Rubbish

Record plant.

Is that where the part comes in? Doesn’t seem right, but … okay. Just can’t trust my ears. Not after Cowboy Scat, our last million seller. (We’ve got a million in our cellar.)

Hello, Big Greeniacs. We’re hip-deep in mixing, as you might have guessed. This batch of songs, composed and recorded for the next episode of Ned Trek, is proving to be both challenging and time-consuming. What the hell, we’ve been working on these songs since January, and now it’s … what … May? Really? I should get out more. Anyway … we’ve been at it a long time. This better be good.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – we have recorded enough songs since the release of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick to make three new albums, with some left over for party favors. After we’ve finished these six or seven songs, I’m sure we’ll be nudging 70 recordings over five years. We don’t have much trouble coming up with new material. Monetizing it? That’s another issue.

Got a little job for you.Let’s face it … we’re crappy capitalists. (Or crapitalists, if you will.) Matt has no interest in money or notoriety. As for me, well, I couldn’t sell songs to my mother … and I did ask nicely. In a world that measures quality in terms of the price the product commands, we strain to reach the lowest rung. Our production quality is commensurate with the resources available to us. (i.e., we’re not recording at Big Blue North, even though it’s right up the freaking street.) We are evolving in that respect, but like Issa’s snail, slowly … slowly.

Hell, we can’t even afford proper production assistants. When Big Green needs craft services, we’re reduced to asking Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to carry in a pitcher of tap water and some paper cups. When we try to market or even give away our discs, we either toss them into the street in front of the mill or hang them on the branches of the mansized tuber. (That’s why the neighbors have taken to calling him “the record plant.”)

Okay, well, I have some mixing to do. We’re having biscuits tonight. After that, I’ll do more mixing … of cement for the front walkway. There’s something I’m leaving out, but I’m sure it will come to me.

Usual Rubbish

Why Christmas?

Okay, subject matter experts – let’s get down to it. We’ve written about fascists on the rise. We’ve written about space diseases. What’s left to write about? What? Christmas again? Oh, Jesus Christ on a re-gifted bike. Very well.

I’ll tell you, you ask a question around this place and you come away with six more questions. At least that’s an even number. That said, we’re still making music over here in Big Green-land (and no, I don’t mean big Greenland …. everyone makes that mistake), and well, Christmas is coming, so … that means more Christmas themed songs, right? Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly will be overjoyed to hear that there’s music that uses the word “Christmas” occasionally, even if it is mostly for humor and ironic purposes. (Or porpoises. Like hipster porpoises who do shark-like shit just to be ironic. You’ve seen that, right?)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we are planning a holiday podcast extravaganza, with newly recorded Big Green classics never before heard by the likes of you, as well as some brand new material. (I don’t mean fabric, either – I mean music, music.) We’re in production, or Come again?pre-production, or something like that. This will be the first group of songs we’ve recorded entirely on Cubase 9, with no help from our trusty old Roland 2480 deck, which served us so well for the last 16 years. So we’ll just see how that goes, my friends.

Okay, so … we started working on the Roland deck a year or two after the release of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, and I have to say, this group of songs we’re doing are pretty closely related to the songs on that disc. Why Christmas? Because Jesus. Or because it starts with a C. I don’t know – that’s just what we hang the song on, much like a shirt cardboard. (We kind of used former Texas governor Rick Perry as a shirt cardboard for one of our albums, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick.) It makes it easier to develop a theme and … oh, who cares?

We’ll just keep making the songs, Christmas themed or not. You expect no less. And no more.