Tag Archives: In Retrograde

News, Songs

T-minus 22 for our new single; time to learn some guitar chords.

First, tune your folk guitar to the standard tones. Okay, so how does that go again? Every Good Boy Does Fine, right? But what about the sixth string? Wait a minute – you mean there’s a DIFFERENT system for guitar strings? Man god damn. This is more complicated than I thought.

So, you may well ask, why am I furiously brushing up on my substandard guitar skills? Simple, my friend – we will be releasing our new single on June 1st, and I may be called upon to perform the number at some point. And pianos are heavy, or at least mine are, so it makes more sense to work up a solo version on my nice portable Martin D-1. Which I can barely play. Hence the drills. Get the picture?

Up “Against It”

I am authorized by Big Green’s counsel to announce that our new single, Against It, will be released on June 1. This will by our first commercial release in a year, since we dropped our fourth album, In Retrograde, on May 1 of 2025, and I guess you could say we’re excited. Yes, you could certainly say that, though saying it doesn’t make it true. We’re not the excitable type, frankly – we just kind of do our thing and chill, like they did in the old days.

That said, Against It is not exactly a chill track, so to speak. Unlike nearly all 24 of the songs on In Retrograde, this single is topical. And no, I don’t mean it’s the kind of song that comes in a tube and that you should only use externally. Against It can be termed a political song. We’ll have more to say about the lyric later. I can tell you that the cover art is a photo by a Palestinian photographer named Hosny Salah, who works in Gaza (see below).

So, hey … something to look forward to, anyway. Am I right? I said, AM I RIGHT?! Whoops. Apologies – I keep forgetting this is a blog post, not a face to face conversation. Wrong of me to expect instant affirmation.

Other things happening … and not

Aside from our pending single release and my ongoing struggles with a low-rent six-string, we’ve got a few things on the back burner. These include:

The Ned Trek Collection – As I previously mentioned, we’re planning on pulling together one (or possibly three) albums worth of our Ned Trek songs from the same-named podcast we ran in the twenty teens. These would mostly be remixes of the songs we included on the musical episodes, plus some material we never released (including eight tracks from the mythical “lost episode” that we recorded in 2018 but never finished).

There are – again, as referenced in previous posts – about 100 Ned Trek tracks. We’re going to work them over and see how many will meet our AMAZINGLY HIGH STANDARDS for commercial release. (Please keep the laughter down – I’m trying to think while I type.) In any case, whether or not we drop one, two, or three volumes via CDBaby or whatever, we will make the other tracks available for listening via other means (yet to be determined). Maybe a King Crimson-like archive! Or (far more likely) something infinitely cheaper!

New Songs – Lest we be denounced as mere retread-focused has-beens (or, in our case, more like never have-beens), we do have a raft of new songs just begging to be recorded (well …. Matt has new songs. I have song ideas that need work, so situation normal). Once we dispense with the Ned Trek remixes, we will move on to that little project. (Promises, promises …)

Write the colonel

If you have questions about anything to do with this lame-ass band, don’t hesitate to reach out at [email protected]. We always respond to inquiries … and I mean ALWAYS. (You can also consult our Freakishly Unanswerable Questions for more general info.)

News

Who the hell knows what’s coming? My guess is nobody.

Hey, there’s a lot to look forward to, people. Like, I don’t know …. whatever is next. And some other stuff. When it comes to Big Green, well … it’s anyone’s guess. Nevertheless, we’re still doing the thing. And that thing is weird ass music.

Here’s basically what we have in store for you:

New Single: Against It

That’s right – we’re dropping a one-off , tentatively titled “Against It” in May, just in time for the first anniversary of the release of our album In Retrograde. (Hardly seems like a year, does it? More like five.) The new single is, well … let’s say a bit more topical than what’s on the album. We’ll post the lyrics so you can sing along! (Just be careful where you sing it, or you might end up on some kind of shit list.)

We’ll push out details about the new single in future posts, so watch this space.

New Album: Pick your adventure!

Hey, like any band, Big Green is always thinking about the next project. You know how it is – you get one collection out into the world, and next thing you know, Matt’s got about seventeen new songs he wants to do. (Joe is a little slower on the uptake, frankly. Dude’s got issues.)

So, we’re back to where we were a couple of years ago. Should we do all new material, or should we work through the mountain of Ned Trek songs we produced over the previous decade? As before, the answer is, well, both, but this time around we’re leaning more in the direction of finishing out the Ned Trek catalog. That’s about 100 songs in total to choose from.

Our plan is to cherry pick the best numbers, work them over a bit, and release that as an album. The rest we will either release over time, collect in a volume 2 at some point, or just put out as a “pick your adventure” database. Either way, less work for mother. We’re lazy-ass mofos, let’s face it.

This day in history

On this day in 1986 (or sometime around this day), I started playing in a bar band out in the Albany area. A drummer I had worked with in previous bands was pushing the bandleader to hire me as a bassist, mostly because the leader’s girlfriend and lead vocalist was filling in on bass, and let’s just say … playing bass was not her strong suit. The keyboard player in the band was Ned Danison, and we had such a good time jamming together that we formed Big Green later that year.

Of course, before we did anything, we press ganged Ned’s friend Leif Zurmuhlen to take some promo shots of us, such as the one below. (Ned is on the right. The drummer is actually Leif, sitting in for our lack-of-drummer at that moment.)

Big Green (original cast)
Big Green in 1986

Matt still has that Rick bass (you can hear it on our last album) but the Kustom 88 piano is long gone. Damn, that sucker weighed a ton and sounded like ass. I absent mindedly left that scarf in a pizza joint in Saratoga something like a year later. And Matt’s hat was eaten by wolves, but anyway … that was the week that was.

Listen to our 1986 demo

News

What the hell are they saying, anyway?

Kids say the darnedest things, at least according to Art Linkletter. (Ask your grandmother.) And I’m pretty certain that if they heard Big Green’s latest album, In Retrograde, they would more than meet old Art’s expectations. It’s the darnedest collection of songs we’ve ever released. You can quote me on that.

Thing is, we’re not talking about kids here, my fine friend. We’re talking about reviewers and listeners. That, as they say, is where the rubber meets the road. And with an album like In Retrograde, they’re leaving skid marks.

The big picture

So, what the heck are they saying about this box of two dozen songs? Let’s start with the reviewers. Here’s what Leif Zurmuhlen (friend of the band) had to say about the album in Metroland Now:

Don’t let the cold, soulless retro robot on the album cover fool you; Big Green’s In Retrograde is brimming with songs filled with so much humanity and compassion that it could reduce a full-grown mechanical man to a weeping puddle of rust.

Damn, he’s good! Sticking with general comments, check out what reviewer Jenna Sents had to say in NYS Music:

In Retrograde, takes an overall turn away from their usual ironic and humorous writing and steps into a more sentimental territory. “There’s a lot of pain and there’s a lot of angst. “I’m not really sure a lot of that was consciously put into the songs,” Matt Perry said about the lyric writing process. He notes himself as a “compulsive songwriter.” For Matt Perry, writing poetry for this album was like doing a psychological evaluation, he said.

True that. But these are professionals. What about the ordinary folks? What does the person on the street think of this particular bag of tricks? Well, Ben on Facebook calls it “Garbage”. Not everyone on Meta wanted to leave us at the curb, however. John’s comment was “Cool art”. And Charles said, “Sounds great ….. if you like dead silence.” (I’m calling that a maybe.)

In Retrograde - Big Green's newest album

Down in the weeds

Here’s what reviewers had to say about individual tracks:

Matt goes Cat Stevens-y with the delicate stand-out track “Tear Inside My Eye” and “When Will I See You Again?”. His electric guitar is Neil Young-crunchy on “Where is the Sun” and his acoustic is Lindsay Buckingham-nimble on the folky “Follow You”.  Meanwhile, Joe’s keyboards are funky like Billy Preston for “Sound Asleep” and churchy like Procol Harum on “I Found You”. 

The catchy “Meet Me In The Middle” bounces along like the theme song from a ‘70s sitcom that never existed. Matt argues that meat is murder in “Can’t Be Without You” singing, “What’s it like to be tied and then boiled alive?”. And “Don’t Unfriend Me” tramples in like an XTC track with Joe expressing that he is willing to take all manner of abuse, so long as he still gets likes: “I saw your anger emoji under the pictures from my destination wedding, but I don’t care if you offend me, please don’t unfriend me, don’t walk away…”.   

– Leif Zurmuhlen

The album begins with “Alone for a Day,” a 70s-inspired funk rock song with layered vocals and warbly synth. The driving snare beats and distorted, yet distant guitar make the listener feel like they are floating through space.

“Is It Wrong” takes a darker turn on the album, creating a feeling of someone walking aimlessly around with their thoughts. The haunted vocals further this feeling with lyrics about being unsure if you’re in the right relationship. It starts out with a simple love-song-esk line: “I love you // So I wrote out this song.” By the chorus confliction and self-doubt plagues the speaker: “Is it wrong, is it wrong, // Is it wrong for me to want to be with you, // Is it right, is it right, // Is it right, I should tolerate the solitude.”

“Don’t Unfriend Me,” written by Joe Perry, is a humorous song about a social media stalker. The track makes fun of the parasocial relationship a needy stalker can have over someone they “follow” on social media. Meanwhile, the person being “followed” barely known of their existence. In the penultimate track, “You Can’t Help,” takes the listener on a journey about the doubts and struggles of a relationship. Each verse adds a new though around the inner conflict about letting someone see your most vulnerable self.

– Jenna Sents

Your turn

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