There’s always the chance it could be legitimate. Why not? Must we always be so damn cynical? What happened to those happy-headed funsters we used to be back in 1978? Wait … we were never happy-headed funsters? Well … at least that explains what happened to them.

Once again, you catch us in the midst of a philosophical debate, an exquisitely complex conundrum that has confronted us in our COVIDian solitude. Well, perhaps I’m being too generous. Let’s just say we’re having a little difference of opinion. Nothing too weighty, you understand – after all, these are austere times, and we’re trying to be economical with our emotions (as we have little else to be economical with). Why don’t I describe the debate we’re having here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, and you can decide whether it rises to the level of a philosophical discussion? That I shall do.

As you know, when it comes to the matter of commercial success, Big Green is a smoking failure. We are so obscure, you’d think we spent the last thirty years trying to be unsuccessful (which, I suppose you could argue, we did). Nevertheless, we have resorted to various forms of representation. The first was Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, the Indonesian corporate label that nearly clapped us in irons and threw us in a dungeon somewhere in Jakarta. Then we mutinied and set up our own label, Hammermade … but of course, that’s just a name, so we’ve had to work with actual distribution companies to get our albums out where people can find them (or not find them, as the case may be). That means we use the same digital distribution networks that most acts use, though i suspect those with decent representation and name recognition realize a better return on their streaming plays, downloads, etc., than we do. Fuckers!

In any case, every week or so we get stats from our distributor, and our numbers are usually somewhere halfway down the toilet (except for around the holidays, when Pagan Christmas takes off like a rocket, thanks to our pagan listeners). Then last week, we saw higher than usual numbers on the track Volcano Man, from our second album, International House. My initial reaction was the same as my reaction to everything else: “What the hell?” Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was immediately of the opinion that the song had finally found its mythical audience – that elusive unicorn of a loyal listener cohort that has been the stuff of speculation since we first donned our Big Green hair-hats and bark suits. (Marvin’s little video screen flashed the word “eureka”.)

Hey … you expect robot assistants to be a little over-enthusiastic, right? But then Anti-Lincoln and Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, jumped in on Marvin’s side, so Matt and I had to disabuse them of their delusional optimism. Turns out there’s a rational explanation for everything – there’s a new song/video called Volcano Man that’s from an upcoming Will Ferrell movie entitled Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. People were obviously looking for that Volcano Man and not our Volcano Man, which is quite different, though similarly ridiculous. Marvin’s not convinced – he thinks it’s all a coincidence. Anti-Lincoln is leaning more towards a conspiracy theory, which is totally like him. Not sure about Mitch – he’s moved on to another project.

Where was I going with this? No place special. Always wanted to go there.