Tag Archives: Leif Zurmuhlen

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

Got comments on In Retrograde? Share ’em with us! Leave a comment on this post or drop one on social media.

Usual Rubbish

Putting the pieces back together

2000 Years to Christmas

Yeah, I checked that drawer. And the one below it. Jesus, I checked all of them, okay? It’s simply not there. And no, the lizard people didn’t steal it during the night. We would have heard them, Abe, and incidentally …. THERE ARE NO LIZARD PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET.

Hoo, man. You have to talk until you’re green in the face before people get the idea around here. Especially with someone like anti-matter Lincoln, who believes every conspiracy theory he hears on YouTube or Instagram or whatever the fuck. I mean, the guy’s positronic doppelganger was assassinated, so he sees plots everywhere. I suppose it’s hard to trust in times like these … especially when you’re Lincoln.

As anniversaries go …

Well, it should surprise no one that Big Green has reached its coral anniversary. That’s right – the traditional gift on your thirty-fifth is not the Electric Light Orchestra box set, it’s some ossified sea exoskeletons. Hope you enjoy! No question but that 35 years is a long effing time to be together, whatever the hell you’re doing or even trying to do. No wonder people are throwing sea-floor rocks at each other.

So, what does the coral anniversary mean? That your marriage is hung up on the reef? Could explain a lot about Big Green, am I right? We haven’t put out an album since 2013’s Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Not that anyone is counting (aside from me), but that’s the second longest time we’ve gone between albums. Of course, the irony is that we’ve actually already recorded several albums worth of material yet to be released.

The reason for the ceasin’

So, what is our excuse for this behavior? I’m going to go with laziness. We’re a bunch of useless layabouts, no good to anyone. Ask Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – he does most of the heavy lifting around here. The only break he gets from heavy lifting is when he’s doing all of the light lifting. Some might think this arrangement leaves us with more time to create content, but we seldom take the opportunity to do so.

Turns out you're right. We're just a bunch of lazy mothers.

I suppose it’s fair to point out that this isn’t the first fallow period we’ve gone through as a group. Even at our inception, when most bands are hopping around like jackrabbits, looking for the next venue, we were kind of … um …. meh. We did rehearsals. We recorded. We wrote. But gigs? Not so many that first year. In fact, I was playing in other bands just to keep the lights on.

Up from the archives

Speaking of other bands, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I found an old tape of a gig Big Green co-founder Ned Danison and I played back in 1987, when we were just getting the band started. The video is grainy and the sound is pretty bad, but I digitized it anyway and started throwing it up on YouTube. The gig was in support of the release of our friend Dale Haskell’s album Factory Village, and it was captured on video by another friend, crack photographer Leif Zurmuhlen.

Check out the playlist if you want to see Ned and me framming away on stage at Albany’s famed QE2 club. And while you’re there on YouTube, try to avoid those rabbit holes anti-Lincoln is always falling into.