Sure was a long, long hot summer night. Wait … was that more than one night? THREE MONTHS? Jesus, I slept late. Stupid alarm!
We’re coming to the close of a very quiet summer in Big Green land. Hey, you know how it gets – you spend two years on an album, drop the mother, then you’re on to other things. Matt’s holed up in his private compound deep in the woods of Central New York, churning out songs, writing a book, feeding the beavers at Spring Farm (pictured above), and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Me? I’m flying in my taxi, taking tips and gettin’ …. wait, no, that’s not it. Just keeping the home fires burning, folks. We’ve got pieces of the next project under construction, pre-production if you will (and even if you won’t), and some tracking. It’s a slow roll, but it’s a roll.
Friends in Manila (and Jakarta)
Funny thing about our latest album, In Retrograde, is that it’s doing better in The Philippines than pretty much anywhere else. Who’s number 2 in the Big Green fan club? Indonesia, that’s who. Could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me that. Longtime readers of this blog may remember our shaggy dog tails about our Jakarta-based corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm. If THOSE dudes find out people are listening to us over there, lord only knows what comes next.
What’s their favorite song? Far and away, it’s Matt’s “Could Be On Your Way“, one of my personal favorites on that long-ass album.
It’s a bit of a sleeper, but I like it because it makes us seem like we actually work up arrangements rather than just play random instruments about a million times until it sounds like something.
They got it the wrong way round, see?
Other groups (and they know who they are) look at us like we have two heads because of the way we work. My response to them is, yeah, we have two heads because we’re two people. What’s confusing them, though, is that we use digital recording tools – computer workstation, digital instruments, etc. – but record in a super old-school way. We’re just playing parts, overdubbing, punching in, etc., like we were running a Tascam 8-track deck. No sequencing, no virtual stuff, aside from drum patterns.
Call us Luddites. Call us cavemen. Call us anytime – we’re always glad to hear from you. Yeah, we’re set in our 80s counterculture ways, so what’s new? We may have it the wrong way round, but it’s the right way to our dumb asses. Thing is … how is it that these Southeast Asia listeners are finding “Could Be On Your Way” when it’s seventeen songs into a remarkably obscure 24 song album?
It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma then dunked into conundrum sauce. Sounds delicious!
WTF is next, anywho?
Well, that’s anyone’s guess. We’re in pre-production for another new music project, and then there’s all the Ned Trek stuff that needs to be remastered. Suffice to say, there’s no rest for the weirdies.