Tag Archives: Marvin

Usual Rubbish

All about process.

Thursday night is still good for me. What about the rest of the week? I’m busy, that’s what. Man’s got to sleep sometime, you know. Blame it on the diurnal rotation of the earth and the fact that my ancestors evolved on this miserable pimple of a planet! (Oh, crikey … now I’m borrowing throwaway phrases from minor characters in Lost in Space.)

What do you say to someone who sleeps six and a half days a week? WAKE UP! That might work. I’ve got a little problem in that direction, I admit. It’s prompted me to ask Mitch Macaphee to install some kind of alarm clock function in Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He gave me a look that would melt iron, but w.t.f. – why shouldn’t I expect a sophisticated robot to have a level of functionality one might expect from a ten dollar wristwatch? (Mitch told me to go out and buy a ten dollar wristwatch, actually. He has a point.)

What’s this got to do with Big Green, the larger world of indie music, and the fate of the universe in general? Over here at the Hammer Mill, we’re always hashing out when to do what. Thursday night is usually the time Matt and I get together to work out arrangements, record, etc. That’s happening at something of a snail’s pace by most people’s standards – by Big Green standards, however, it’s greased lightning. Just look at our discography. Two albums in 15 years, plus some assorted EP and single releases. It took us five years – FIVE YEARS – to record, mix, master, and release our last album, International House. Every time I hear it, I am reminded of …. well, just about everything that happened during that five years. Talk about a mnemonic device!

Anyhow, our upcoming album – Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – is coming along a hell of a lot faster than that. We’ve got basic tracks for all of the songs recorded; mostly tweaking to do from this point forward. Most of the songs have been featured in first draft form on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, so you can hear proto-mixes of almost the entire album if you can stand listening to us gab hours on end. And do bad imitations of famous people. And sing impromptu songs. And insult the dead.

Okay… so you probably haven’t heard the first drafts. Just look for the finished product. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some sleeping to do.

Usual Rubbish

Poditis.

How do you spell XML again? Does it rhyme with “smell”? No coincidence, I suspect. Jesus christ on a bike. Technology is for fools. And forever a fool I shall be.

Oh, hi. Just got done cobbling together this month’s episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our notorious podcast, and placing it online with the technological equivalent of stone knives and bearskins. My approach to programming is akin to placing several monkeys at computers loaded with self-peeling banana screensavers. Trial and error… but mostly trial. Anyway, it got done, and that’s just as well, because this month’s episode is chock full of something. Yes, friends, it’s full of ingredients. It contains contents. Should I draw you a picture?

Right. You’ll see from the program notes that there are not one but TWO new songs from Cousin Rick Perry, governor of Texas. These are two more in a series of “first draft” recordings that will comprise (in a more finished form) Big Green’s upcoming album, tentatively named Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Our cousin has inspired an album’s worth of material, to be sure, including one jaunty little number called “Awesome Hair”:

It once adorned Reagan, now on your head it sits
and not on that wanna-be latter day Mitt’s.
When you’re nonsensically talking, it especially fits
If anyone tries to muss it up, you mess with their shit.

Pure audio dynamite, that’s what that is.

Thankfully, things were a little quieter around the hammer mill this week. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) finally gave up any idea of going to robot camp for the summer. “Just because all of the neighbors’ robots are doing something,” I heard myself telling him, “that doesn’t mean you have to do it, too. If they all rolled into the car-crusher, would you follow them?” At that point, Marvin emitted a metallic cluck and rolled his eyes. I just can’t say anything right, it seems. (He’s at that difficult age when robots start pushing the boundaries a little bit. )

One other thing about the podcast, before I forget. You might want to listen to it with something running in the background, like maybe an espresso machine. That would give a better sense of what’s going on in our heads when we record it. Just a suggestion.

 

Usual Rubbish

Settle. Just settle.

Listen, Marvin. I know you want to go to summer camp like all of the other robot assistants. That’s understandable at your age. But you have to understand, we just can’t afford it right now. It’s not that we don’t want you to go … it’s money, Marvin. We’ll try to save enough to send you to robot assistant camp next year, okay?

Sheesh. Another dejected look. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has now officially joined the ranks of the disgruntled. That makes about nine of us, if you count both Lincolns. We are in the dog days and, apparently, the doldrums of summer here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, and I can tell you personally, nobody’s happy around these parts. I blame our persistent lack of gainful employment. Most band entourages, as you know, can occupy themselves with the somewhat questionable benefits of touring. Big Green, though, has not done a tour yet this year, and I fear that fact is beginning to wear on us all.

Aw, now look…. mansized tuber is getting fussy again! Matt! Lincoln! Mitch! Somebody else take a turn, for chrissake! I’ve repotted him twice today already and it’s only noon.

Jeebus, just listen to me. Listen to all of us. It’s the sound of domestic life, that’s what it is. We have been in one place far too long, my brothers. I feel the road calling me, once again. Ah, the aroma of poorly prepared meals, the clatter of ancient window-mounted air conditioners, the inviting patina of a well-used shower stall. Okay, so there isn’t a lot about touring that I miss. It’s the lack of touring that worries me. For one thing, it makes us prone to lethargy (well….. more prone, let’s say). For another, it drains our modest resources to what can only be described as a negative value. You see …. oh, jesus. Wait just a minute, my friends…

Not that pot, Mitch! I used that one earlier today. Give tubey a fresh one from the garden shed. Use your head, man!

Right. Where was I? Doesn’t matter. We have to get another interstellar tour together. Just as soon as we finish our upcoming album / rock opera / whatever the fuck it is, titled Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Check out our July podcast, soon to be posted, for details.