Tag Archives: Marvin

Usual Rubbish

Get yours here.

Hey … let’s stop in at the Petrified Creatures Museum. It sounds, well … very dessicated. And interesting. Perhaps. I don’t know … what do YOU want to do, Marvin (my personal robot assistant)?

Yes, we’re taking a day trip. The weather is nice, so it seemed like a good idea to leave the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill behind for a few hours. Trouble is, it’s a little hard to find entertainment that suits everyone’s eclectic tastes. Marvin is a little reluctant to give the Petrified Creatures Museum a look, perhaps because they may mistake him for one of their exhibits and NEVER LET HIM LEAVE. He was scared, even (yes) petrified. Poor creature.

What else is there to do, driving along route 20? Well … there are a lot of campgrounds. There’s an ice cream place called “Banana Dan’s”. There are some really cool mountains, if you like mountains. That should be sufficient to satisfy anyone’s taste. But here I am, in a car full of freaks – Marvin, Anti-Lincoln, Mitch Macaphee, the mansized tuber … Matt refused to go, choosing instead to mind his wildlife charges. Anti-Lincoln is pretty much against everything. Mr. freaking negative. Mansized tuber just wants to go to gardening centers. That’s where he goes to meet other plants. It’s like a nightclub, without the booze. Mitch? He’s only interested in conferences and laboratories. He just stares out the window at the passing scenery, dreaming up formulas for making the whole thing go blooey.

Look, Marvin! (meh)Well … so much for our pleasant day out. What’s next on the agenda? Not much. Just back to the hammer mill. We’ve got some music to work on. Where’s that going? I don’t know … another album, maybe. Not sure how we’ll release it, but we will make it available in some way, shape, or form. Maybe we’ll have Marvin hand deliver it to everyone in Upstate New York. Maybe we’ll sell it in the anteroom of the Petrified Creatures Museum. Maybe BOTH of those things.

One other thing we’re working on – a kind of Big Green subscription service. We’re contemplating the price being somewhere between $0 and gratis. Sign up, and we’ll send you disc copies of our first two albums (while supplies last), a digital copy of our third album, and advance digital releases as they are completed. Still ironing out the details, crunching the numbers, etc. (Very crunchy, those numbers.)

Usual Rubbish

String theory.

That thing is way out of tune … I mean WAY out of tune, dude. Use my phone. No, not my SMART phone … that Bell Princess phone over in the corner, next to the mansized tuber. The dial tone is a low F#. Just transpose, for chrissake. DIVAS!

Yes, you’re listening in on another Big Green rehearsal. It’s like you’re a fly on the wall. In the Cheney Hammer Mill, that makes you inconspicuous …. not because you’re so small, but because there are so many flies on the wall, you meld in with the multitude. Anyhow, we’re running through a few numbers, putting down tracks, laying in a groove, etc. etc. Sometimes it’s hard to keep all of these various stringed instruments in tune with one another, especially when the city cuts off your electricity, your internet connection, your phone service, your water, and your air. (That last cut-off only happens on Type-M planets.)

No, we haven’t had our electricity cut off this week (yet), but life is still bloody complicated. Four-string bass guitars are hard enough to tune; try a six-string acoustic! Don’t even talk about pianos and organs. (No, really … don’t even talk about them. An off-color word can make them slip out of tune.) Fortunately for me, my keyboards are of the electronic variety, so tuning is as simple as turning a little knob or clicking an item in a graphic user interface. Or pushing on a bender and securing it with tape. (Non-standard method.)

Still flat as a pancake.Matt and I are putting the finishing touches on the next batch of Ned Trek songs. When I say “finishing touches”, I mean “adding essential musical elements without which the songs would be virtually unlistenable.” Details, details. In any case, we have six (or is it seven?) numbers under construction, some of which border on the blasphemous, others tinkering with long-held practices of civilized peoples, still others merely dabbling in the art of giving grave offense. A controversial collection? Depends on your point of view.

Important side note: No animals or humans were harmed in the making of this music. Though Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has suffered slightly from mechanical wrist overuse syndrome (or MWOS), as he is our defacto percussionist.

Usual Rubbish

Dang me.

Here we are. Another late Spring arrives in the middle of freaking nowhere. Birds are singing, grass is growing, the underemployed ice cream vendor is driving a superannuated truck up your street, playing “Pop goes the weasel” (or 4 bars of it). Life is good.

I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in an abandoned Hammer Mill in upstate New York over the course of the coldest winter anybody can remember. I mean, damn! We were frozen solid, stuck in the ice for five whole months. The bill collectors had to come after us with ice picks. Visitors from Neptune had to go home half way through their stay – THAT’S how cold it was. (How cold was it? Well … )

So hey … when a little warm weather comes this way, it’s a big deal. Everyone is starting to get into their temperate habits. The mansized tuber has been arranging flower pots. Before you ask, no … he does not have a green thumb. They are both “suburban titanium”. He just plays with clay pots – stacks ’em, shuffles ’em, smashes ’em sometimes. Then there’s Marvin (my personal assistant) and his croquet set. You wouldn’t think he had the agility, but then he exclusively plays against people from the 1910s.

Marvin, croquetI saw anti-Lincoln crawling out of the local public house. At least he’s got a hobby. Fact of the matter is, I admire anti-Lincoln for having the ambition to get off of his doppelganger ass and venture out into the night. I and my fellow core Big Green members (or member) haven’t been near a nightclub in, well, years, particularly when you’re talking about terrestrial venues. No, it’s not because we are impossible to work with, or that we draw the wrong kind of crowd. That’s all true, of course, but the main reason we don’t show up in the local clubs is … well .. lack of ambition, motivation, you name it.

So, dang me. We all observe the arrival of summer in our own ways, some lamer than others.

Podcast Plug. Hey, want to hear Matt and me talk about Al Jolson? Or perhaps our most ludicrous episode of Ned Trek (our Star Trek parody) yet? Give our latest installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast. Then tell me about it @BigGreenJoe.