Tag Archives: music

Usual Rubbish

Rainy day schedule.

Okay, kids. Line up for lunch. No, we’re not going outside. Rainy day schedule today. Break out the coloring books and the tunafish sandwiches.

I got my process, man. Or somethin.

If you’re anything like me, that was your favorite kind of lunch hour in grade school. No going out on the playground and putting up your dukes against whatever red neck wanted a piece of you that particular day. Why the reverie? Not sure. I guess all that rain beating down on the roof of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill has made me think of some of the other sprawling, musty barns I’ve inhabited for years at a time. Other squat houses, apartments, schools, lean-to’s … hell, submarines, even. Don’t knock it! It can rain all it wants, and no leaks (unless you opt for the screen door).

What’s up this week? Just toiling away in the vineyards of Big Green-ville, scratching out weird new numbers, honking noisily into microphones, tapping away at Ned Trek scripts. Mostly just making stuff up on the fly – that’s what we’re best at. And when I say “best”, I mean “not worst”. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) gets into the spirit of honest creative toil once in a while, running his internal adding machine until spools of tickertape unravel from his nether regions. It’s a marvelous … or, rather, Marvin-lous sight to behold.

Some people (mostly derelicts along the curb outside the hammer mill) have asked if we’re working on a new album. I have no answer to that. Matt and I just work, and then one day maybe an album appears. It’s a kind of alchemy. I’ve described the process on this blog before, so I won’t bore you with the details of our songwriting and recording methods. Suffice to say that it looks more random that it is, and yet still, it is fundamentally random … and random-mentally fun. That latter part is what’s important.

I’ll keep you posted on our projects. Just enjoy your sandwiches … and try to color within the lines. There’s a good chap.

Usual Rubbish

Inside August.

Posted another podcast, as you can see, and it’s chock full of whatever the hell we’ve been doing for the past three months. If after listening to it you can explain to me what that may have been, I’d be eternally grateful. Just contact me at:

Joe Perry of Big Green
Behind the hot water pipes
Cheney Hammer Mill
Somewhere in Upstate New York

I’ll get it.

Anyway, here’s what we have on the menu for August:

Ned Trek 19 – Careact
This episode is loosely based on “The Changeling”, an episode of classic Star Trek that features a killer space-probe named Nomad that thinks Captain Kirk is its long-lost mother. In our version, instead of killing everything in sight, the probe gives every living being it encounters single-payer health insurance. Hilarity ensues.

The episode includes six new Big Green songs that sort of drag the plot forward in a somewhat haphazard way. These include:

Spiro’s Song (Die-de-die) – A surprisingly introspective number for the android ex president, featuring android Spiro Agnew on backing vocals and a big beanfeast singalong.

Sick Poor Jerk in a Herd – Ned’s song about his assessment of health care in the good old U. S. of A. …. I mean, Confederacy of Planets.

Sonny who?Some Health Care – Mr. Welsh pulls it out again with a posthumous number about how crappy coverage hastened his untimely end. Perhaps the first song in the English language to use “Space Probe Machine” as a refrain.

Romneycare – A jazzy little number about just what it says, and what Mitt plans to do about it.

Well, Well, Well – Richard Pearle’s ode to profitability and health. A bit overproduced, but perhaps appropriately so, given the singer’s high opinion of himself.

Medicare – Doc Coburn rock out plaintively about the bane of his existence … that damned socialist menace, concocted by LBJ.

Put the Phone Down
Yeah, we talk about some stuff. Mostly disposable, but give it a listen. You never know what we’re likely to say, right? We read out of a 1991 recording magazine, Matt does some funny voices and threatens to sue the memory of Sonny Tufts. That sort of thing.

Usual Rubbish

A la post.

Hey, it’s a nice day. Think I’ll spend it in the courtyard. Or maybe on the road to Old Forge. Or not. Any suggestions?

Kind of quiet around the Hammer Mill these days. Maybe it’s just the dog days of summer howling a little louder than usual. Everyone seems to be taking a pass on everything, regardless of how little effort may be involved. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) couldn’t be bothered to plug himself in to his wall recharger, complaining that it took too much energy. How does that make sense? Maybe in robot-ville, but no place else.

I’ve done some minimal work on recordings this week, pulling together one mix, tweaking another, enhancing this, pouring chocolate sauce on that. Exhausting effort, as you might imagine. Tonight brother Matt and I will work on this again, with brother Marvin and brother mansized tuber standing by to assist. As I mentioned before, we’re working on six new numbers that will appear in the next episode of Ned Trek, the Star Trek parody series we include in our now less-than-monthly podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN.

Didn't you plug yourself in, Marvin?If you’re not familiar with this … um … form of entertainment, go to our podcast home page, scroll down to some of the earlier installments, and give it a listen. Ned Trek is usually the first item in the podcast. At some point, it may acquire a life (or podcast) of its own, but for now suffice to say that it is a monthly skit based on old “classic” Star Trek episodes, starring a crew of modern day neocons headed by Captain Willard M. Romney, his first officer and talking dressage horse Mr. Ned, and others. (Oddly, there’s one hold-over from classic Star Trek – Mr. Sulu, who basically plays the one sane person in the room.) It, well, makes us laugh, if nothing else. Pretty much the reason we do anything, I suspect.

Hokay, well … I’m kind of toasty after having played a set with Puttin’ On The Ritz up in Old Forge last night, so I’ll stick a fork in this. Be free.