Tag Archives: Ned Trek

What the pod?

Okay, here’s a good name for a band (I know it’s good because someone’s using it): Teenage Brain. Here’s another: The Canabinoids. Well, there’s my day’s work. Man, I’m exhausted!

Yes, I’m sure there are some of you out there – and you know who you are – who think that we of Big Green sit around our abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill all day and do next to nothing. The fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. We work our fingers to the bone every day, trying to think of stupid shit to say the next time someone interviews us, which could be any minute (though in actuality, it hasn’t happened in about two decades). We set a very high standard for stupidity; not talking garden variety here. Our comments are expected to be wildly off the mark, not just a little strange.

And there are other things occupying our time, such as the January podcast … which is now certain to be the February podcast. All I can say is, mea culpa. (That’s all the Latin I know.) Our podcast production process (or PPP) has become much more complicated in recent months, mostly due to our own highly exacting standards. Now every other Ned Trek episode has to come complete with a full complement of new songs written specifically for the occasion, produced to the best of our ability, and inserted into that otherwise pointless show. Time consuming stuff, yes. The kind that makes January into February.

It's a good name, anywayThis time out we have, let’s see …. six new songs, maybe? I’ve lost count. It’s become this blur of recording parts onto different projects, a piano here, a horn section there, a beery-sounding horse voice on this one, some fucked-up swabbies on that one. That’s the only way I know how to work – just keep chipping away at the mammoth rock until it looks a hell of a lot more like Lincoln. That’s how Mount Rushmore was made. That and driving native people off the land (we don’t include that in our creative process).

So, I don’t know … look for our new podcast episode in the coming weeks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my couch.

Radio Andromeda.

So, there’s a station that’s playing our last album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, in rotation. That’s the good news. The bad news? It’s in the galaxy of Andromeda, a very long ride from here, I’m told. Can’t raise it on my crystal set. (Damn … we need some new gear.)

Well, I am exaggerating a little. Apparently the radio waves from the Andromeda station are reaching planet Earth. Trouble is, no one can translate them into something intelligible. The only people hearing it are rocket scientists, and they’re not exactly our audience. Now, shapeless blobs of protoplasm on the planet Mongrovitowa 427K – THAT’S who listens to us (if you can call pseudopod sensory processing of nano-vibrations “listening”). But that counts as airplay in my book. And if we make some eggheads scratch their … well … eggheads, then that’s all to the good. It’s like when the Beatles added that hypersonic message to the family dog at the end of Sergeant Pepper. Except that, well … dogs aren’t typically scientists.

You see where I’m going with this, right? Because if YOU don’t, then neither of us does.

I suppose it should make us feel a bit guilty that we are wasting all this astrophysicist speculation time just so that we can claim some listenership of one of our drug-on-the-market albums. No doubt we are also fulfilling ancient prophecies left and right among the Eric Von Daniken crowd. The space brothers are coming! Oh, no … wait. It’s just Big Green broadcasting from Neptune. What a bloody huge disappointment for someone.

Airplay! Freaking amazing!Anyhow, we’re not just in business to cause people trouble. Matt and I are recording the next episode of Star Trek this very evening. We have been working on six or seven songs to accompany the episode, which will be included in the next installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast. My guess is that a couple of weeks into February we should be ready to post. Slow time of year – ah, for the days when we would post every month like clockwork! Now that we’re old and in the way, it’s a little more of a challenge.

What’s next? Let’s get Andromeda to start broadcasting the Ned Trek show. That will confuse the hell out of those astrophysicists!

THIS IS BIG GREEN: November 2014

Big Green arrives nearly on time with its November installment of pure audio glory, featuring a new episode of Ned Trek, seven new Big Green songs, and some strange hooting noises. Hold tight.

This is Big Green – November 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek 21: Old Maple Glory, including seven new Big Green songs, listed as follows; 2) Song: Doc Flapjack, by Big Green; 3) Song: Yorba Linda Mybalinda, by Big Green; 4) Song: Sugar Shack, by Big Green; 5) Song: Motherlode, by Big Green; 6) Song: Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi, by Big Green; 7) Song: Super Sugar Christ, by Big Green; 8 ) Song: Nobody Ride, by Big Green; 9) Put the Phone Down: Matt and Joe discuss the 2014 election, and get the vapors; 10) A visit with Secretary Kissinger, author; 11) There’s a caveman in my soup; 12) Matt looks forward to hunting season (not); 13) Song: Don’t Tell Rick, by Big Green; 14) Joe’s green screen antics; 15) Ignominious exit.