Tag Archives: Ned Trek

THIS IS BIG GREEN: October 2014

Big Green greets Autumn with another blockbuster episode of Ned Trek, a couple of Big Green songs, some wisdom from Henry Kissinger, and more. Avaunt, foul Summer!

This Is Big Green – October 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek 20: The Shamesters of Quadzillion; 2) Song: The Bishop, by Big Green (from our album International House); 3) Put the Phone Down: Matt and Joe argue over technical diffulties (and are interrupted by technical difficulties); 4) A visit with Secretary Kissinger, author; 5) Matt’s encounter with Bagg; 6) Song: North Camp Pasture, by Big Green (from our album Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick; 7) Kissinger joins us for a song; 8.) Exit, stage wrong.

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.

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.