Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Bam boom.

What are you going to do, play on garbage cans? That works for some songs, but how long can it possibly hold up? We need a more permanent solution to our problem. (Did I say that?)

squxOkay, so … this will come as no surprise to any long time followers of Big Green, but we make recordings using technology roughly equivalent to stone knives and bear skins, as the late Leonard Nimoy once put it. (My guess is that he had 1000 times the resources when he cut “Mr. Spock’s Songs from Outer Space,” but I digress.) We are plagued by technical glitches and the spotty performance of superannuated recording equipment, including a first generation digital workstation with no practical means of exporting song data or sound files (namely a Roland VS-2480 from the year 2001). It is choked with projects and ready to keel over.

Now, don’t get me wrong … we have invested in newer technology. Mitch picked up a new blender last week. Great for daiquiris (I hate daiquiris!) and it makes a nice whine on high. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) installed a new oscillator the other day. THAT cost a packet. Seems like when it comes around to music gear, the well runs dry. Not freaking fair, I say. But then, I’m liable to say anything by this point in the day, or perhaps just build sentences using words that Android suggests (Android:) the same time as the most important …

Yeah, see? This machine doesn’t know how to make sense. Give me a rudimentary non-verbal robot assistant any day. Still, with our grueling production schedule – 20 songs a year, sometimes 50, sometimes umpteen thousand – we need to come up with a way of plugging these suckers together, like widgets on an assembly line. I’m sure this is the type of problem all songwriting teams have encountered since the beginning of recorded music. The difference between them and us is, well, we’re not paid. But it’s the mission that matters! Huzzah!

What is our mission again? Oh, right. Finish the songs.

Usual Rubbish

Pod-where? Dunno.

Not a real good bookkeeper, I admit it. Never have been particularly good with numbers. Don’t know much about geometry. (There’s a song in this somewhere.)

Tubey and the stump in the courtyard.So what happened to the March podcast? Well, as you’ve guessed if you follow our various pointless postings in cyberspace, we have moved to a bi-monthly format, given the production demands of Ned Trek, particularly the musical episodes. We’re currently producing five or six songs for what will ultimately be the June episode, and we should be recording the April episode in a week or so. So … production is moving forward, but like Issa’s snail climbing Mount Fuji, it is proceeding “slowly … slowly.”

My illustrious brother had a cold for a couple of weeks, like half of humanity up here in the great frozen north country. He spends a good deal of his day outdoors, feeding and entertaining all manner of wild critters. Not so different from being in the restaurant business, actually, and you know how demanding THAT can be. In any case, that pushed our production schedule back a couple of weeks … enough time for Mitch Macaphee to flesh out our plan to start a Mars colony before the end of the decade. (Well, THAT certainly took a strange turn.)

That leaves us a brief opportunity to mark the return of Spring and all the traditional rites associated with it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has taken it upon himself to erect a maypole in the hammer mill courtyard. Sure, it’s only five feet tall … and yeah, he made it out of the remnants of a sawed-off telephone poll, but it’s a good conversation piece, at least, and now the mansized tuber has some companionship out there as the warmer months arrive. Spring is busting out all over.

Cowboy Scat on YouTube: We posted another couple of songs to the YouTube playlist. For any of you who haven’t heard the whole album, here’s how to give it a listen.

Usual Rubbish

Inside the cast.

Well, that’s finished. Took us long enough. I swear, this takes more effort every time, and here at Big Green, we’re built for comfort, not for effort. At least I am. Matt’s the one out in subzero temperatures at the crack of dawn, dragging tree limbs to struggling beavers. Me? I write stuff and bang on the piano. And shit.

Hit it, MarvinI guess I could blame our slowness on the cold, like everyone else, but hell, we were born into this frozen hellscape, raised in its nurturing embrace, and will likely finish out our days frozen to the ground from whence we rose. In other words, yeah, hell … it’s sure cold outside!

So where was I? Oh yeah. The February podcast. Here’s what we’ve got in this installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN:

Ned Trek 22: Mitt’s Brain. Though there is never a one-to-one relationship between Ned Trek episodes and those of classic Star Trek, this one is based on the ludicrous Season 3 episode called “Spock’s Brain”. It’s as asinine as you might expect, with cheap laughs built in at every turn.

Ned Trek includes six new Big Green songs, all apropos of the episode content. These are”

Brain, What is Brain? Sung by Doc Coburn, this 6/8 number explores the implications of the theft of Willard’s brain. Sung with remarkable passion, with a fair amount of hooting and hollering.

Whatever Romney Knows. Willard does the vocal on this swing number, featuring God-knows-who on brushes and some screwy horns. It’s all about the brain and what Willard doesn’t need it for. Ka-pow!

Lost Your Mind. Mr. Ned renders an appropriately opinionated little tune about what a non-event the brain theft truly is. (Ear-worm warning: I couldn’t get this one out of my head for about a week.)

Send in Some Advisors. Pearle sings this song about the new way of starting a profitable war, thin end of the wedge style. A cautionary tale, to be sure.

Nixon Action. Rock and roll number sung by Nixon and Kissinger as the former makes the case for his own rehabilitation and second life as a trusted counsel to the powerful. One word: ridiculous.

Two Lines. Mr. Sulu chimes in with a lament about his puny speaking roles in both the original Star Trek and its current Ned Trek degeneration. Note how the chorus is built from two-line speeches from his many appearances.

We did some talking after that. Nothing to write home about. Enjoy, friends.