Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Jupiter rising.

Great red what? Jesus christmas, I don’t have time for that. I’m trying to stay focused on the Mars mission. Then there’s Voyager, all alone out there at the edge of the solar system already… whoops. Someone’s reading this. Look busy!

Hi, friend(s). You may wonder what I’m rambling about. Though probably not, if you’ve visited this blog before. We run on and on about pretty much anything that flows into our heads. Hell, I was looking at a pizza menu the other day that featured deep-fried Oreos. But does anyone want to hear about it? God no. So we’re going to talk about something more interesting today …. like Jupiter. (The planet, not the derivative Roman god.)

The other day some massive asteroid supposedly hit Jupiter. I say “supposedly” because, to be perfectly frank, I think this incident is actually the work of our mad science advisor, Mitchington V. S. Macaphee III, M.S.D., C.M.F.  (For the curious, his honorifics are short for Doctor of Mad Science, conferred by the University of Berzerkistan, and Crazy Mother Fucker … not so much a degree as a description.) Mitch got the interplanetary exploration bug this past summer with the recent Mars probe (which he almost immediately hacked into for his own nefarious purposes). But Mars wasn’t big enough for him. Eventually he turned his attention to the king Kahoona of planets …. (wait for it!) … Jupiter.

Okay, so here’s how our household works. Those of us who are not involved in the hard sciences share the upper levels of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. (I myself occupy a suite just outside the old forge room, basically a storage bay where they kept the hammer handles. I sleep on hammer handles, is what I’m saying.) Down in the basement, next to our makeshift production studio, Mitch Macaphee maintains a mad science lab where he builds, I don’t know, little projects like Marvin (my personal robot assistant), time travel devices, and … crucially… interstellar space vehicles.

You have to understand the fevered mind of the mad scientist. Jupiter has a red spot, right? Mitch sees that as a challenge. Can he make a blue spot? How hard would it be? Would they call it the Great Macaphee Spot if he succeeded?

What happened next should be kind of obvious. I don’t understand the science, so don’t ask me, but sometime last week there was a loud, rocket-like sound in the early morning hours, and the next thing I know, Jupiter has two spots instead of one. Or so Mitch tells me, anyway. Sheesh. I’ve got an album to produce. And a podcast to finish. Don’t bother me with such trifles!

Usual Rubbish

Mis takes.

All I’ve got is a three and a deuce. You’ve got queens? Christ almighty, Mitch. What do you have, a printing press over there? Isn’t that the third hand like that you’ve…. Oh, wait a minute, I have to get to work here…

Hi, everyone. It is I, Joe Perry of Big Green. No, not Joe Perry of Aerosmith. The other Joe Perry. And on behalf of the other members of Big Green, as well as assorted denizens of their entourage, I have been asked to make the following statement. This is NOT a test. This is an ACTUAL OFFICIAL STATEMENT from the band Big Green. Ahem.

The founding members of Big Green, Joseph M. Perry and Matthew J. Perry, hereby disavow and deny any connection, either familial or professional, with the group known as The Band Perry. Any claims made by any person or persons suggesting such a connection are patently false and possibly malicious. Big Green shall henceforth neither confirm nor deny any such claims, as the members feel that this statement is sufficient response. 

There. Now that that’s dispensed with…. Why did we feel the need to do this? Well…. with our new album Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick now in the final phase of production – an album that features more than one country western-themed composition – we felt it necessary to draw a sharp line between ourselves and a country group that has appropriated OUR family name, one that has performed in central New York TWICE this year already. Given the confusion over my name and that of the guitarist from Aerosmith, it seemed silly to risk confusing the public even more on the eve of the launch of our new album. Yeah, I know… they’re young, have good hair, and are well rehearsed, and we…. well, we have none of those things. There’s something to be said for due diligence, my friends.

That said, Big Green has, with the help of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), been carrying out a project that demonstrates a profound lack of due diligence. It’s a collection of sound files called Fade-Out Grooves that we’ve been releasing into the wild via Twitter ( @BigGreenJoe ).  These are the drawn-out hairy endings of songs we’ve recorded and mixed – basically, all of the junk that happens after the fade out. Don’t know about you, but I always wondered how songs that fade-out actually end. Well … now you can know the answer to that conundrum.

So… think of these as appetizers, just to keep you busy until the main course arrives.

Usual Rubbish

Back pages.

The jury is in on Curiosity. The bad news: there is no water on Mars. The good news? There’s club soda. And tonic water with lime. There’s a lot you can say about the Martians, but you can’t say they’re not civilized.

Got some time on our hands, obviously, so we have the luxury of pondering the findings of the latest Mars probe, made available by our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee (who somehow hacked into Curiosity and has compelled it to act on our behalf as a robotic booking agent on the red planet). Roll, Curiosity, roll, and soon we will be idle no longer. Or something to that effect. Hell – bring back a pizza and the Lincolns will be happy. That would certainly outdo Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and he only has to cross the street to get the great emancipators a third-rate pie. (I’m looking at you, Marvin. You’re not good!)

Well, I hope you all enjoyed our anniversary edition of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our official podcast. A little something for everyone in there, I’m proud to say. Aside from all the pointless yak by Matt and myself, you can enjoy:

  • a little visit with Mr. Ned, Mitt Romney’s dancing horse, and the candidate himself.
  • not one but TWO new songs by cousin Rick Perry: a country number titled “Fed Up” and a Susan Boyle-inspired ballad called “Lone Star”. Think of them as bookends on the empty bookshelf that is Rick’s Texas brain.
  • brief comments by Jack Ossont of the Coalition to Protect New York at an anti-fracking rally in Utica, NY.
  • a blues number culled from the first-ever demo recorded by a group called Big Green.

The last item, a Taj Mahal number named “She Caught The Katy”, which was part of our live show, was recorded back in 1986 in a garage studio (analog Tascam 8-track deck) owned by John Danison – brother of Big Green co-founder Ned Danison – who worked for the band Blotto back in the day. We threw together a four-song demo to promote the band; this was one of those tracks. I’m doing the vocal and plunking on Ned’s electric piano. Matt’s playing bass. Ned is doing the electric guitar and organ parts. The drummer was an Albany guy named Pete Young – he was with us for this recording and that was about it. (We had some drummer issues in those days.)

So hey, what the hell … enjoy. And if you go to Mars this week (or next), bring some ice.