Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Me, me, me.

When I was a kid, my parents took me on a trip across this great country of ours. We took in all the national parks, all the dude ranches, all the hamburger joints, all the breakfast cereals, and it was great. The best way I can share it with you is by singing this song. I want you to all sing along with me. “There’s a yellow rose in Texas … that I am BOUND TO SEE….!!!”

Whoa, hey… didn’t know anyone was reading this here blog. I was just practicing in my spare time. What am I practicing? Thought you might ask. Just in case I find myself running for president in sixty or seventy years, I thought I might need a little background on how to warm up a crowd at a retirement center. Now I know just how to do it, sort of. Anywho… we’ve all got to keep ourselves occupied, what with Big Green up on blocks like a 1976 Chevy Monza that needs a ring job. We’ve been blowing oil for about 5,000 miles now, folks. Time for a tune up. [METAPHOR OVER.]

Right, so … what are we doing? Recording, that’s what. I’ll tell you, this podcast of ours ( THIS IS BIG GREEN ) has gotten us back into the studio on a regular basis, and not just to drink beverages. We’re just putting finishing touches on two more Rick Perry songs, to be premiered on the February podcast under the moniker of Rick Perry and the Recognizable Hicks. (They are to us what the Dukes of the Stratosphere were to XTC … only with 80% more hick.) Think of it as a thematic strain, like Christmas has been with Matt for umpteen years or more – once you start, they just keep coming.

The podcast versions are like first drafts, mostly, though our Rick Perry songs are as close to finished as anything is likely to get here in the Cheney Hammer Mill. The rest of it is pretty bare bones – Marvin (my personal assistant) playing drums, some twangy guitars, a stray sousaphone. At some point we’ll collect all of these numbers into an album and call it SONGS FROM HELL or RARE FOOT DISEASE or something more appropriate, less offensive, etc.

Anyway, stay tuned. More stuff to come, in one form or another. (Okay… I promise not to sing “Yellow Rose” again. Now will you listen?)

Usual Rubbish

Moving to Ironia.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people who arbitrarily find something to complain about. Especially when it involves pointless grousing about other people. I HATE PEOPLE LIKE THAT.

Right, you guessed it. I was being ironic just then. Some people do that for a living. Me? I’m ironic in my spare time. Actually, it’s not merely a matter of personal whim. We’ve just taken on a marketing consultant recommended by our somewhat lackluster label, Loathsome Prick Records. I would tell you her name, but she told me her name must never be spoken. In any case, she – I will call her “Noname” … which rhymes with Edamame in my tiny mind – is going to help us “position” Big Green in the international indie music marketplace. That’s something our label tells us we need to do, like, RIGHT NOW.

Okay, so… part of that new positioning is that we should start being more ironic. I know what you’re going to say, and I am appalled… APPALLED that you would even think of such a thing! No, really… I know that we’ve been living, breathing, writing, playing, singing, exemplifying irony for more than two decades now. I know that our entire first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, and its follow-up, International House, were both frantic fits of festering irony. Trouble is, from a marketing perspective, none of that counts. It’s more about being seen to be ironic. “Noname” is insistent that we apply at least half of each waking hour working on ostentatious displays of irony.

My response to that has been, well, typical for me. I put Marvin (my personal robot assistant) on the case. Never send a man to do what a personal robot assistant can do for him – that’s what I always say, without a hint of irony. I asked Mitch Macaphee to program some irony into his sorry ass, and Mitch obliged, punching numbers into his little hand-held remote, pointing it at Marvin and saying the magic words: Obey! Obey! Marvin wheeled out the door and into the streets of Little Falls, dodging shoppers on a mission to ironyland. Sure enough, when we went out to the grocery store for some day old bread, there was Marvin, in front of Magillicuddy’s Hardware, ringing a bell and wearing a Santa-style hat, an old paint bucket on the sidewalk in front of him. Was he raising money? God, no. He was demonstrating the absurdity of a world in which robots in Santa garb can panhandle out of season without even raising an eyebrow. In short, he was practicing… that’s right …. starts with an “i”.

Here’s something else that starts with an “i”: I’ve had it with this for the nonce. Noname be damned, I’m hitting the sack. (Or perhaps merely mocking those who do so in earnest. Who can say?)

Usual Rubbish

What’s new.

Well, it’s finally coming down. The snow that is. And the lamp post. Yes, you heard me right – the lamp post came down … and Jim Bob is responsible.

Okay, truth is… I don’t know for certain that Jim Bob is responsible. It may well have been Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who knocked the lamp post down during the first snow storm of the year. Here it is, the week after Christmas, and people are still driving like it’s July. Spoiled by global warming, I suppose. In any case, I only have myself to blame. It was I who suggested that Marvin serve as our chauffeur until a suitable replacement might be found. What? You didn’t know we had people driving us around? Well, that’s because we haven’t up until now. We’ve just recently adopted the Bowie-esque doctrine of acting successful to become successful. It’s like priming the pump, man.

Why this sudden obsession? Well, as you know, we of Big Green weren’t exactly born with the word “success” tattooed on our butts. (Mine has something else entirely tattooed onto it. I’m giving you twelve guesses what that might be.)  We’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel for lo these past three decades, playing in dives, recording in the basement on superannuated technology, scratching for every inch, inching for every scratch…. you get the picture. (Actually, you get the sound file. We don’t do pictures.) What have we got to show for it? A second-hand robot chauffeur, that’s what. And one that can’t avoid major obstacles.

I know, I know – I shouldn’t complain, what with this being the season of kindness and gratitude. (Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, sees it more as the season of mindlessness and attitude, but that’s how he rolls.) We’re still recording, still flailing away at the canon, committing item after item from the seemingly bottomless vat of unrecorded material to virtual tape. You can hear the results of these sessions on our podcast, This Is Big Green, where we post first drafts of songs we will eventually release as our next album(s).

So sure, we live in a drafty mill, no fuel for the fire, no food in the fridge, no miracle grow for the mansized tuber (not that he needs it).  But we’ve got something more valuable than any of that: a gift coupon to Tony’s pizza, good for another three days. To the limo… and damn the lamp posts!