Tag Archives: sFshzenKlyrn

Usual Rubbish

Tour log 10.11

Good evening, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to read this blog entry from top to bottom without falling over backwards. This blog will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, Jim!

Don’t mind that first paragraph. I sometimes rent my blog space out to sixties television shows. Has something to do with the space-time vortex through which we ordinarily travel when on these interstellar tours. Don’t ask me to explain – I’m not an actual scientist. And unlike some of my blog renters, I don’t even play one on television.

Anyway, here’s a rundown of how Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 is going so far, ripped straight from the pages of my log book.  

10.08.2011 – Negotiated our way through the asteroid belt. We needed to lighten our load somewhat, so we tossed a few things overboard, like Marvin (my personal assistant)’s Lowery organ he borrowed from our one-time promoter and second keyboard player, Tiny Montgomery. Mitch also chucked all of the foodstuffs. He hates foodstuffs. Food, he likes, but foodstuffs… not so much. Anyway… we started the search for the Olive Garden in orbit around Jupiter.  Tough sledding.

10.09.2011 – Actually started a gig on time – first instance of this since, oh, 1992. A couple of weeks. We played the big red spot on Jupiter. Weather was awful (seems like it’s always stormy when we play there), but the Jovian audience is the greatest audience in the world… if “the world” can be thought of to include Jupiter itself. Paid in Belgian waffles. Hard times have hit up here as well, it seems.

10.11.2011 – Woke up around 18:00. Missed yesterday entirely. Our hyperdrive engine soiled the bed, so to speak, so we’re creeping along at about 25 miles an hour, headed for Titan. Should be a Titanic gig if we ever get there. For now, I look out the porthole and see space turtles passing us. Note to self: when ship lands on Earth, fire Mitch.

10.12.2011 – Jammed with sFshzenKlyrn on Titan. He’s big into Lenny Breau, now. Watches him on YouTube, which apparently is available on the planet Zenon. You heard it here first. Glad to see no waffles in the pay packet this time. No nothing, actually – I guess the Titanians have discovered currency trading… and subsequently discovered they were no good at it.  Traded all their currency for Legos. Legos valueless in the outer planets (unlike back home).

More later. Isn’t it always the case?

Usual Rubbish

Long view.

Electrodes to power. Turbines to speed. Vector diagrams to light board. Finger fins to the driver behind. Quarter to three in the afternoon. What am I saying?

Doesn’t matter, really. We’re getting close to the departure date on Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011, our hotly-anticipated romp through the musical hinterlands of outer space, with planned stops in the Jovian system (Jupiter for you space travel novices), Betelgeuse, Kaztropharius 137b, Sirius, and the planet Zenon in the Small Magellanic Cloud, home base of our sometime-guitarist, sFshzenKlyrn.  Yes, I know – last time we stopped there we took a few lumps, but they’ve since healed up, and hey – never let it be said that we let experience stand in the way of a good lapse in judgment. Still got it, baby.

Anyhow, we’re just running through our confusing array of pre-launch checklists. Can’t be too careful these days, particularly when your vehicle has such a spotted past as the one we’ve rented for the occasion. Some of these lists are so damn mundane, though, it hardly seems justified…. but protocol is protocol. Here’s a for instance: (1) spacecraft fuel, check! (2) spacecraft, check!  (3) passengers and crew, check! (4) desire to depart for interstellar destinations, check! Who the f**k came up with that? My guess is that it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant), due to the rote existential nature of his selections. But I digress.

Another thing that doesn’t much matter: we haven’t really worked out a set list yet. Or any of the songs that would populate a set list. That would involve rehearsal, you see, and as a very wise horn player once told me, rehearsal is just a crutch for cats who can’t blow. Normally I don’t take such vouchsafes as gospel, but THIS time…. well, I daren’t disregard such an obviously valuable insight. Anyway, Matt and I have been recording some numbers for the podcast (This Is Big Green), so we will probably remember those songs at the very least. That’s about… oh…. half a set. Then there are the songs we make up on the spot. And of course, the mansized tuber plays a little accordion. (Don’t ask how little. Just… don’t.)

Okay, so yeah…. we’ve got a lot of getting together to do before our departure next week. But no fear- Big Green is up to this challenge. In fact, we’ve got a check list for this very situation. Left it around here…. somewhere…

Usual Rubbish

Prep time.


Is Jupiter off? It’s not? That doesn’t sound like such a good idea, Admiral. In light of recent events, you know what I mean? You don’t? Well…. I’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Hey, there. Just starting to plan out our trip to the outer limits. No, not the sixties television show – that was a piece of broadcast entertainment, not a place you can actually go to. I mean the outer limits of the space-time continuum, already – that dark pocket of nothingness where all of the demand for Big Green performances floats in a vacuum like a cork in a bathtub. We must pursue that cork, my friends, for it beckons. The cork beckons! Behold, the cork! Death to Moby Dick! Right, well…. be that as it may. (I’ve been hanging around with anti-Lincoln a bit too much lately – he sometimes doest this extended riff on Captain Ahab and, well, he’s kind of convincing with that beard of his.) We must follow the demand, whatever cliff it may lead us off of.

So, yeah… we’re going over the possibilities for our upcoming interstellar tour. I’m having to cross a few stops off of our list right at the get-go, as it happens. Jupiter is one. If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ll know why. And if you’ve been a bit irregular lately, well… it’s all because of sFshzenKlyrn. (Not your irregularity; our avoidance of planet Jupiter, for pity’s sake. Can’t blame everything on the man from Zenon.) He caused that minor explosion on the Jovian surface some weeks back. Now, when I say minor, I mean by Jupiter standards. Remember – it’s one big-ass mo-fo of a planet. “Minor” on Jupiter is the size of the entire planet Earth back where you come from. So, yeah… in light of that, perhaps even a minor infraction is enough to keep us away. (Like light-years away.)

Assisting us in this tiresome duty is our old friend, Rear Admiral Gonutz (ret.), formerly of the Naval Reserve. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) looked him up at our request when we realize that this was a job several magnitudes too subtle for the mind of the man-sized tuber, who has been filling in as our road manager. (He basically occupied roughly the same volume of space as a road manager might; other than that, not much.) As some of you might remember, Gonutz is not shy. He believes in aggressive touring – musical “shock and awe”, as it were, at least in terms of the itinerary. I personally think he is insisting on Jupiter because he’s fond of the club scene, but that’s just a suspicion. (I’m chock bloody full of suspicions.) Proud man.

Well… we shall see how this will go over, especially with sFshzenKlyrn slinging his trademark telecaster. Hey, Admiral – are we bringing those clear plastic riot shields with us this time?