Big Green, well, cops out on this month’s episode, choosing instead to play reruns and put their feet up that big tray of drinks. Busted!
This is Big Green – July 2014. Sadly, we’re still working on the next podcast, so as a stop-gap we’re posting this lame-ass repeat, which features: 1) An encore presentation (a.k.a repeat) of Ned Trek X: A Plea for Arms, from May (or June) 2013; 2) Song: Quality Lincoln; 3) Sheepish exit
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Could have sworn I left it around here someplace. Have you seen it, Marvin? Oh, right. You’ve deactivated yourself for the holidays. Sounds nice … enjoy your break. How ’bout you, mansized tuber? Oh, yeah. He planted himself in the courtyard, out of earshot. Smart move. Wish I’d thought of that.
What am I searching for? The lost month of June, that’s what. It was here a minute ago, seems like, and now, POOF! Gone-zo. And with it, apparently, the June episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. Okay, well … it’s not quite as mysterious as that. Our promised June episode is still in production, and not quite finished. Part of the reason is that we are lazy slags, but aside from that, frankly, it’s been a very complicated episode. A full-on, hour long episode of Ned Trek incorporating no less than six original Big Green songs. I am only now finishing out the songs, adding some incidental parts, mixing, etc. Working like a dog over here. (Well, a lazy kind of dog, anyway.)
Okay, I know what this sounds like. It sounds like pretty much every month this year, right? January’s podcast got pushed into February, March’s into April, April’s into May, and now June has evaporated. Four shows in six months is not exactly a land speed record, even for Big Green, so what can I say. As we try to raise our production values from the sub, sub-basement where they reside to the dank level of goodness just above that, we are finding that it takes a bit more effort than just plain sucking.
This is kind of how Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick was born. We started out with a bunch of hastily recorded sketches, then started tracking those, making them marginally more complex until they reached the same level of quality (or lack thereof) as our officially released albums, International House and 2000 Years to Christmas. We’re beginning to do the same deal with these Ned Trek songs, though they make the Cowboy Scat numbers seem, well, normal by comparison. This is some weird shit, man.
Stay tuned … we will post sometime soon. If it takes longer than we anticipate, we might toss in a clip show or something. Another cop out! Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Process that track. Delete that wave. Get a little drunk and then dig your grave. I don’t know, what is the work song equivalent of my current occupation? Most professions have been reduced to someone sitting in front of a computer terminal, tapping away and grimacing. Here at Big Green, we are no exception. As I am now demonstrating, by sitting in front of a computer and typing. And grimacing.
Sure, I know, we should perform. I think that’s a marvelous idea. Right now, our performances are our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, which appears nearly every month right here on this channel (check local listings). We could haul our sorry, superannuated asses down to the local gin mill and slog through some of our hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of songs, most of which have never been heard outside a small circle of friends, and I wouldn’t rule that out. Maybe we’ll do some Stage-It performances, or something like that. Who the hell knows?
The main thing is (and this is important!) we are still making ridiculous music … still bizarre and asinine after all these years. Right now, the place to hear it is here. And as I look around at the clammy walls of the empty, abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adoptive home, I am reminded of why we got into this in the first place… that spark of an idea that started Big Green decades ago, in a place far (well, not so far) away. That voice that came to me, early one morning, seeping into my cloudy, half slumbering consciousness, to whisper those inspiring words: “You need to make money somehow, you dope-ass loser … get a band going!”
Actually, it was louder than a whisper. And it wasn’t a disembodied voice; it was my roommate at the time, asking for my half of the rent. He was one of those guys who put labels on stuff in the refrigerator, each one sporting his name. To me, though, those labels always read “eat me”.
But enough about ME. What have you been up to, eh?