Tag Archives: Tim Walsh

Usual Rubbish

Archive fever.

2000 Years to Christmas

Okay, I’ve got the entire album up on YouTube. Now what do we do? Are we famous yet? Famous as Amos (without the cookies, of course)? No? Thought not. Nothing on the applause-o-meter. Dung!

Well, friends, life is full of disappointments. Like the other day, I had dis appointment with my doctor, see? And I had to go and break it, see? (Not the appointment … the doctor’s bowling trophy. It was offensive to me.) Perhaps you yourself are disappointed to see me once again revert to my cheap imitation of a forties guy, like the voices we inserted into some of our Ned Trek songs. If so, you know what it’s like not to have things your own way. Hey, man … I’ve been there. And it looks like we’re going there again. Our new 2000 Years To Christmas playlist has been up for days, and we’ve seen very few plays. What the hell, man … it’s free! Play the damn record!

Ouch, okay … that was a little harsh. Sorry. I imagine you’re disappointed in me again. (Second time in as many paragraphs.) Perhaps I should try more gentle persuasion. Come on, people now … smile on your brother! Everybody get together, and play the goddamn record right now! Whoops, that went south. Well, how bout if I embed the album right in this here blog post – like so:

There we go. Just press the nice, candy-like “play” button, right smack in the middle of the screen. Do it now!

Hoo-man. Marketing is hard work. I think I’ll take the rest of this blog post off. The fact is, I’ve been taking a lot of time off this summer. As most musicians know, this kind of time off is not taken by choice. There’s no bloody place to play practically anywhere, thanks to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and most musicians have been forced to do their performing on line. Me, I’ve been doing what I usually do in the middle of the summer – sorting through the archives, looking for little bits of hidden treasure (or trash, as the case may be). With the help of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), I’ve turned up a few interesting fragments of our past lives. Some old notebooks filled with hastily scribbled lyrics and song lists. A cache of Big Green logo buttons, designed by friend of the band, author/photographer Leif Zurmuhlen. And of course, some old recordings rescued from cassette tapes.

Cuts from our first bootleg cassette compilation, ca. 1983

We played a lot of covers, man! Back in the pre-Big Green days (nominally, at least), before the internet was invented, our set list was a raft of kind of tired covers, some weird stuff, and a sprinkling of original numbers, mostly Matt’s songs but a few of mine as well, and a handful of Tim Walsh numbers (Tim was our first guitarist who, sadly, passed away a few years ago.) Phil Ross was our drummer at the time. The recordings are rough – a couple of mics plugged into a stereo audio cassette machine, that was about it. It’s the kind of thing only a mother could love, so I don’t typically share them. (If you’re dying to hear some examples of us murdering a Jimi Hendrix song, let me know and I’ll get something to you.)

There, see? Now I’m completely relaxed. Just thinking about archive diving puts me in a good mood.

Usual Rubbish

Rewind.

It’s the dog days, or at least we think it is. So where are the freaking dogs, then? Somewhere a dog is barking.

Well, dogs or no, it’s hot as hell out there, so it’s probably a good day to lurk in the shadows of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and rifle through the archives of the last 30 years of Big Green history. Fortunately, I have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) on hand to help me with the heavy lifting. Yes, he can lift very heavy things. (It’s the putting them down part that he’s not so good at.) There’s a safe in the attic, but I think we’ll stick to the file cabinets and banker boxes in the main hammer assembly room.

Got a few old tapes, obviously … more than a few. When we started out as a band, we recorded on wire … I mean, tape. (We couldn’t afford wire.) Our first reel-to-reel was a broken down SONY machine that my dad bought used at some point. We recorded a few songs on old, thrice recorded tapes, though I couldn’t tell you even the names of any of them. Matt had some long instrumental pieces that still survive in that form, a few of which he wrote lyrics for. Then the revelation of cassette tapes arrived, and we bowed in humility before its sheer awesomeness. (That was about the time people started saying “awesome” when they meant something other than “awesome.”)

Look what I dug up.I listen to some of our earliest recordings, from back before we had even the name Big Green, and they sound like something from another planet. Most are very poorly recorded, scratched onto a cassette tape using a cheap mic or two. We did a demo at a local studio in 1981 that is a bit clearer – that basically captures what we sounded like at that moment. (It wasn’t overdubbed; we just DID IT LIVE, as Bill O’Reilly would say.) That tape was just me, Matt on bass, our guitarist at the time, the late Tim Walsh, and drummer Phil Ross, who still plays downstate. Maybe if I have too much port one of these nights I’ll post a song somewhere you can hear it.

That’s as deep as I can go into the history sack. We’ll see what’s a little closer to the top, maybe next week.

Usual Rubbish

Inside the holiday podcast.

Ahem. Still bobbing out here in deep space. Nothing to keep us company but the echoes of our increasingly impatient throat clearings. Ahem!

Well, while we have so much time on our hands, time to crack open that big Christmas present we left all of you who subscribe to our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN – namely, our annual Christmas Spectacular. What’s inside the box this year? Two solid hours of Big Green madness, including:

Ned Trek XV: Santorum’s Christmas Planet – This special, expanded holiday edition of our (un)popular Star Trek parody features six – yes, six – new Big Green songs, sung in character:

  • Christmas Shine – Captain Mitt Romney’s joyful rumination on getting full value out of his human resources throughout the holiday season. And he’s not going to say it again.
  • Horrible People – Mr. Ned contemplates the fate of all animals during the dangerous Yultide ritual celebrations. (Backing vocals by those ’40s guys.)
  • Dick’smas Xmas – Even the robot Dick Nixon keeps Christmas in his own way. This song gives you an idea of how that all comes down. Expletives deleted, mostly.
  • Doc’s Christmas – Full of crackpot prognostications and characteristic religious fervor, the right honorable Senator Reverend Doctor Thomas Beauregard Coburn belts out another keeper. Foghorn Leghorn is turning in his cartoon grave.
  • Lonely Little Neocon – Richard Pearle takes a moment away from more important duties to croon this tidy little number about how much he misses his favorite pastime – starting major conflicts.
  • Christmas Green – What’s the true meaning of Christmas? Let Captain Mitt explain it to you in no uncertain terms.

Let's talk about the podcast.This month’s episode features Rick Santorum, Mitch McConnell (sounding a bit like Walter Brennan), and others as Mitt and the crew encounter a fantastic world on which Christmas happens every other day (and twice on Sunday).


Song: Merry Christmas, Jane, Part II – A holiday rebroadcast of this selection from our 1999 album, 2000 Years To Christmas.

Put the Phone Down – We spend a lot of our conversation remembering our old friend and colleague Tim Walsh, who passed away unexpectedly in November. Tim played guitar with us way back in the day, and we spin a few old recordings of the band we had back then, which was made up of Joe Perry (keys), Matt Perry (bass), Phil Ross (drums) and Tim. These are pretty rough, but you can hear most of what’s going on.

  • Wind Cries Mary – Hendrix number with Tim playing lead guitar. (This starts with an end bit from another recording that features Tim hammering out a blistering Neil Young style solo.)
  • Colors in the Darkness – Song written, arranged, sung, and recorded by Tim while we shared a flat in Castleton-On-Hudson, NY. The first section is all Tim; the second is excerpted from the entire band playing the song out.
  • Nothing To Hide – Another original song by Tim, which he sings. I think we recorded this at my parent’s house in New Hartford, NY, in maybe 1984.

Anywho … that’s the run-down of the show. Let us know what you think. We’ll have our people float a message in a bottle-rocket out to us.