Tag Archives: YouTube

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

Xmas again.

2000 Years to Christmas

I don’t know. Why don’t we just toss it out into the street and see if anyone happens upon it? Wait … that was our original marketing strategy? Did it work? Huh. I thought not. Oh, well … maybe twice is the charm.

Oh, hi, silent majority of Americans who read this blog on a regular basis. I didn’t recognize you at first with that mask on. You just caught us in the middle of a marketing strategy session – we’re trying to shift more physical and digital copies of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, a full twenty years after its release. (I’m sure you’ve noticed the banner. Yeah, that was us that put that there.) We’ve got discs stacked in the basement of the hammer mill, discs serving as ashtrays and drink coasters, discs nailed to the walls of the bathroom in a psychedelic mirror-room kind of effect – freaky! We’ve handed them out, tossed them out, used them as Frisbees, table hockey pucks, sacred amulets, etc. Everything but sold them. Yes, as capitalists, we’re abject failures. We’re the worst robber barons ever!

Well, it’s time to embrace our failure and make it our own. Now that it’s aged a solid two decades and made its way into countless music services, we’ve finally gotten around to posting 2000 Years To Christmas on YouTube. I’ve handed the task off to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and he has assured me that he will upload the songs in a timely fashion. Of course, his wifi connection is a little wonky, and we can’t afford decent internet around this joint, so we have to rely on him rolling on his gimbals past the public library so that he can tap into their free wifi long enough to send another music video skyward. That necessarily involves circling the library a few times, maybe five, maybe seven for the longer songs. Eventually, the librarian comes running out of the building, swinging a yardstick at Marvin and telling him to get the hell out. I’ve programmed Marvin to comply, so he does so … then comes back later. (I programmed that into him, too.)

He's dead, Lincoln. And he's fictional!

Is this a reasonable strategy for a band in this era of COVID lockdown? Hell, I don’t know. Are there any reasonable strategies? We’re just pushing shit out there, hoping someone hears it and gets some enjoyment out of it. Or not. Either way, putting an album on YouTube is the functional equivalent of dropping it in the middle of the street and hoping someone happens upon it. So you could say we’ve been consistent from the get-go with this album.

I know some of my colleagues disagree with this approach. “Get a manager”, they holler, “like that blonde guy on the Partridge Family!” “I think he’s dead,” I’ll respond, but they are undeterred. “Did you try to call him,” they say. “Did you send him a postcard? His name is Reuben Kincaid!” Hoo man. I guess I’ll have to write that postcard if I ever want to get anti-matter Lincoln off my back. I just wish to hell someone would tear him away from his classic TV channel.

Usual Rubbish

Mailbag redux.

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve done this, but I think it’s about time we open up the old mail bag and respond to some of the cards, letters, emails, messages in bottles, skywriting, notes tied to bricks thrown through windows, etc. we’ve received over the past, what, ten years?

Full disclosure: Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was tasked some years back with screening our fan mail. I’m not sure he fully understood the parameters of that assignment. Our intention was for him to use the kind of screen that would allow some of the messages to pass through. I guess we should have been more explicit. He appears to have tossed most of them out. Robots!

The thing is dusty as hell, but (cough!) here goes . First, here’s a little message from someone with the code name “Ask” in the United Kingdom:

Aw, this was a really nice post. Spending some time and actual effort to make a superb article… but what can I say… I hesitate a lot and don’t seem to get anything done.

– Ask.

Hey, thanks for your message, “Ask”. I’m not an expert on personal efficiency, but you should get that hesitation thing looked at. You might need a new set of spark plug wires. Luckily, you have the National Health Service over in England, so that shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish.

Here’s another one, from this side of the pond:

Hey Big Green,

When the hell are you going to get up off your sorry asses and perform somewhere? It’s been years since you had a decent gig. Why are you wasting your time, posting shit on the internet and making up fan letters? It’s just disgraceful.

– Francis McDonald, Keokuk, IA

Well, Francis, I’m glad you asked this question. I’ve been trying to think of a way to raise this issue with my bandmates, and you have helpfully teed it up for me. I’ll tell you, if you hadn’t asked about this, I might have had to invent a fan letter like yours out of thin air. Thanks for saving me the trouble. I hate work!

Okay, Marvin. You can open it up now.

I think top two reasons we never play live is that we are (a) lazy and (b) old, in that order. That said, I personally do play with other groups on occasion. After the last time I performed, late last year, I spent about two months in physical therapy. As soon as I can save up the credit for more PT visits, I’ll take another gig.

For those of you who missed Big Green’s handful of live performances back in the day, you can hear some recordings of us playing live on either our Soundcloud channel or our YouTube channel. If you hear this and want more, let us know.