Hey, campers …. In case you hadn’t noticed, our WordPress site was down for a few days due to unknown technical issues (our Web hosting service was probably vacuuming the server farm and tripped over a power cord or something). If it happens again, well god damn it … you won’t see this! Nevertheless, the party continues unabated, crashes notwithstanding. We’re still recording, posting stuff on YouTube and Instagram, and annoying the neighbors with our noisy activities. If we keep you up at night, let us know!
International House without the pancakes
What’s up, Big Green visitors? As previously reported, we’re still at work on our splendid new project (as of yet unnamed), tracking, listening back, swearing, deleting, tracking again … rinse and repeat. You know our process: no process! It’s working as well as ever.
Busy as we are, we are finding some spare time to sort through some old file boxes, clean out the attic, etc. We thought this might be a good time to post our second album, International House, on YouTube. We’ve got a couple of tracks posted to a playlist so far (Welcome To It and For Your Majesty’s Amusement), and we invite you to check it out, subscribe, etc., particularly if you haven’t heard the album before. Give it a spin and tell us what you think!
Okay … back to the slog. Cue up the next song, folks! Roll tape!
Notes from the underground: The Basement tapes
Well, Big Green may appear to be having a quiet start to the year, but trust me, we’re hard at work on the next project. No, I’m not talking about the Cutty Sark model I’ve been working on in the dark for the last eight years. I mean our next collection of original songs, straight from the hand of your flophouse favorites. Just the thing for a year like this!
What’s the title? Well, I wanted to go with “Working Title”, but I thought I’d save that for the first album by a band I’ve been contemplating called Various Artists. All I can tell you is, it will have new material. And lots of it.
Let me put it this way: I don’t know how tall the building will be when it’s finished, but as of now the foundation covers ten square blocks. It’s gonna be a big one, folks, so stay tuned. And while you’re waiting, check out our latest posts on YouTube:
The (Christmas) Spirit of Ninety-Six
We dug up a Christmas tape from 1996 this week and posted parts of it on the Internets. Hey, it’s Christmas, right? What is the significance of this collection? Well, my friends – this project taps a deep vein in the corpus of Big Green material. These four songs, now on YouTube, represent some firsts, some lasts, and a whole lot of mister in-between.
First things first: I believe this was the first group of songs we recorded on our eight-track DTRS system back in the nineties – the same deck, board, etc., we used a couple of years later to do our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas. We got the system in 1995 and did a few test tracks before getting started on this 1996 collection, which was originally eight songs, including two we revamped, remixed, and released under separate cover.
What about last? Well, this was Matt’s last Christmas collection, recorded as a giveaway to family, friends, pets, etc. It was a yearly tradition in Matt-ville, from about the mid-1980s to 1996, covering a body of work that included all of the songs off of 2000 Years To Christmas, plus many, many more (including numbers we featured in our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN.)
There’s more where that came from. Enjoy your holidays!
We will walk on the beautiful grid
As we work on new projects, we’re still mining the archives, and this week we tossed up a bit of musical ore (or slag) called Beautiful Grid. This is another track we recorded at AcqRock studio in Utica, NY as part of a demo project co-produced and underwritten by friend of Big Green Bob Acquaviva back in 1991.
We previously released Beautiful Grid as part of a very limited run EP back in the mid-2000s, along with three other numbers, but that’s a bit like tossing it out into the middle of the street and waiting for someone to happen upon it. So here it is again:
We shall walk on the beautiful grid
You’ll be inspired by the hymns that we pull from the sky
And on the streets
By and by
So will lend me all I need
To survive
What’s Behind Just Five Seconds
Our latest archive pick, Just Five Seconds, was recorded back in 1991, if memory serves, at AcqRock studio in Utica, NY. The track’s co-producer and sponsor was Bob Acquaviva, friend of Big Green, founder of the band Mere Mortals, producer, and all-around awesome dude. That’s the short story on how we made it. But what’s it about? Hmmm….
Tough question. Songs are always about a bunch of things and nothing in particular. But here’s a piece of the puzzle. Matt wrote this song after the 1987 collapse of the Schoharie Bridge on the New York State Thruway. He and our niece Mona were traveling along that stretch of highway that particular day and were held up in the consequent traffic jam. That was some of the input behind that lyric:
You could have been over the side
You could have been in the water
I was just two cars back
There was nothing I could have done to save you
You could have been drowning, or
You might have been broken to bits
I was just driving by
There was nothing I could have thrown to you
I just inspected those bridge supports
I checked them off as I ate my lunch
My pen said “years and years”
Ripped straight from the headlines. (35 years ago, of course.)
What’s Next in Big Green Land
Here’s a quick update on what’s happening with Big Green: Not Much. At least not yet. Yes, the rumors are true, we are working on a new project – our first album since the release of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick ten years ago (to almost universal condemnation). You’ll be glad to know that we are committed to meeting and even exceeding the high standards we set with that album. You heard it here first.
While you’re waiting for the new album to surface, we will continue posting random bits from the archives, including some previously unreleased holiday recordings. So keep one eye on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@biggreenband) and one eye on the road. If you have a third eye, reserve that one for gazing into the eternal void.
Random Single: Red, Gold, and Green
We dropped another YouTube post; this time a reissue of a random single from 2004 – a little folk number named “Red, Gold, and Green,” remastered and re-painted with latex primer in three colors. Take a look.
Fair warning – we will be dropping random remixes, album tracks, and previously unreleased material at irregular intervals onto our YouTube channel as we work on our next album. (Yes, we’re working on a next album …. the Big Green way. In slow mo.) So keep your eyes open, your ears ready, and your hands on the wheel.
Full Neptune EP On YouTube
Hey, out there. Just a quick head’s up. Big Green’s EP LIVE FROM NEPTUNE is now posted in its entirety on YouTube. So you can get the full LIVE FROM NEPTUNE playlist experience end-to-end, all four tracks, driven right into your earbuds.
LIVE FROM NEPTUNE is performed by Big Green (Matt Perry, Joe Perry, and John White) and features guitarist Jeremy Shaw, who was just crazy enough to play with us back in the nineties. Give it a listen.
Okay … you can put your head back down now.
Oh Larry! On Youtube
Hello again. In other news, Big Green has dropped the final track from our LIVE FROM NEPTUNE EP – a song called Oh, Larry!, recorded live back in 1994, featuring Jeremy Shaw on guitar, plus the rest of us mofos – John White on drums, Matt Perry on bass and vocals, Joe Perry on keyboards and vocals. Throwback Sunday!