Tag Archives: tour

Planning a tour on the ground floor

Get Music Here

Okay, I really think you have the order of operations wrong. One thing has to come before the other thing, and you’ve got the wrong thing first. Dude, it’s not that hard – why are you blinking those lights so frantically? This isn’t differential calculus … whatever the hell THAT is.

Oh, hey, out there in normal people land. Just having a little conversation here, nothing to get excited about. Just a handful of friends getting together for a quick jawbone. That’s a big motherfucker, man. I’ve seen smaller jawbones on a donkey. Whoa, is that the time? Okay, well … gotta go, guys! Great chewing the fat with you.

Right … now that I’m out of earshot, JEEEsus, what a bunch of asshats. That’s what I get for raising the issue of touring again. Let me ‘splain.

Cart before the horse

You know the old saying: don’t put the cart before the horse. For one thing, the horse might decide to drive away in the cart. And if you’re applying a different meaning to the expression “put X before Y”, you should always prioritize animals over inanimate objects. That’s a no brainer. (Or perhaps a YES brainer. But I digress.)

I guess the point is, I seem to me among a stark minority of members of Big Green’s broader entourage who believe that we should RECORD and RELEASE an album before we go on tour promoting it, not after. Not sure why I feel that way, but I do, and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) can’t get his little brass head around that idea. I mean, I can understand why antimatter Lincoln would be in favor of the before plan – he’s from that backwards universe where everyone eats corn on the cob vertically rather than horizontally.

I don't know, Abe. That doesn't look right to me.

What’s that you say?

Now, some of you out there may be asking, what album? And yes, I know lately we’ve been doing little more than posting old archival video of us playing random songs. But just because there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there isn’t snow in the living room as well. (I’ve got to stop using so many cliches, particularly the ones that don’t make any sense.) The simple fact is, we’ve got some songs … a whole lot of them.

What are we doing with said songs? We’re incubating the fuckers. We’re tossing parts back and forth, writing chord charts, barking into microphones, squinting at pages of poorly recorded verse. We’re pulling things apart and patching them back together with bailing wire and scotch tape. We’re …. killing time, frankly. It’s just fun to play new stuff, even when you’re doing it over the internets.

Why the internets? Matt is sequestered in his naturalist redoubt, watching birds, feeding beavers, and somehow writing scores of new songs. So we use sophisticated web-based technology to do our dirty work. Because that’s how we roll.

Where to begin. So many choices.

Now, if we were to go on tour … AFTER finishing the new album, we could start on that pulsar I talked about last week. Nobody’s played there yet, so we could finally be the first to market with something. (Damn, we suck at capitalism!)

Want to hear a song? That makes four of us.

2000 Years to Christmas

What man can stand the stress of being torn asunder then thrust back together? Who amongst us can quarter him/herself like a piece of fruit for the sake of a single song? What fool would throw his lot in with a madman who finds joy only in the fulfillment of his twisted vision? This guy, folks. This guy right here.

Yeah, I think it’s fair to say I’ve gotten the itch to perform. What can you expect after years of being cooped up in this abandoned hammer mill, miles from civilization? Not a living hell, I will admit, but clearly a living heck. It’s been years since we struck out on tour. (I blame all that striking out.) But we live in an age of miracles, my friends. Musicians now perform from the comfort of their own homes, thanks to the advent of the internet machine.

Labor action at the abandoned mill

Trouble is, when I raised the question of Big Green virtual performances, the response was less than encouraging. Yes, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was game. Antimatter Lincoln offered to play gut bucket (though frankly very few of our songs call for that rustic instrument). The mansized tuber volunteered a few of his smaller shoots to the enterprise. As for the actual band members, well …. not so much.

Can’t blame them, really. This is the busy time of year. Matt is taken up with his Peregrine Falcon project. (He’s gone big this time around, watching them from the deck of the star ship U.S.S. Enterprise.) John is doing his thing (if he didn’t have that, he’d have to get another thing). So that leaves me in kind of a spot. I mean, I can’t play four parts at once …. or CAN I?

Hell, this band looks damned familiar.

Crypto cloning to the rescue

It seems that our mad science advisor has been working on a little experiment of late. I thought I heard some strange noises coming from the north end of the mill. (That was just before it exploded, too. Coincidence, that.) Anyway, Mitch developed something he calls “crypto cloning.” The “crypto” piece is strictly about marketing – Mitch is keen to monetize this new technology.

Here’s how it works: A subject steps into the cloning device, and s/he is cloned four ways. That’s a big step up from making two of the same thing, Mitch tells me. (Twice as good.) The thing is, the cloning only lasts a couple of hours. At that point, your quadruplegangers hustle back into the protoplasmic host from which they sprang. It’s a kind of reverse-amoeba effect, if you know what I mean.

The quadruplegangers ride again

Before you ask, yes, I did let him test it on me. But only just long enough for the four of me to record one of Matt’s songs – a classic number called Going To Andromeda. Check it out on our YouTube channel or our new Instagram account. (Note: one of my clones came out with a mustache. Strange mutation.)

Words worth.

I’m still not sure this is a good idea. The memory of the last time we tried this still haunts me. And that Morlock with the sandals never answers my postcards. And yes, I’ve been dropping them down the hole. Jesus!

Okay, so someone, I won’t say who (Mitch), thought it would be a great idea to do a second subterranean tour, since we now have the equivalent of a superhighway to the chewy nougat center of the Earth. Mitch plans to fashion some kind of urban gondola (very popular in small post-industrial cities these days) that will allow us to treat the mega-hole in our floor like a kind of futuristic cargo elevator. I don’t remember where I heard this, but it seems like this mode of transportation might be problematic, to say the least, particularly when you’re dealing with magma and other natural hazards.

Mitch isn’t worried, of course. In his world, there’s a mad scientific fix for everything. That must be a nice feeling. When stuff goes wrong for the rest of us, we have little to fall back on other than playing instruments and/or writing songs, and maybe playing a few rounds of mumbly peg. (That doesn’t usually help, but it does give us something to strive for, since none of us knows how to play mumbly peg.) Everyone needs some kind of solution. For Marvin (my personal robot assistant), it’s a seven percent solution of machine oil and antifreeze.

Yeah, that looks like a maybe.Why does songwriting help? Don’t know, exactly. Ask Matt – he’s more prolific than me by a mile. As I’ve said before, he comes up with songs while walking the length and breadth of his rural domain, composing them out loud like a latter-day Ewan MacTeagle. Me, I take forever to crank out a few lines. My muse is like an old, rusty typewriter with an even older ribbon, very parsimonious and begrudging of every line. Even so, if we do undertake this underground tour, we should have plenty of material that hasn’t been heard down there before. Nothing the middle-Earth denizens hate more than old, recycled material.

So, yeah, we’ll consider it. Though God only knows why.

Off with us.

Glad that’s over. Anything I hate, it’s packing over a holiday weekend. But we’re under way at last, back into the welcoming arms of deep, deep space. GJ 1132b, here we come!
Ned Trek, the podcast
I suppose I should spare you the details of the last week – the rush job of putting this expeditionary gig together, the foibles regarding our interplanetary transportation, etc. (Just try booking a four-engine ion drive spacecraft on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Freaking impossible!) As you may recall from last week’s post (particularly if you have nothing better to do with your life than to read this useless blog), Big Green has decided to pay a call on our newest neighbor in space – the recently discovered dwarf planet GJ 1132b – and see if we can discover some gainful employment there; namely, a one night stand for a terrestrial band.

Okay, so we dubbed this BIG GREEN’S CAPER BEYOND THE KUIPER (BELT), which is literally true, as GJ 1132b is out there, man, really out there. We had to name the gig in order to get some support from our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (whose indie imprint is named Hegephonic), still run by Indonesian military thugs. They’ve got deep pockets, though, and they and our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee go way back, so he was able to connive … I mean, convince them into ponying up some of their ill gotten gains to fund this reckless foray into parts unknown. Mitch is just that good.

So that's it, is it?The transport was a major problem, though. All of our previous rides were unavailable. Mitch had inadvertently vaporized our last spacecraft during the course of an experiment (one he was conducting on behalf of those same Generals from Jakarta he was conniving this past week). GJ 1132b is 39 light years away, so we needed something with a little heft. It couldn’t be one of those sub-compact crafts you take to Mars and back, right? There was a good deal of head scratching over that issue, until finally Mitch remembered an old colleague who had built an interstellar spacecraft for his own amusement at some point, then just parked it in his garage next to his Land Rover. Hobbyists!

Anywho, Mitch sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) over to pick it up. Big mistake – Marvin got lost on the way home, so we lost a couple of solar days, delaying our launch until Thanksgiving. Let them eat space! See you on GJ 1132b!

Bloody script.

Where are my thumbs? Without my thumbs, I can’t type. Or at the very least, make spaces between what I type. Wait … did I say that? Is someone speaking?

You can start pulling your weight any time.Sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m hip deep in finishing the script for our next episode of Ned Trek, as featured on the THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. And though I write for a living, writing has always been a teeth-pulling process for me, resulting in sleepless nights, even more sleepless days, and other trepidations too numerous to … to enumerate. Am I making sense? (Possibly not.)

I know what you’re going to say. (Either that or lack of sleep is causing me to hear voices in my head.) Why the hell am I concentrating on a script for a stupid, knock-off podcast horse ballad instead of spending my time working on new songs, producing an album, preparing for another interstellar tour, etc.? My response? Meh. No man can say. I do it because I do it. And because Matt tells me to, which should be enough for anyone. (Or not.)

I would parcel this work out to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but he really does not have any thumbs, so typing is merely an impossibility for him. Otherwise, he is amply qualified to churn out the kind of poorly constructed melodrama / farce you have come to expect from yours truly. Maybe I ask to little of him. Maybe I shouldn’t let him hang about all day, talking to the electronic stapler, getting machine oil on my vegetables, and so on. Maybe it’s just time he PULLED HIS WEIGHT AROUND HERE. (This is how we communicate with one another. It’s cheaper than texting.)

Anyhow, I expect I’ll see Matt for another recording session this week, then return to my keyboard for another tortuous night of scriptwriting. Oh, the pain of creation! Where is my bourbon, my absinthe, my pain killers, my … I don’t know. I like cat videos. WHERE ARE MY CAT VIDEOS?

Plan ahead.

Is that where I left it? Oh, Jesus. Well … I’ll have to pick up another one, then. It’ll be long gone by now. Bloody inconvenient.

Work harder, not smokier.Oh, hi. Yep, I left my hand-carved walking stick at the bakery again. Second time this month. Last time, some old guy walked off with it … and yes, he was older than ME. Not exactly an heirloom, you understand. It’s actually just a branch that fell off the poplar tree in back of the Cheney Hammer Mill, by the canal. I cut some bits off of it, peeled back some of the bark, and voila! Cheap crutch.

Not that I need a walking stick. Fact is, I’ve been trying to stay close to the Mill as we plan our next interstellar tour. Nothing particularly ambitious, you understand – just a couple of the major star clusters, maybe a jaunt out to Aldebaran. (Matt’s not real crazy about that last one. The gravity’s a little strong for his taste.) I’ve asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to crunch some numbers on possible itineraries that might result in, I don’t know, a few extra shekels in our pockets. There’s some smoke coming out of his head, so he must be working on it. Good man.

Where’s the next episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN? Still in development, my friend. These things take time, particularly when you’ve got as full a plate like yours truly. Suffice to say that I am straining myself to the limit simply taking these few moments to write this post. Our production manager, the mansized tuber, is literally hitting me over the head for that script. Yes, tubey – I’m working on it! (Pssst … Don’t tell him I’m not.) It should be another extravaganza, perhaps unprecedented in its sheer stupidity. But don’t take my word for it …. Take …. someone else’s. Not sure where I was going with that.

Well, better get back to work. I’m typing, Tubey! Can’t you hear me typing??!

August down.

Hey, let's go to outer spaceMan, it’s so hot in here. Marvin, can you turn up the air conditioning? Oh, right … our air conditioning is a broken skylight. Sigh. Okay … break another skylight, then. Use my forty-foot pole … the one I use to keep my distance from things (and people) I don’t like.

Yes, friends … it is the end of summer, past the dog days. August is coughing up blood, writhing in the blistering sun. (Look on the bright side, brother.) Not much going on around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as you might have suspected. I laid down a piano part on perhaps one of the most ludicrous recordings I’ve ever played on. I saw some bluejays in the courtyard. What else happened? Not mucho.

Whoever said being a musician is tantamount to perpetual unemployment was on to something. (Hey … I think that was me.) You can see why we often opt for these less-than-optimal interstellar tours, in lieu of the more profitable terrestrial variety. Pretty simple, really … crappy work is better than no work at all. We are always open to seeking a new audience, even if that means holding our breath for weeks at a time. (There must be a better way to travel through space. Where’s Gene Roddenberry when you need him?)

Once we get finished with the current set of recordings, Big Green will likely take a romp around the known solar system; maybe a 2-week Autumn tour to promote … I don’t know, whatever we have to toss out there. Trouble is, on most alien worlds, the music fans have six or seven arm-like appendages, so you have to have a lot of product to keep them satisfied. Hell, they can absorb our entire canon and still have several arms free. We’ve got to get busy!

My hope is that, this time, wherever it is we’re traveling to, we have the assistance of Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser. His absence was sorely felt on our last, disastrous foray into the galactic hinterlands. Which proves that having a crazy driver is better than no driver at all. (At least out where there’s very little to crash into.)

That’s strange.

I think that’s the last of it. Packed tight, top to bottom. Nice job, lads. Okay … pop the nose cone back on. Time to light this candle!

Nothing to see here, right, Marvin?Oh, howdy. Yup, we’re getting ready to embark on our upcoming interstellar tour in support of our album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, which as been a absolute drug on the market down here on earth, but is selling much more briskly in outer spaaaaaaaaaace. Seems like extraterrestrials are totally ready for satirical country-western, mock-pop, found sound records like ours. Who knew?

Now if they only adopted some kind of currency that is convertible into our own. Right now they’re paying us in photons. No, really. Every month, we get a box full of light in lieu of a royalty check. Try taking that to Chase Bank. I can’t even get mortgage backed securities in exchange for that stuff. Still, it’s worth something on Aldebaran, and that’s all that counts … if you live on Aldebaran. (We usually resort to doing all our shopping out there, as it happens.)

Big GreenSome of you are probably wondering whether it’s safe for us to venture beyond the protective atmosphere of mother earth in such a ramshackle looking spacecraft. I totally get that. The thing is, we have assurances from Marvin (my personal robot assistant) that if anything goes badly wrong in the icy vacuum of space, he will be responsible for the consequences. Knowing how risk-averse Marvin has always been, that fills me with confidence. My bandmates look a little nervous, sure, particularly after hearing about the comet ISON, which is in the process of rounding the sun as we speak.

Will we escape ISON’s enormous coma of deadly gasses? Are they indeed deadly as I just claimed just a few key strokes ago? Answers to these and other questions await our liftoff in FIVE …. FOUR … THREE … TWO … days.

Time wasting.

Ever see that episode of Lost In Space when they’re rushing to get the piece-of-shit Jupiter 2 spaceworthy before the planet they’ve been living on for an entire television season explodes beneath them? Yeah, well … that’s sort of where Big Green is right now.

Big GreenNo, a stereotypical t.v. gold miner named Mister Nerim is not fracking the Cosmonium out of the living rock beneath us (at least, not yet), but it’s nearly as bad. Our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (also known as Hegephonic) has arranged for an interstellar tour to support the release of our most recent album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, which – while it hasn’t done squat down here on earth – is selling briskly on Aldebaran, I hear.  (Great music always finds its audience. And, well, ours does, too, if it travels far enough.)

Of course, Hegemonic subcontracted the tour arrangements to some underworld figures, as they typically do. That has its upsides, like … I don’t know …. valet parking on Aldebaran? Free breakfast for gamblers? No, it’s the downsides I’m more concerned with. Like the fact that the contractors just handle the booking; the transportation is completely up to us. So as you saw last week, we’ve been scrambling to pull together some kind of interstellar space vessel – quite a challenge in the continued absence of our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who is sunning himself in beautiful Madagascar right now.

Well ... a little ambitious, perhaps. Don’t know if you know this, but underworld booking agents take breach of contract kind of seriously. That’s why we’re resorting to just about any means of getting from one planet to the other. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) helpfully suggested a design for a new space craft, but it seems a little ambitious, to be perfectly frank. I’m not certain that we need anything with forty-story legs and a cavernous exercise room. I was thinking something more on the modest size. Maybe a step up from the 1954 GMC city coach, but not a large step.

Hey, however we do it, we’ll need to have it done in a few weeks. Got suggestions? Put them behind the hot water pipes. I’ll find them.

Alrighty, then.

What the hell. Is that what we sounded like back then? We still sound like that now! Man freaking god damn. It’s like being sealed in amber.

Back thenGreetings from the Mill of our discontent. Well, it’s mild discontent, let’s say. Been a long time since the book of love. Wait … why did I say that? Oh, right – I was listening to tapes from the 70s and 80s, so naturally my mind goes back to my neighbor’s Led Zepplin albums. (I didn’t have any; just Simon and Garfunkel, Josh White, and Mario Lanza. Oh, and some weird stuff.) We didn’t sound anything like them, of course. In fact, we sounded strangely like us in the 2010’s. It’s as if we’ve been playing the same tune for forty years. FOR FORTY YEARS…!

Why am I listening to old recordings? Simple … we live in an abandoned hammer mill, we haven’t toured in three years, and there’s nothing else the fuck to do around this dump.  Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is discontented. He even forgot to plug himself in the night before last – now that’s just plain careless.

Speaking of carelesss … I left my wallet in the bathroom. Anything could have happened to it in this den of thieves. Of course, there’ nothing in it except a couple of wadded up notes and a Canadian quarter I tried to drop into a soda machine last week. (The thing spit it back at me, making a compressor hum that sounded eerily like “Oh, Canada.”) Sometimes we fail to value those things that are the most valuable, like … I don’t know … gold, and/or money. And friends, of course. Rich, rich friends.

Big GreenYes, as you can see, we’ve been couped up in this mill way too long. It’s high time we went back on tour, this time to promote Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. That would put us back on track, get our heads in order, crisp our bacon, rock our clown, etc. It might also leave us with some fresh metaphors. Nothing like an interstellar tour to generate some really awesome metaphors.

Hey … don’t forget to check out THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast for August. It’s weird, yes, but you know what you’re getting, and the price is right (i.e. free).