Hammer Mill Days

  You know, when I was a boy, my pappy said to me …. what’s that? How the hell did you know that? Oh, right. He’s your pappy, too. Easy to forget little details like that when you get to be MY age. Get off my lawn! Yikes, well … welcome to geezerville … I mean, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat house. It is, after all, just a rest stop in the long journey that is our story. Not exactly the best appointed rest stop on the Thruway, mind you – there’s no Cinnabon, no Chick Fillet. There’s no 1960s style automat where you can grab a soggy hours-old tuna sandwich if you’re in a hurry. But I digress. Phase one: the first phase Sure, we go way back. Big Green’s founding was a scattershot affair, spread over several decades. We count our age in geologic time, as our official story will attest , but as far as start dates are concerned, we’re probably talking 1979. That’s the first year Matt and I played in a band together. Sure, we sucked, but...

Labor has been on the back foot for decades now. I am old enough to remember the Reagan turn – even the Carter and Nixon administrations, frankly. The serious move towards neoliberal economics got rolling under Carter, who was fond of deregulation and austerity. He also started a steady increase in military spending towards the end of his term – a trend that Reagan accelerated in the years that followed. Those were not good years for workers. Firing the PATCO air traffic controllers was just a start. The union movement in the United States continued to lose ground throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when Clinton took the baton from Reagan/Bush and more fully implemented the vision of corporatism and a general attack on the rights of working people. There were a few glimmers of light in the darkness – the UPS strike in 1997, the anti globalization movement around the same time. But Thatcher’s contention that there was no alternative to capitalism continued to prevail. Until...

  Should we do another Big Green album? I don’t know … why not? Have you got any songs? Oh, good. I’ve got some, too. How many do you have? Sixty? That’s pretty good. I’ve got half. No, not half of sixty …. half of one . Song. Well, one of us came prepared. In the past, that was what made the difference – that one person who was ready for anything. Every great band has someone who’s ready to lead, even when the going gets tough. Even shit-bum bands like us have their point person. You know – that guy who gets you up in the morning for rehearsal on a Saturday after a three-day bender. Yeah, we got rid of that jerk-ass. Who needs him? Holding up standards Now, I know Big Green has what may be termed a reputation. Some say we hold ourselves to a very low standard of behavior. Others say that we’re a bunch of lazy vagabonds whose only virtue is that of anonymity and ignominious failure. To this last criticism I can only say, that is not one virtue … it is cl...

Back in September, months before this Ukraine catastrophe got underway, the White House released a Joint Statement on the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership . I don’t recall hearing about this in the news media at the time. This past week, Noam Chomsky raised it in an interview with Jeremy Scahill for the Intercept – that’s why I know about it. The administration wasn’t trying to hide the ball on this. That we’re committing ourselves to an alliance with Ukraine is such a mundane fact at this point, it basically just fades into the background. As we wade deeper into this Russia/Ukraine morass, we need to better understand the implications of this policy. There is no question but that Russia is responsible for the current conflict – their decision to invade is dead wrong and a serious crime against peace in general and Ukraine in particular. Nevertheless, the current discourse on American corporate media portrays Russia as a nation uniquely bent on fulfilling imperial ambiti...

  Okay, so, what rhymes with Klondike? No, that’s two words. I’m looking for one, man. Why am I so exacting? Well, let me tell you, fool … you don’t get to where I got without applying a little exactitude in all the right places. Take it from Mr. Nobody. You heard it here first! Well, hello, cybernauts, and welcome to the home of Big Green. We’ve been around so long, we seem like a square. Ain’t that the way with popular music groups … particularly the ones that aren’t so popular. Why, we’ve been making noises under the name Big Green since Matt wore skinny ties and I rolled my jacket sleeves up to the elbow. Yes, we lived in the eighties. It wasn’t easy, kids, no matter what they tell you. There were no hover crafts, no jet packs – none of the things you young’uns are used to these days. Putting the tune in cartoons Like most bands, our biggest challenge is developing new material. Mind you, we stand on a mountain of older songs, thanks largely to the r...

As of this writing, the Saudis and Yemen have pulled together a tentative truce for Ramadan. As Ryan Grim reports in Deconstructed, the podcast by The Intercept , it’s essentially the first one in seven years of brutal war that has left almost 400,000 Yemenis dead. It’s quite possible that, by the time you read this, the Saudis will have resumed their merciless campaign of destruction, but I, for one, hope not. There is truly nothing so invisible as a war promoted by your own government. In Russia, they need to make it a crime to refer to the war in Ukraine as a “war”. Over here, that’s not necessary. There are other ways to manipulate public opinion in a formal republic; as Orwell wrote, educated, thoughtful people understand that there are some things it simply would not do to say. No need for brute force – just a compliant professional/managerial class eager to get ahead. Hidden in plain sight As I’ve mentioned in previous posts , the Russian invasion of Ukra...

  Well now, I can’t hear you. Can you hear me? Say again. Once more. Nope, no … bad luck. Plunk your guitar a couple of times. I said … oh, damn it, just pick up your phone and call me. Cheese and crackers! Now, I know there are a lot of musicians out there who are more conversant with technology than we are here in Big Green. True, we were relatively early adopters of the internets and mp3 music files. But frankly we’ve been standing still since, oh, I don’t know … the early 2000s or so. And while our friends in other bands have been connecting from across the continent using all manner of web-based gizmo, we’ve been sitting in adjacent rooms with two paper cups and a string. Well, my friends, that’s about to change. I don’t know whether the change will be better or worse, but whatever happens, no more cups, no more strings. Serious upgrade … seriously Now, before you use a new technology to perform or record, you want to make sure it works, right? Su...