Rather than commit here a recital of the bare historical and chronological events that would serve to prop up a scarecrow characterization of the group Green, we will endeavor, by the contour of negative space, to achieve a more near likeness of the group.

Letting the discography serve as the vertical and horizontal sticks that discarded clothing will drape, stuffing nearly gone, fluttering and half-turning in a steady wind driven through a fallow field, we shall examine the articles of clothing one by one; ask ourselves who they belonged to and why they were discarded. Did the owner die young and was there no one in need of the tattered hand-me-downs? Did the trousers withstand harsh use and yet never appear worn, affording their owner to withstand the lashes of poverty with some shred of dignity intact? Did a hole in one pocket allow the wedding ring of the owner's long dead spouse to slip out, never to be found again? Do we hesitate to lift the sad fedora, fearing perhaps, we would find a face? Looking at the group in this way we hope to uncover deeper truths and meanings than whether the crows have gone.

Is there a moment in time and in space when the unreality of the fantastic becomes familiar? One might reach through space and touch the finger of God as God reaches to touch one's finger? It is not a vault of faith but rather an acceptance of the possible. The possible in 1984, when John Diamond, John Valley, and Jeff Lescher, the first form in which Green appeared, on the morning after punk, and after a show at C.B.G.B., was a cloud of breath in chilly Central Park. The empty, homesick blank in the stomach when playing hookey from school. Why are they so far from home and what will soothe the anxiety in the gut? Seconds from the doors of the mega-companies that could raise them bodily from obscurity to glory or ignominy or infamy or fame, they are as far away as satan from the throne of God. Only they don't know that.

These are the wages of their tour after tour through the college towns and city bars grasping at the unknown future. A bed on the cold wood floor of the frat house. The cheek touches the smooth wood and the collar of the black leather jacket is drawn up to secure as much warmth as may be found. The bellyful of cheap beer on top of no dinner is the pillow. Dismiss the worry of no money, no gas, no food, the next show, the next and following years, with the whispering promise of sleep. The edges of the drawn shade brighten.

Mark Mosher, Ken Kurson, and Jeff Lescher, another form of the group are at Amsterdam Schiphol, the main airport of the Netherlands. They blink in the early morning sunlight and sap of jetlag. They are shaking hands, each with the other in turns. "Congratulations" and " Thanks" and "Good work" are on their lips. They have made a leap across an ocean that seems as vast as any gulf that may ever present itself to them. What could oppose them and their ultimate success now? They seem surprised that the sun and the sky are the same here as the ones they left. That they are able to breathe this air. On stage in Hamburg. The owner, Manny, tells them just before they go on that he tore up the boards for this stage from the old stage at the Kaiserkeller---the stage the Beatles used to play on. Yes it's the Reeperbahn. Outside these basement windows prostitutes, businessmen, and nightgoers pace. The sweat is as sweet as heavenly rain. The band: Clay, Jeff, and Mark, exchange smiles. The songs sound good. The trays of beer and shots make their way toward the stage above the heads of the frantic crowd. Flashbulbs. A smear of black eye make-up. Johann Sebastian Bach walked to this city as a young man to play the organ of a church near here. Does he watch over them now?

Clay is the life of the party and the charming American Rock jester for our friends at De Pomp Podium Cafe in Hove, outside of Antwerp. He has already carried Peter, a huge Belgian, up a rickety winding staircase at De pomp, slung over his shoulder. He has won the sausage eating contest at the bar and bought everyone round after round of drinks. Eyes have been slits with tears of laughter for much of the evening. As the morning draws nearer we meet him in the hall upstairs and he is crying. "I miss my kids" he says.

At a recording studio in France with their old producer Iain Burgess, the group is fighting the effects of jet lag, and trying to get a rhythm track collected. One of the players takes a break to go outside for a break. The moon is clear and cold over this farm that dates from the 1700's, the night sky as black as tar and the snow big wet flakes the size of a quarter. It is late March. The player remembers back to a time in Hoogstratten Belgium when he had gone outside and was grouping through a fog so thick that he eventually lost his way and was uncertain just how to get back to the bar to make the set. The fog was that remarkable Belgian soup that glows from moonlight even while obscuring all in one's path. Suddenly the fog blew away and he was left at the feet of a statue of the virgin. He looked now at the moon and thought of that again.

The group is setting up at Phyllis' Musical Inn on west Division street in Chicago. Jeff lived above here in the late Eighties when it was a rooming house for indigent men. They have played here a million times or so. Clem, the owner, used to put his face into the face of one of the band members and say "You guys are gonna make it...it's just a matter of time." As the group launches into a shakey 2nd set the guitar player looks up at the black silhouette of a wind shaken tree branch outside the square window above the stage, as he has done one hundred nights before. The audience stays at around ten or twelve all of the night even as it trickles in and out of the door.

Green in 2003 is Mark Mosher, Clay Tomasek, and Jeff Lescher. They continue to perform live, though infrequently. They are still recording their music.

Copyright 2003 Gangreen Records