The Residents: C/D;S&D

I love the Concentrates on Our Huddled Masses (especially the one for Reich). The editing in some places is so dense that they almost qualify as new pieces. In any case the 4 CD version is worth $60 for the 15 minute excerpt from Baby Sex alone.

That said, I think they're awful--I mean I have respect for anyone trying to do anti-music, and they succeed. But I don't mean it as a compliment; it's not only anti-music but anti-anti-music. I find them very, very puerile, and their later stuff seems infused with some sort of melancholia I don't think they earn at all. My buddy here listens to a lot of stuff I don't like, many things I do, and he's always draggin' out the Residents or the Firesign Theater (not the classic '60s stuff but their later shit, which is just actively unfunny). And I feel the same way about the Residents--they're not funny, their videos are totally geeky (except for the very early short ones), they're a total one-joke band. That whole thing with the eyeballs is just totally lame, they should've stopped that shit years ago. I think they're from Shreveport or somewhere--well, I say Louisiana's pop combo John Fred and His Playboy Band were both more avant-garde and certainly more listenable.

However, I kinda like "Eskimo," in a way; but none of it is anything I listen to for pleasure

Not to mention funnier. The Residents couldn't pull off "Judy in Disguise" if their eyeballs depended on it.

Obviously, they had a certain style. But that's an easy (and inaccurate) criticism that someone might make about any comedians that they didn't happen to like. I mean, if someone didn't like the Marx Brothers, couldn't they make the same allegation?

It's not true of the Residents, anyway. Just thinking of the first album, "Boots" is not the same joke as "Smelly Tongues," which is not the same joke as "Rest Aria," which is not the same joke as "Spotted Pinto Bean," which is not the same joke as "Seasoned Greetings," etc.

No, sorry, I just expressed myself badly - I think / agree that (with the notable exception of the album God In Three Person, which isn't represented on the comp.) there is a distinct overall downward trend between about 1980 and 1997 (when Our Tired Our Poor Our Huddled Masses came out)

"So how would more recent music correct this impression, as you suggest?"

I think 1998's Wormwood and 2002's Demons Dance Alone are major returns to form both in terms of both quality and "relevance" (or, at least, contemporaneity).

Early tapes make it clear that they actually can play instruments, they just made a point of taking instrumental technique apart at the exact moment the rest of pop was calcifying into stadium rock gloss & empty virtuosity. Taking the formulas of glossy, shallow pop, and making it all gloriously ugly and wrong, but still recognizable. And sometimes, so utterly, bafflingly wrong that it comes out far more mysterious and beautiful.

Beautiful Residents: Not Available, Eskimo and "Six Things To A Cycle", the main theme of which is probably my favorite thing they've ever done.

http://www.theresidents.co.uk/articles/books/art_cutler.html

An extraordinarily large number of people have described Trout Mask Replica as ".... possibly the worst album I've ever heard"; so it's entirely possible that - at least as far as I'm concerned - your description may be the highest possible accolade.

It goes for upwards of $50 used when you can find it these days, I should have xeroxed my friend's copy...

http://www.rzweb.org/books/sonic.html

40-something rock critics are loving the album though, so who knows. (I don't think most Residents fans are 21 years old.)

Because I have a great friend/Residents fanatic whose musical taste is very different from mine but with whom I share a lot of likes, I've heard a ton of Residents music over the years. I still find it, no matter how eloquently he defends it, puerile.

I think you're probably right - indeed, I suspect that the reason the last couple of Residents' projects (Wormwood, Demons Dance Alone) have shown such a long overdue return to form is that they did seem to have stopped trying to produce all-singing all-dancing fully-integrated multi-media conceptual arts projects, and were just concentrating on making music for it's own sake again.

Let's hope Animal Lover doesn't represent a step in the wrong direction.

Besides Buster and Glen (have it also on a 3 incher in the euro ralph 2fer) I haven't really heard anything else. What do I need NOW? Is this the catchiest stuff? I really have no idea. To me it's THE monolith of fucked avant rock.

The Commercial Album sounds interesting...

But if you're loving this, you can't go wrong with any of the albums released 1980.

Fingerprince, Not Available, Third Reich and Roll -- 100% guarenteed

my favorite is Not Available. whenever one of the other ones isn't busy being my favorite.

I remember the first time I heard 'the executioner', when the guitar solo kicked in, I remember being so repulsed and horrified that sitting there thinking 'this is the ugliest music I've ever heard in my life, do I really want to go here? do I even want to be someone who owns this record?' then the guitar faded into the funeral march and it was too late

which album would you recommend to someone interested in them because of the Tuxedomoon connection?

Can't help you, never heard Tuxedomoon

A friend mentioned Residents to me recently and it occurred to me I've never actually tried to listen to their stuff before, which struck me as a bit odd. I just know them from bits I heard on college radio.

you pretty much can't go wrong with any Residents album 1972-1980. for tunes try either Duck Stab or Commercial Album. for concept albums try Fingerprince or Third Reich and Roll. Not Available is the emotional one.

you know what's good out of the recent stuff? Tweedles pulls off the whole literally stated narrative project they've been trying since God In 3 Persons -- but the music is better and the narrative's honed down to the ugliest essentials, I think it's the best thing they've done in 15-20 years.

Anyone know where I can hear The Bunny Boy? Prindle reviewed it today but I can't find a single place to download/stream it. Strongly debating whether catching them on the upcoming tour is worth the money.

for archeologist fans of 'Santa Dog' curious about sample sources: http://closetcurios2.blogspot.com/2008/11/concert-percussion-for-orchestra.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Roldán

The fifth and sixth of his Rítmicas (1930) appear to be the first works in the Western classical music tradition scored for percussion alone. -- take that, Varèse

which album would you recommend to someone interested in them because of the Tuxedomoon connection?

just picked this one up used at amoeba... http://www.discogs.com/release/339929

it's a good starting point for that sound, and obviously hearing tuxedomoon alongside some residents and snakefinger tracks will help cement that connection. as a whole it's a great listen with quite a lot of variety; one record is selected by ralph records mail-order subscribers and the other by the label/artists themselves.

also, i'm surprised that snakefinger's solo output hasn't been mentioned more on this thread. i'm quite a fan of 'manual of errors'

How is "Not Available"?

Meet the Residents has been reissued quietly since in a much quieter mastering, for those unread to get all Steve Hoffman around here (the first issue is a proper earbleeder)

I think that might be the one I have, I hope they keep doing that with the other brickwalled remasters

xpost link?

...so wait a second, "heroes and villains" is supposedly at the end of "swastikas on parade"? i have to admit i can't at all pick out any of the 25,450 melodies that were part of "heroes and villains" in the mix

I guess the lead synth part kind of emulates "The Heroes, the Heroes, the Heroes and Villains" chant?

Thanks for alerting me that this is now available on my streaming service.

Has anyone seen Double Lunar Dogs by Joan Jonas?

It's one of the most out there pieces of video art I've ever seen and the Residents contribute to the...sound effects?

I haven't much enjoyed any of the dozen or so albums I've listened to from them, but the weird ass sounds they make work really well with the atmosphere of Double Lunar Dogs. That shit split my gourd. Definitely takes you to another (very unsettling) plane. Hard to find the words for, but I'd strongly recommend watching it.

https://archive.org/details/joan-jonas-1984-double-lunar-dogs

Demons Dance Alone is so gorgeous, the outtakes on the first disc of the most recent reissue make it even better, amazing that they had that quality of stuff left off, I think they should have left everything on, I think it could have worked. A great 70something minutes, just amazing. I love the Banjo Kazooie saxophones on "Caring".

There's a few instrumentals left off this edition unfortunately ("Happy Thanksgiving" and "Black Cats", not masterpieces but would have been nice to have them on one of the discs).

Really annoying that Molly Harvey had to leave for family reasons, seems like she really didn't want to leave, she's one of the best things about this era.

https://www.artsatl.org/qa-molly-harvey-talks-about-time-with-experimental-rockers-the-residents-and-remembers-hardy-fox/

I think if anything, as Fox got older — and this is just my own projection being a performer — and began contemplating his own mortality, realized that there is a certain element that goes missing when you’re anonymous: the ability to interact with whose lives you’ve touched. I don’t remember if it was Wormwood or if it was Icky Flix or which tour it was, but he greeted every single person at the door that he could. He didn’t have a sign and at this point it was all sort of still unknown, but so many people had really lovely conversations with him, and that’s a beautiful thing that he was able to do that.