The Residents

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For other uses, see Residents ( disambiguation).

The Residents

Background information
Origin	Shreveport, Louisiana, United States
Genre(s)	Avant Garde Experimental rock
Years active	1972–present
Label(s)	Ralph Records

The Residents are an avant garde music and visual arts group. They formed in 1972 and released their first record that year, a double-disc 45 RPM recording entitled Santa Dog. They have released nearly sixty albums, created numerous musical films, designed three CD-ROM projects, and undertaken six major world tours. They are still active and released a new CD-Internet project on June 13, 2006 entitled "The River Of Crime" which is said to be modeled after the radio dramas of the 1940s. A new full length CD ("Tweedles") was released on October 31, 2006 on Mute Records.

They are known for their secrecy, singular art, and embrace of new technology.

1 Who are the Residents?
2 Biography
3 Discography
4 Multimedia
5 Touring and One-Off Shows
6 Miscellanea
7 References and footnotes
8 External links

[edit] Who are the Residents?

Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around their management team, known as "The Cryptic Corporation." Cryptic was formed by Jay Clem, Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, and John Kennedy in 1976, all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982.) The Residents per se don't grant interviews, though Flynn and Fox have occasionally commented to the media. Nolan Cook, who has been working with the band recently, denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false.

One might be inclined to speculate that The Residents feel artists do their best work without the influence of an audience, should only be judged by their work, and that a band members' genders, ethnicities, line-up changes, personalities, and daily life outside of the band should be irrelevant to listeners.

William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, claimed Fox and Flynn alone are The Residents; this is probably the most widespread belief among the group's fans. A subset of that belief is that Flynn is the lyricist (a conclusion buttressed by the fact that his voice bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Singing Resident) and that Fox writes the music. In addition BMI's online database of the performance rights organization [of which the Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner Chappell), have been members for their entire careers], lists Flynn and Fox as the composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs written pre-1974 (the "Residents Unincorporated" years), the year Cryptic formed ^[1]. However, many have pointed out that a songwriter can copyright a song under any name he/she chooses; the person named in the copyright assignment receives all royalties and legal requests and other information for the song, which, if Flynn and Fox are merely trusted managers who both handle the Residents' business and protect their identities, makes them the logical choice to be assigned the copyrights.

Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among others), under various names that, put together, become Pornographics, but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the "sound engineer" — meaning that he is the main producer, engineer, master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents' recordings have all listed their producer as "The Cryptic Corporation," presumably meaning Fox in particular.) Many other rumors have come and gone over the years, including the idea that the band members are physically disfigured; are actually "The Residents," a Dutch Indorock band from Den Haag (1966-69) who released their only single in 1968; that 60's psychedelic band Cromagnon shared members with the band; and that the band members are in fact The Beatles in disguise.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Due to the obscure nature of the band, it is difficult to get an accurate history of The Residents. What follows is information from unauthorized accounts which may or may not be entirely reliable.

The Residents supposedly hail from Shreveport, Louisiana, where they met in high school in the 1960s. In 1966, members headed west to San Francisco, California. After their truck broke down in San Mateo, they decided to remain there. Like all information, this is provided by The Cryptic Corporation and is likely false. Newer information indicates they are probably from Slidell, Louisiana, and picked Shreveport as the "place to be from" since it is the city in Louisiana that was furthest from Slidell.

Whilst attempting to eke out a living they experimented with tape machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with "art" that they could get their hands on. Word of their experimentation spread and, in 1969, a British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist named Philip Lithman and the mysterious N. Senada (who Lithman had picked up in Bavaria where the aged avant-gardist was recording birds singing) paid them a visit, and decided to remain.

The two Europeans would become great influences on the band. Lithman's guitar playing technique earned him the nickname Snakefinger (upon seeing a picture of Lithman playing the violin, a Resident exclaimed that his little finger resembled a snake).

The group purchased crude recording equipment and instruments and began to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical proficiency stand in the way. One of their first public performances was in 1974 at Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley, California.

Also in 1969 the Residents began to make the first of their unreleased tapes. Rumors have surfaced of two of perhaps hundreds of unreleased reel-to-reel items entitled Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger. The titles may be in question (as is the idea that these were album-length recordings), but the first title has been confirmed by a former head of the now defunct Smelly Tongues fan club. Further evidence of pre-1970 recordings surfaced with the release of the song "I Hear You Got Religion", supposedly recorded in 1969, and released originally as a downloadable track from Ralph America in 1999. Cryptic says there are lots of tapes dating back decades, but they were all done before the people were officially "The Residents" so they don't count. They also say there is plenty of music that is actually by The Residents so it is unnecessary to make-up imaginary old recordings.

In 1971 the group sent a reel-to-reel tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, since he had worked with Captain Beefheart. Halverstadt was not overly impressed with "The Warner Bros. Album" (he describes it as "okay at best" in "Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents"), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "The Residents". The members of the band unanimously decided to use that name ever since.

The first performance of the band using the "Residents" moniker was at the Boarding House in San Francisco in 1971. That same year another tape was completed called Baby Sex.

In 1972 they moved to San Francisco and formed Ralph Records. At that time The Cryptic Corporation was operating as a partnership and incorporated to take over the running of Ralph Records.

[edit] "Album Era" - 1972-1980

Before the Santa Dog single and while recording Meet the Residents, The Residents undertook one of their first projects: the ambitious Vileness Fats film project. Intended to be the first-ever long form music video, The Residents saw this project as the opportunity to create the ultimate cult film. After four years of filming (from 1972 to 1976) the project was reluctantly cancelled due to time, space and monetary constraints. Fourteen hours of footage were shot for the project -- only about three-quarters of an hour have ever been released.

Santa Dog is considered by both The Residents themselves and their fans to be the "official" start of the band's recorded output. This is so because it was the first to be released to the public. Shortly after this release, the band left San Mateo and relocated to San Francisco.

The Residents, at this point, were at a rough point in their career. There was in-band turmoil, which supposedly ended up in a large, "embarrassing" food fight. They decided to resolve it by recording what would later become Not Available - the band's ultimate representation of N. Senada's Theory of Obscurity. It was not intended to be released, but was in 1978 out of contractual obligation.

The Third Reich 'n' Roll came next, a pastiche on 60's rock 'n' roll with an overarching Nazi theme (represented visually on the album cover, which featured Dick Clark in an SS uniform holding a carrot, with a number of Hitlers dancing on clouds behind him). On each side of the record was a single composition, approximately 17 ½ minutes long, using recordings of classic rock & roll songs that were spliced, overdubbed and edited with new vocals, instrumentation and tape noises. The original songs were finally removed leaving entirely new and bizarre performances. The music video for this album was shot on the sets that were built for Vileness Fats.

The band was beginning to become noticed by the press, and dropped most of their reliance upon the Theory of Obscurity. The Residents were being embraced by New Musical Express, Sounds and Melody Maker magazines.

The Residents took the Theory of Obscurity to its logical conclusion when they allegedly recorded Not Available in 1974 with the intention of not releasing it. Placed in storage to be issued when no one remembered it, contractual obligations forced its release in 1978 after the band had almost forgotten about it. The Residents were unbothered by this deviation from their plan since the 1978 decision to release the album couldn't affect the philosophical conditions under which it was recorded in 1974.

Eskimo (1979) contained music consisting of non-musical sounds, percussion, and wordless voices. Rather than being songs in the orthodox sense, the compositions sounded like "live-action stories" without dialogue. The Residents remixed the "songs" in disco style, the results of which appeared on the EP Diskomo. Eskimo was reissued in surround sound on DVD in 2003.

The Commercial Album (1980) consisted of 40 songs that, like Eskimo, rejected traditional song structure. Each consisted of a verse and a chorus and lasted approximately one minute. The songs pastiched the advertising jingle although the songs were not endorsements of known products or services. The liner notes state that songs should be repeated three times in a row to form a pop song. With a leap of promotional imagination, The Residents purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco's most popular Top-40 radio station KFRC forcing the station to play each track of their album over three days. This prompted an editorial in Billboard magazine questioning whether the act was art or advertising.

The Residents are also credited with the creation of the first music video.^[2] When MTV was in its infancy, The Residents' videos were in heavy rotation since they were among the few music videos available to broadcasters. The Residents' earliest videos are in the New York Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection and were eventually released together in 2001 on the Icky Flix DVD, which includes an optional audio track of remixes.

[edit] "Performance era" - 1981-1990

The 80s saw the release of the Mark of the Mole album (and its sequels) and the band's first official tour (The Mole Show), narrated nightly by Penn Jillette. Many think, after observation of official clues in liner notes such as those found in Demons Dance Alone, that the Mole Show caused several members of the Residents to leave, leaving Mr. Skull to studio duties. The Mole Trilogy is still missing some of its volumes (only parts I, II and IV have been released) which are, allegedly, lurking somewhere in the periphery of the Residential imagination, not entirely lost.

Backstage at the Hollywood Palace show in December 26, 1985 one member's eyeball mask (Mr. RedEye) was stolen, so it was replaced with a giant skull mask. The eye was returned by a devoted fan who discovered where the thief lived and stole it back (although Homer Flynn has stated that the person who returned the mask was most probably the thief himself). It was put into retirement because it was now "unclean" (and in a bad condition) and had become a superfluous shell.

In the late 80s they created the epic recording "God in 3 Persons", a story about the exploitation of two siamese twins with healing powers by a male dominant force and "The King & Eye", a surreal biography of Elvis Presley and the birth of rock and roll.

[edit] "Multimedia Era" - 1991-1997

One of the noted Residents projects of the 90s is "Freak Show", a title that intended to depict that freaks are still being ostracized by society and laughed at - they just don't get paid to do that any more.

[edit] "Band Era" - 1997-2005

More recently The Residents have recorded the dramatic album "Demons Dance Alone" (also a tour and DVD in 2002) and "Animal Lover" in 2005.

The Residents were also one of the first bands to release multi-media CDs, featuring the work of illustrators such as Jim Ludtke. The first two of which ("The Gingerbread Man" and "Bad Day on the Midway") were both cited as top computer entertainment software by Entertainment Weekly. They have also contributed to a number of soundtracks including Pee-wee's Playhouse. The band continues to release new material (they have over 700 songs in their catalogue), special re-releases and more DVDs. They have toured three times in the last decade, though speculation is that this period of heavy touring is over.

Singer Molly Harvey began as a Ralph employee but by the mid-90's contributed to virtually all of The Residents many projects. The Residents increased reliance on Harvey--essentially handing her half of the vocal duties since at least Demons Dance Alone--seems to uncoincidentally parallel their artistic revitalization. Nolan Cook, Carla Fabrizio, Toby Dammit, Eric Drew Feldman, and many other artists continuously worked with the band over the last five years, recording and performing live. The new artists helped to counter what All Music Guide derided as a "sonic palette [confined to] factory presets from their new Macintosh audio" of the CD-ROM era. ^[2]

In February of 2005 the Residents toured Australia as part of the "What is Music?" festival, performing a two hour retrospective set entitled the 33rd Anniversary Tour: The Way We Were. These shows saw a fairly minimal band; three eyeball-headed Residents (one on guitar and two laptop/sample operators), a "stage hand" performer, and a male and female vocalist in costumes reminiscent of the Wormwood tour. They added video projections and unusual flexible screens to the stage set, creating an unsettling ambience. The performances on the Way We Were tour were recorded and were released on CD and DVD in 2005.

[edit] "Storyteller Era" - 2006-present

Summer of 2006 brought the internet download project, River of Crime (Episodes 1-5). River of Crime was their first project with Warner Music Group's Cordless label. Following the success of River of Crime, The Residents launched their weekly Timmy video project on YouTube.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Meet the Residents - 1974
The Third Reich 'n' Roll - 1976
Fingerprince - 1976
Duck Stab! - 1978
Duck Stab/Buster & Glen - 1978
Not Available - 1978
The Residents Radio Special - 1979
Eskimo - 1979
Babyfingers - 1979
The Commercial Album - 1980
Mark of the Mole - 1981
The Tunes of Two Cities - 1982
Intermission: Extraneous Music from the Residents' Mole Show - 1983
Title in Limbo - with Renaldo and the Loaf 1983
The Mole Show Live at the Roxy - 1983
Residue of the Residents - 1984
George & James - 1984
Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? - 1984
Assorted Secrets - 1984
Census Taker - 1985
The Big Bubble: Part Four of the Mole Trilogy - 1985
Stars & Hank Forever: The American Composers Series - 1986
The 13th Anniversary Show Live in the U.S.A. - 1986
The Thirteenth Anniversary Show - 1987
The Mole Show Live in Holland - 1987
For Elsie - 1987
Snakey Wake - 1987
Buckaroo Blues - 1988
Santa Dog 88 - 1988
God in Three Persons - 1988
Buckaroo Blues & Black Barry - 1989
The King & Eye - 1989
Liver Music - 1990
Daydream B-Liver - 1991
Freak Show - 1991
Our Finest Flowers - 1992
Cube E: Live in Holland - 1994
Gingerbread Man - 1994
Hunters - 1995
Have a Bad Day - 1996
Pollex Christi - 1997
Live at the Fillmore - 1998
Wormwood: Curious Stories from the Bible - 1998
Refused - 1999
Wormwood Live - 1999
Dot Com - 2000
Diskomo 2000 - 2000
Roadworms: The Berlin Sessions - 2000
Roosevelt 2.0 - 2000
Icky Flix - 2001
High Horses - 2001
I Murdered Mommy - 2001
Eat Exuding Oinks - 2002
Demons Dance Alone - 2002
Kettles of Fish on the Outskirts of Town - 2003
WB: RMX - 2003
The King & Eye: RMX (remixed by Paralyzer) - 2004
12 Days of Brumalia - 2004
I Murdered Mommy - 2004
Animal Lover - 2005
The Way We Were (live CD/DVD) - 2005
Cube E Box Set - 2006
Tweedles - 2006

[edit] Singles

"Santa Dog" - 1972
"Satisfaction" - 1976
"The Beatles Play the Residents and the Residents Play the Beatles" - 1977
"Santa Dog '78" - 1978
"Diskomo" - 1980
"The Commercial Single" - 1980
"It's a Man's Man's Man's World" - 1984
"Kaw-Liga" - 1986
"Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" - 1986
"It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (Australia) - 1986
"Hit the Road Jack" - 1987
"Double Shot" - 1988
"Holy Kiss of Flesh" - 1988
"From the Plains to Mexico" - 1989
"Don't Be Cruel" - 1989
"Blowoff" - 1992
"Santa Dog '92" - 1992
"I Hate Heaven" - 1998
"In Between Screams" - 1999

[edit] Compilations

Please Do Not Steal It! - 1979
Nibbles - 1979
Ralph Before '84: Volume 1, the Residents - 1984
Memorial Hits - 1985
The Pal TV LP - 1985
Heaven? - 1986
Hell! - 1986
Stranger Than Supper" - 1990
Poor Kaw-Liga's Pain - 1994
Louisiana's Lick - 1995
Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses - 1997
Residue Deux - 1998
25 Years of Eyeball Excellence - 1998
Land of Mystery - 1999
Petting Zoo - 2002
Kettles of Fish on the Outskirts of Town - 2002
Best Left Unspoken...Vol. 1 - 2006

[edit] Multimedia

Vileness Fats (unfinished film project) - 1972 - 1976
Freak Show (CD ROM) - 1991
Gingerbread Man (CD ROM) - 1994
Bad Day on the Midway (CD ROM) - 1995
Icky Flix (DVD) - 2001
Eskimo (DVD) - 2002
Disfigured Night DVD (DVD) - 2002
Demons Dance Alone (DVD) - 2003
The Commercial Album DVD - 2004
Wormwood DVD - 2005
The Way We Were CD/DVD - 2005
The River of Crime June 2006
Timmy August 2006

[edit] Touring and One-Off Shows

The Boarding House - October 18, 1971
Halloween '71 - October 31, 1971
The Party of '72 - October 19, 1972
Oh Mummy! Oh Daddy! Can't You See That It's True? What The Beatles Did to Me, I Love Lucy Did To You - June 7, 1976
The House - 1982
The Mole Show (Tour; U.S., Europe) - 1982-1983
The Eyeball Show / The 13th Anniversary Show (Tour; U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand) - 1985-1986
The Snakey Wake - August 24, 1987
The Boudisque 20th Anniversary Party - November 18, 1987
TELE 5 - Off Beat Night - March 15, 1988
Lincoln Center / Alice Tully Hall - July 21, 1989
Cube-E (Tour; U.S., Europe) - 1989-1990
Ty's Freak Show - November 17, 1991
The Adobe Show / Disfigured Night - 1997
Popkomm Festival / Disfigured Night (3 Performances; Germany) - August 1997
The Fillmore '97 - October 31, 1997
The Fillmore '98 - October 31, 1998
Wormwood (Tour; U.S., Europe) - 1998-1999
Icky Flix (Tour; U.S., Europe, Russia) - 2000-2001
Demons Dance Alone (Tour; U.S., Europe, Russia) - 2001-2003
The Way We Were (5 Performances; Australia) - March 4-12th, 2005

[edit] Miscellanea

Simpsons creator Matt Groening (who wrote a mostly fictional article about the band's history) and journalist Jim Knipfel are fans of the band.
Les Claypool is a fan of the band, and they are a main influence on Claypool's musical trio, Primus who covered "Sinister Exaggerator" on their Miscellaneous Debris EP, as well as "Hello Skinny" and "Constantinople" on the re-release of their album Frizzle Fry.
The eyeball mask theft from the Hollywood Palace show is referenced in the Cracker song "Ain't Gonna Suck Itself".
The cover of The Residents' LP Eskimo appeared in a Spanish TV commercial of FNAC
The Residents were to work on a Bad Day on the Midway television series with David Lynch, but said series was too strange for the networks.
Eskimo was considered for a Grammy Award, but not nominated. The Residents were still invited to the ceremonies, and shared a table with Donna Summer.
In the afformentioned historical publishing, it is mentioned that they called themselves "The New Beatles" for a brief period of time, before "The Residents".
Eskimo was for a time going to be made into an opera, but the project was abandoned.
In an episode of Venture Brothers, a character held an eyeball-looking orb up to his head, saying "Look, I'm in the Residents!"
On the Penn & Teller tape "Cruel tricks for Dear Friends" after one of the segments, the video "Act of Being Polite" plays.

[edit] References and footnotes

[edit] External links

Album era (1972-1980)
The Residents
Meet the Residents (1974) \| Not Available (1974, released 1978) \| The Third Reich 'n' Roll (1976) \| Fingerprince (1976) \| Duck Stab/Buster & Glen (1978) \| Eskimo (1979) \| The Commercial Album (1980)
Performance era (1981-1990)
Mark of the Mole (1981) \| The Tunes of Two Cities (1982) \| Intermission (1983) \| George & James (1984) \| Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? (1984) \| The Big Bubble (1985) \| Stars & Hank Forever (1986) \| God in Three Persons (1988) \| The King & Eye (1989)
Multimedia era (1991-1996)
Freak Show (1991) \| Gingerbread Man (1994) \| Bad Day on the Midway (1995) \| Have A Bad Day (1997)
Band era (1997-2005)
Wormwood (1998) \| Icky Flix (2001) \| Demons Dance Alone (2002) \| Animal Lover (2005)
Storyteller era (2006-present)
The River of Crime (2006) \| Timmy (2006) \| Tweedles (2006)
Related articles
Snakefinger \| N. Senada \| Vileness Fats \| Ralph Records
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