The Residents - "Is Anybody Out There" DVD Review (MVD Video)

While I’ve reviewed a number of Residents’ discs over the past few years, the DVD Is Anybody Out There had slipped through the cracks. Prior to starting in on the band’s latest limited edition, Night Train to Nowhere, I wanted to close out the last of the Bunny Boy and Talking Light discs.

Is Anybody Out There follows the Bunny Boy story arc – a large portion of this footage was posted to the internet as a multi-part docudrama as a run-up to the Bunny Boy tour and these original videos have now been edited and sequenced with some live footage from the tour. For anyone who missed the original YouTube video series, Is Anybody Out There isn’t a full-length “music video” but rather a “feature film” that has a lot in common with Blair Witch Project. The Residents’ music adds to the increasingly uncomfortable story line (and was documented in the tour-only disc Postcards from Patmos) but the music is neither a prominent nor focal part of the DVD. The story line follows Roger (aka “Bunny”) on his descent into madness. Roger is living in the basement of his x-wife’s house, recovering from an accident he had in Greece that he doesn’t remember. The basement is particularly creepy as it looks like a torture chamber, with a variety of weapons on the wall and “John Wayne Gacy” style clown paintings of Roger and his brother Harvey.

The storyline follows Roger’s “self-made” videos that he is posting on the internet asking for help finding his missing brother Harvey. Harvey is described as being obsessed with the apocalypse and he went missing on the Greek isle of Patmos (home of the “Cave of the Apocalypse”). After filling in the back story of Harvey’s disappearance, Roger’s sanity progressively slips and he makes the later videos dressed in an adult bunny suit. After selling some possessions on eBay (this really happened – how’s that for a bridge between film and reality?), Roger raises money to pay The Great Carson (an internet psychic) who told Roger that Harvey is in Patmos, Arkansas getting ready to do battle with “The Beast”.

Note: There may be a “Part II’ to this disc as the DVD ends with Roger/”Bunny” boarding the bus to Patmos.

The Residents have enjoyed many attachments over the years, but none more unique than "Bunny." Their relationship flourished in the 70's when Bunny's eccentric ideas often pointed the group in unexpected directions, but Bunny eventually grew distant and his appearances at the El Ralpho Studios declined. Then, after a lapse of several years, a video tape arrived in the mail. Looking like the product of a discarded Korean surveillance camera, The Residents quickly recognized the unidentified video as the "work" of the long lost Bunny. At first amused, the group soon became disturbed by Bunny's obvious cry for help, attempting to gain support finding his missing "brother" Harvey. Hoping that a project focused on their lost friend might stimulate his reappearance, and subsequent psychiatric care, The Residents reenacted Bunny's plight in a series of internet videos, resulting in this DVD. Unfortunately after a CD, a world tour and the video series, Bunny remains among the missing.

Links:
The Residents

The Residents - "Ozark" CD Review (Ralph)

It has been tough to keep up with the volume of discs that The Residents have released around their The Bunny Boy and Talking Light projects. Ozark came out in July but I finally had some time over the holiday to catch up on some discs that slipped through the cracks.

Ozark's 25 tracks run 70 minutes and long-time Residents fans are likely to already have the majority of these tracks. The disc contains 11 country-scorched instrumental tracks from 2010's download-only Ozan project (where the download information was made available on dog tags and a backstage pass sold on the Talking Light tour), 10 tracks from the ltd. edition CD Arkansas (which was sold through Ralph's web store) along with four previously unheard tracks.





Below is the press release for Ozark along with a breakdown of the tracks from Arkansas:

When The Residents went to Arkansas to complete the shooting of their 2009 internet series, The Bunny Boy, they found themselves holed up in a motel for longer than they had expected. Rain and lots of it hit the area around Hope, Arkansas where they were cooped up in a motel near the airport. The final scenes of the series were planned to take place on a chicken farm in Patmos, Arkansas but due to flooding they actually had to film in nearby Ozan, Arkansas. The Residents were quick to realize the area was rich in music.

It was not surprising that the group would be influenced by some of this remarkable music. The Residents added a number of new tunes to their repertoire while in Arkansas. They had already released a CD called Arkansas, though it was not of the material they wrote there. None of that music materialized until later when they created a special download project called Ozan.

This new CD combines the, now out of print, Arkansas CD with the tunes from Ozan into one collection, Ozark. The Ozark mountains run through Arkansas and their beauty was an inspiration to the group, but in this instance it also proved a convenient way to press the two titles into one… Ozan and Arkansas became Ozark. To round out the project, The Residents added 4 additional songs from that era which had not previously been released.

This 25 track, 70 minute album mops up the cutting room floor after The Bunny Boy projects had been completed.

50/50 vocal and instrumental tracks

Tracks from Arkansas:
1. "Nobody is Listening"
This piece was not included on the album, but it opened the touring show, The Bunny Boy.

2. "The Bunny Boy"
An alternative arrangement of the song from the album, The Bunny Boy.

3. "Sad Saint John"
Written for The Bunny Boy album, but eliminated from the final album.

4. "The Butcher Shop"
An alternative arrangement of the song from the album, The Bunny Boy.

5. "Memories for Sale"
Written for The Bunny Boy album, but eliminated from the final album.

6. "Two Clown Paintings"
Written for The Bunny Boy album, but eliminated from the final album.

7. "The Black Behind"
An alternative arrangement of the song from the album, The Bunny Boy.

8. "My Brother's Skin"
Written for The Bunny Boy album, but eliminated from the final album.

9. "Save the World"
An instrumental version of a song that was performed live on the European leg of The Bunny Boy tour.

10. "Circe"
Written for The Bunny Boy album, but eliminated from the final album.

Ozark is available as a $11.99 CD on-demand (CDR) through The Residents' web store (or $999.99 through Amazon.com). The Residents just started taking some of their CDR's out of print so you probably don't have 'forever' to pick this one up.

Links:
The Residents

The Residents - Pictures from The Bunny Boy Tour, Blender Theater, NYC 10/11/08

Last night, I caught the last of The Residents' three night run at the Blender Theater. The band is touring behind their latest CD, The Bunny Boy.

The Bunny Boy follows a story line of a "unabomber" type loner searching for his missing brother Harvey. The live show follows the sequence of the CD as the narrator deals with obsession, insanity and the coming Apocalypse. Like most releases from The Residents, this is pretty wild stuff.

The production on this tour was a bit smaller scale than the last time that The Residents came through (DDA tour stopped at the Warsaw in 2002). The Bunny Boy tour is the equivalent of a one-room play where the narrator is the only live actor. The narrator takes the audience through the Bunny Boy story through narrative, songs and showing videos on the projection screen.

Here is an audience video from the tour premiere in Santa Cruz which will give you a sense for the stage set up:


The show was split into two parts and the pictures that follow are from the second act. The narrator performed the second act in a bunny costume (you have to see the show or buy the disc to understand the background for this). and these pictures show the narrator in his "secret room" slowing recognizing his madness.






This was an amazing show so, if you get the chance to catch one of the remaining US tour dates (below), you should go.

Oct 14 USA Detroit Royal Oak Theater
Oct 15 USA Chicago Lakeshore
Oct 16 USA Chicago Lakeshore
Oct 17 USA Chicago Lakeshore

Links:
Ralph America (The Residents' Record Label)
The Residents YouTube Channel
The Residents Website

The Residents Announce New CD and NYC Tour Dates

The Residents are back with their first NYC tour since the 2002 Demons Dance Alone tour, which played three nights at The Warsaw in Brooklyn.

The new CD is entitled Bunny Boy and it hits the streets on September 2nd. You can pre-order through The Residents' record label, Ralph America (link below). Bunny Boy "centers around an eccentric character, the bunny boy, whose search for his missing brother compels him to post videos on the internet as a "cry for help." As the story evolves, it opens up to interaction between the bunny boy and his audience, causing the narrative to twist and turn in odd and unpredictable ways. Spanning a gap between insanity and self realization, the loony, but affable bunny boy soon finds himself pursuing a goal no less vital than saving the world from Armageddon."

If you haven't seen The Resident's videos about the adventures of Timmy, you probably need to move quickly as I understand that they will be coming down to make room for the new Bunny Boy videos.

The Residents' Bunny Boy tour plays The Blender Theater @ Gramercy on October 9th and 10th. Tickets are $40.00.

Links:
RalphAmerica (The Resident's Record Label)