Ke$sha 'Borrows' (aka Rips Off) Iconic Imagery from The Residents

It was a bad idea when Rerun ("What's Happening!!") agreed to bootleg The Doobie Brothers....

This also seems like a bad idea (Ke$ha - Live at Jones Beach 6/1/13).  In an interview with Yahoo! Music, film maker Don Hardy, a filmmaker who's working with The Residents on a documentary, said:"They don't know what to do," adding that there is a consensus that Ke$ha is "interfering with their intellectual property. Her people definitely didn't call in to say, 'Hey, can we use this?' They're debating what to do. One potential way to deal with it is to ask for a cease-and-desist and have attorneys sort it out. I think they'd rather see a different outcome, though. When you're a smaller group, what do you do? If you file suit, people say, 'Oh, it's the small guys trying to get in on something big.' It's a no-win situation."

There could be a kinder, gentler resolution. "It could be a five-minute conversation," Hardy says, "if Ke$ha will acknowledge that the look came from the Residents and that she's giving them a tip of the hat. Telling people, 'If you've been to my show, it's an homage' might encourage some of her fans to check out the Residents, and the bigger win would be that bit of recognition."

In case anyone might think the appropriation was coincidental, Hardy says that "even down to the color of the eyes, it's what the Residents have used all these years. It couldn't have just happened."



Links:
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The Residents - "Talking Light: Bimbos" DVD Review (MVD Visual)

The Residents - Talking Light: Bimbos DVD is a live concert film from the final night of the band's 2011 "Talking Light" tour. This show was filmed in front of a sold-out crowd at Bimbo’s in San Francisco on April 16, 2011 and runs just under two hours. While the show was filmed in 3D (and there was a limited 3D-DVD edition of this show that was made available to project Kickstarter supporters), the ‘standard’ version is beautifully filmed and captures the live experience of a Residents concert better than I ever would have imagined. There is a lot going on at any given Residents show - between the vocals, the instruments (which are generally off to the side) and any lights/visuals but Talking Light: Bimbos captures and seamlessly blends all of these elements to give you the best seat in the house.



The set for the "Talking Light" tour is Randy’s living room, which is complete with a fireplace, B&W TV showing just fuzz and an old couch. Keyboardist Chuck takes the stage first and turns on the lights in the living room but singer Randy Rose is the focal point of the show and he performs wearing an old man mask, underwear and a bathrobe (and oversized tuxedo shoes). Randy takes on multiple vocal parts (including that of the old woman in “Talking Light”) and dances like a demented aerobics instructor while Chuck & Bob build up a noisy cacophony. Behind Randy are video panels that alternate between dark-toned colors and “space scenes” and videos of creepy characters telling twisted ghost stories; some of these stories ended up on the DVD Randy’s Ghost Stories.

For this tour, The Residents were down to a three-piece - Chuck and Bob are off to the side, wearing matching costumes, blackout goggles and deadlock wigs and stay seated throughout the show. In the opening portion of the show, Randy tells the audience that drummer Carlos went to Mexico to be with his mother but ended the show with the comment “F*ck Carlos, that guy was an assh*le”.

The band played an eclectic mix of songs from Lonely Teenager along with songs from their back catalogue and ended the evening with the encore of the cowboy folk song “Bury Me Not (on the Lone Prairie)” and “Die-Stay-Go” (from 1985’s The Big Bubble). Here is the complete track list:

1. Smelly Tongues (from Meet the Residents)
2. The Sleepwalker (from Lonely Teenager)
3. Talking Light (from Lonely Teenager)
4. Six More Miles (from Stars & Hank Forever)
5. They Are The Meat (from Wormwood)
6. Lizard Lady (from Duck Stab / Buster & Glen)
7. Perchance to Dream (from Chuck’s Ghost Music)
8. Semolina (from Duck Stab / Buster & Glen)
9. My Window (from Animal Lover)
10. Once I Went to Barstow (I don’t have Babyfingers but presume this is “Death in Barstow”)
11. The Unseen Sister (from Lonely Teenager)
12. The Old Woman (from Gingerbread Man)
13. Lilly (I don’t have Freak Show but presume this is “Lillie”)
14. Bury Me Not
15. Die-Stay-Go

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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.

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The Residents - "Coochie Brake" CD Review (MVD Audio)

Coochie Brake is the latest CD from the Residents and this disc marks a clean break from the band’s recent "Bunny Boy" and "Talking Light" related output. To put this disc in context with the band’s recent releases, The Residents toured as a three piece on their "Talking Light" tour with long-time vocalist “Randy, “Chuck” on keyboards and “Bob” on guitar. During the "Talking Light" live shows, Randy announced that, while the Residents had been a four piece, the drummer “Carlos” had retired to Mexico to take care of his mom. With “Randy” touring solo late last year with his Sam’s Enchanted Evening project, Carlos has returned to the band on drums and vocals.

Coochie Brake is an actual place – it is a swamp located in southwestern Louisiana and its 800 acres is totally unrelated to the surrounding terrain. According to the CD liner notes "A million years ago, a big rock fell out of the sky and landed right in the middle of Louisiana. Well, it wasn't Louisiana at that time. But that rock fell, and it hit hard making a giant dent. It gradually filled in but no matter what, it still left a dent. And that dent held just enough water that it became a primeval swamp known as Coochie Brake...Some young guys used to camp in Coochie Brake. They climbed the massive granite boulders that common sense said should not be there. They explored the caves that some said still hid a fortune in Spanish gold. Most importantly, they sat still and let the Brake speak to them as only the Brake can. Those teens grew up to become The Residents. Their music is full of memories. Memories of misty fog, dark shapes and the unexplained sounds of Coochie Brake."

The album is predominantly comprised of dark and uneasy instrumentals and it sounds heavily influenced by Spanish Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) music. Carlos’ “vocals” are all in Spanish and consist of spoken word and murmured phases. There is also a very brief smattering of vocals in English which sound like Randy may have ‘snuck’ in some brief contributions. Like many of the Residents’ instrumental releases, there are “songs within songs” as the band drops light piano, jazz and rock guitars, mariachi horns, complex percussion, crickets, birds and other swamp noises and chanted/ritualistic backing “vocals” into some of the songs. Cohesively weaving all of this together must have been a herculean feet but the end result is that The Residents push the boundaries further than I’ve heard them do so in years and a comparable reference point would be Eskimo.



The Residents haven't announced any shows in support of Coochie Brake but Randy is bringing Sam's Enchanted Evening to Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand Street) on March 24 - 27. "With four decades of album releases, world tours, and museum shows behind them, the pioneering performance collective The Residents presents a work-in-progress of a new music-theater event. Sam’s Enchanted Evening is the story of one man's fumbling journey through a wasted life consumed by years of pathetic self-deception, unrequited passion, and rock 'n' roll. Performed in character by Randy Rose, The Residents’ lead singer, and set against a cycle of aggressively deconstructed American pop songs, Sam’s is a relentless, violent mash-up of laughter, pain, and elusive redemption, sometimes all in a single song." Tickets are $25 and the show starts at 7:30PM.

Links:
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The Residents - "Rivers of Hades" CDR Review (Ralph Records)

The Residents’ Rivers of Hades is currently available as a CDR which Ralph is selling through its eBay store. The band describes this release as “music conceived as an aural art piece to accompany the release party of The Residents toy figures recently designed by Steve Cerio. The original music was conceived to utilize two DVD players that were programmed to randomly play abstract bits of music. They would play 5.1 surround audio and each would play different things. The project (which required 12 speakers placed in a circle around the gallery) was entitled “Chaos is not just a theory”. In Greek mythology, Hades was a child of Chaos.

As these kinds of things go, it never quite worked out. The gallery never agreed to provide the sound system and some people felt it would be unpleasant for attending guests (correct) so by the time the toy release actually happened (there were several lengthy delays) The Residents had lost interest and had moved into other projects which did not allow them to even attend the toy release opening. “

A track from this project, “Hades” (which includes the music that ended up as "Acheron River"), first surfaced on the Ten Little Piggies compilation and The Residents adapted the music on Rivers of Hades from part of the music written for “Chaos is not just a theory”.

River of Hades is an instrumental disc which contains a mix of dark cinematic soundscapes and polyrhythmic and syncopated percussion. “Acheron River” starts with a percussive intro which leads into dark, cinematic synths and woodwinds. “Cocytus River” is a dense cuisinart of sound which is similar to the blend of percussive and cinematic music heard on THE UGHS!. “Lethe River” is less musically dense than its predecessors on the disc and its hazy atmosphere has a constant undercurrent of a pulsing organic beat. “Styx River” sounds like a couple of kids running amuck on Bill Bruford’s electronic drum kit and there are a couple of rock guitar riffs (Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak”?) thrown in for good measure toward the end of the song. The final cut, “Phlegethon River”, reverses the percussive/cinematic blend of “Cocytus River” and is (predominately) sweepingly atmospheric.

Tracks:
1. Acheron River - 3:23
2. Cocytus River - 13:14
3. Lethe River - 8:33
4. Styx River - 11:01
5. Phlegethon River – 8:46

Links:
The Residents

The Residents - "present THE UGHS!" CD Review (MVD Audio)

To call The Residents “prolific” would be an understatement as the band seems to releases new and archival releases almost monthly. If you follow the band closely though, there are a number of themes that reemerge across the years and most of the band’s recent projects first surfaced on 2009’s Ten Little Piggies compilation (see previous review). The Residents will be releasing a new CD next month, Coochie Brake, which is the second release under “THE UGHS” concept so I thought this would be a good time to go back and review THE UGHS! disc (originally released in Nov. ‘09).

THE UGHS! is a return to the minimalist avant-garde music of the band’s Eskimo era. The band described the concept behind THE UGHS! as “[w]hen The Residents begin work on their 2007 opus to insanity, The Voice of Midnight, the group felt the need to shake things up, consequently they created an alter ego through which they could act out new roles. Proudly, The Residents christened this conceptual alter ego as THE UGHS! The group then fashioned "written music" from the raw, impulsive ideas created by The UGHS!, building the musical structure of The Voice of Midnight on these pieces. Two years later these original UGHS! recordings were rediscovered; freed from its previous role supporting The Voice of Midnight's narrative, the music suddenly sounded as fresh as when it was first recorded. The time had come to resurrect THE UGHS.”

THE UGHS! is a primal, percussive-based album that, aside for some inarticulate grunting and chanting, is all instrumental. The band uses this rhythmic foundation as a base to which they add a variety of instruments which twist and turn the music in different and often unexpected directions. The disc starts with “The Ughs”, which mixes industrial percussion with a prominent jew’s harp and xylophone and jumps from there into the free-form freak-out of “The Dancing Duck”. This later track builds up a wall of organic and industrial sounds over which soft woodwinds and crazed duck quacking are layered. On different numbers on the disc, the band works in assorted organic and electronic percussion, reeds and strings along with ambient synths. The music ranges from the Middle-Eastern note-bending tribal stomp of “Floating Down the Nile” to the movie soundtrack gone astray (“Squeaky Wheel”) to the free form jazz of “The Horns of Haynesville” to the King Crimson sounding “In the Dark”.



For anyone who got lost in some of The Residents’ recent narrative-based projects, THE UGHS! is the perfect road out.

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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:
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The Residents - "Ten Little Piggies" CD Review (Ralph Records)

After reviewing The Residents’ Randy’s Ghost Stories DVD and Lonely Teenager CD, I wanted to go back to where the music from the band’s Talking Light project first surfaced. In 2009, The Residents released a “futurist compilation” entitled Ten Little Piggies which consisted of fourteen tracks from ten projects that may or may not be released in the future. “The Unseen Sister” and “Talking Light” (both from the Talking Light tour) first surfaced on this compilation.

With The Residents’ music shifting in focus in recent years to more narrative-based stories, this disc is a nice change of pace. Aside for The Bunny Boy and Talking Light tracks, Ten Little Piggies is predominately comprised of complex and innovative instrumentals that almost sound like something from a David Byrne & Bryan Eno collaboration. These instrumentals range from atmospheric, cinematic soundscapes to complex, polyrhythmic percussion-driven tracks to minimalist avant-garde. As this disc served as the jumping off point for many of The Residents’ recent and upcoming projects, this is essential listening for anyone wanting to hear where the band is heading next.

Here is the breakdown of the ten projects:

Duck Stab Re-Imagined - The album, Duck Stab, was recorded in 1979 at the height of the "New Wave" era. It epitomized everything that was good about New Wave: catchy, raw and above all fiercely independent. But that was 30 years ago and the Residents thought this would be a good time to rethink this quirky recording. The rethinking was conceived as a live performance connected to a gallery exhibition of New Wave art.

The Voice of Midnight: Instrumental - Perhaps no project The Residents have ever recorded produced as much material as The Voice of Midnight. This 2007 opus not only produced the album, but also a shorter work, The Sandman Waits, contributed to a collection of songs called Smell My Picture, and the parallel universe album, The UGHS! The Voice of Midnight was theatrical in style so in order to showcase the music, often overshadowed by the album's narrative, this instrumental version will be released through The Residents download store at www.residents.com.

Strange Culture (OST) - The Residents wrote a minimalist score for Lynn Hershman Leeson's 2007 film, Strange Culture, (combined two short sentences here) based on the surreal nightmare of internationally-acclaimed artist and professor Steve Kurtz.

Arkansas - Since it was based on the unpredictable story line found in The Bunny Boy internet series, the Bunny performance also evolved over time, with new music being added to the show as it toured. Ultimately, some of the music written for the project was never used, so now these extraneous pieces of The Bunny Boy will be released as Arkansas.

Tweedles: Instrumental - Following in the footsteps of the successful release of River of Crime: Instrumental and Animal Lover:Instrumental, Tweedles: Instrumental will be more than just non-vocal versions of the songs. Instead, the album will be a three piece suite that was originally written to represent air, earth, and water. Originally, the project's working title was "Tabasco" and over time, it evolved into "Casanova's Clown" until finally becoming Tweedles.

The UGHS! - When The Residents begin work on their 2007 opus to insanity, The Voice of Midnight, the group felt the need to shake things up, consequently they created an alter ego through which they could act out new roles. Proudly, The Residents christened this conceptual alter ego as THE UGHS! The group then fashioned "written music" from the raw, impulsive ideas created by The UGHS!, building the musical structure of The Voice of Midnight on these pieces. Two years later these original UGHS! recordings were rediscovered; freed from its previous role supporting The Voice of Midnight's narrative, the music suddenly sounded as fresh as when it was first recorded. The time had come to resurrect THE UGHS.

Talking Light - The Residents have wanted to experiment with looser forms of music and lyrics. Talking Light is designed for performance and is based on a mix of improvisation and scoring. The concept for this project is interpretive story telling with an interactive electronic score.

Hades - Dark, abstract, scary. Hades was originally composed to accompany an art opening, but when the exhibit was postponed the recording was misplaced and not incorporated into the eventual opening. For years this music has been ignored, waiting to be heard and appreciated by anyone whose taste runs toward the unpredictable and the macabre. Not for everyone.

Haeckel's Tale (OST) - The Residents were commissioned to write a score for this Showtime film, but for unspecified reasons the music was not used.

The Bunny Boy Live - When The Residents toured their epic adventures of The Bunny Boy in 2008, the show was shot as a special for French television. Media from this documentary is expected to surface in 2010.

Continuing to use this compilation as a jumping off point, The Residents will be releasing a special-edition 2CD version of their new forthcoming album Coochie Brake (due in 2012) which includes a second CD of music that did not make it onto the album. Coochie Brake is a swamp in Louisiana and the music on the album is described as warm and damp. Officially, Coochie Brake will be the second release under The Ughs concept.

Links:
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The Residents - "Lonely Teenager" CD Review (MVD Audio)

The Residents have been so prolific these days that it is hard to refer to any disc as “their latest”…so, the band’s latest “factory pressed / commercially available” CD, Lonely Teenager, is the latest in the series of discs that have been released around the current Talking Light project. A limited edition version of Lonely Teenager was sold on the Talking Light tour and the disc was commercially released in June on MVD Audio.

This disc breaks from the industry norm of a release followed by a tour as it was released after The Residents’ Talking Light tour wrapped up. The press release for this disc described the impetus for this as: “during a time when little interest is being paid to CDs, the idea of developing a touring show without the restriction of promoting an album made perfect sense. This time the group could just play whatever they wanted instead of a predetermined show. It would be fun - and it was.

But after forty or so performances, The Residents started wondering: what would the album that "might have been" sound like? ...and they begin to imagine the fictitious album they would be supporting - had they actually recorded one. As usual with Randy, Chuck & Bob, imagination quickly leads to action, and, in a short time this action produced the curious Lonely Teenager.

Featuring pieces that were performed in the show as well as others that were considered but ultimately rejected, Lonely Teenager is "the studio album that might have been." Benefiting hugely from the Talking Light tour, the CD also includes additional tunes featuring new arrangements of Lizard Lady (from Duck Stab Re-Imagined sessions) and The Bunny Boy's Boxes of Armageddon."

Track List:
1 - Six More Miles (8:38)
> Original version on Stars & Hank Forever (1986)

2 - My Window (4:18)
> Original version on Animal Lover (2005)

3 - The Unseen Sister (7:56)
> From the Talking Light tour

4 - The Lizard Lady (3:05)
> Original version on Duck Stab (1978)

5 - The Sleepwalker (3:33)
> Original version on the Demons Dance Alone ltd. Edition Bonus CD (2002)

6 - The Old Woman (6:45)
> Original version on Gingerbread Man (1994)

7 - Boxes of Armageddon (3:35)
> Original version on The Bunny Boy (2008)

8 - Talking Light (9:51)
> From the Talking Light tour

The tour edition of Lonely Teenager contained a ninth track which is a unique rehearsal version of "The Unseen Sister" from October of 2009.

Lonely Teenager runs just under fifty minutes and the tracks are atmospheric and disconcertingly dark. While this disc contains the same two Talking Light tracks as Ten Little Piggies, these are longer version and the narration is down-played. The one notable exception to this predominately instrumental album is “The Old Woman” which takes on a more deranged overtone with new narration from Randy.



Residents' spokesperson Hardy Fox gave an interview with LA Weekly earlier this year where he was asked about the vision behind Lonely Teenager.

LA Weekly: The new album, Lonely Teenager, which grew out of ideas germinated on the Talking Light tour, reveals the music growing more subtly complex — and beautiful, and scary, too. "The mirror has two sides" is a sample lyric. What do you suppose the Residents mean by this?

Hardy Fox: As people age, they stop recognizing themselves when they look in the mirror. There's a two-sided mirror in the show, one side reflecting Randy and the other reflecting the audience. The audience has to face the mirrors just like the performers do — just like your death, each person has to deal with that at a very individual level.

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The Residents - "Dolor Generar" CD Review (Ralph)

Before shuttering Ralph Records last year, The Residents’ final limited-edition release was Dollar General, which contained the music the played over the PA before and after shows on the Talking Light tour. This sixteen track / 48 minute disc follows in the same vein as Ten Little Piggies and The Ughs! and is a collection of experimental instrumental tracks. The first half of the disc predominately focuses around some creative percussion work and the various Eskimo-style clangings and bangings are coupled with jazz-flavored, polyrhythmic instrumentation which makes some of these tracks sound like King Crimson gone industrial. Intermixed across the disc, The Residents pull out some dark-hued atmospheric/cinematic numbers but never completely step away from the disc’s percussive core.

This latest release from the band, Dolor Generar - Una Noche Lost en Van Horn Texas, is a reissue of Dollar General, but this release includes two additional songs which brings the total running time up to 57 minutes. This new disc is available as a CD-R through Amazon/Ralph Records and is described as “[a]n abstract instrumental album of strange beauty, Dolor Generar is the soundtrack for an unusual night in Texas. Used as pre-show music for the Residents' TALKING LIGHT touring show, this album set the mood for the bizarre stories of ghosts and the missing Carlos.”

It is hard to write an in-depth review of an ambient album (Eno's Ambient series kept coming to mind when listening to this disc) as the overall album is about tones, textures and moods rather than individual songs. Like the aforementioned Eno series, this disc is pleasant listening experience, and there are a couple tracks that are somewhat distinctive but there isn't enough substance to keep most of the individual tracks memorable once the disc is done. Fans of the band probably have both versions of this disc already but other discs (like Meet the Residents or Eskimo) are probably more interesting places to start for novices.

Dolor Generar Track List:
1. Black Scars
2. Burning Madrone
3. Mary Achi
4. Memory of Transgression
5. Rats Fight for Water
6. Restrained in the Ward
7. Carlos Buys a Round
8. Dollhouse
9. Last Rites for Bilibago
10. Blow Row
11. The Red Powder
12. Shoeless Thorn Game
13. Temple of the Dragan
14. War Zone
15. Hassled by Mamasan
16. Drunk Again in Van Horn Texas
17. Oil Jobber
18. Una Noche Lost

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The Residents - "Meet The Residents" CD Review (MVD Audio)

Keeping on with their ambitious reissue campaign, MVD Audio has brought back into print the original mono mix of The Residents' Meet the Residents (where the band is noted on the cover as ‘North Louisiana’s Phenomenal Pop Combo’) which was the band’s first full-length release. This album was originally issued in 1974 and allegedly sold just 40 copies in its first year of release. This album is where The Residents' musical vision was birthed as the disc contains an aural free-free explosion of Dadaist sounds and textures across the disc’s twelve tracks.

It is hard to describe the early work of The Residents to the ‘uninitiated’ as you have to listen with an open mind to hear the structure and pop sensibilities beneath the seemingly musical chaos. There are musical elements that are shared with free-form improvisational artists like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart but there are also atonal elements that sound like a precursor to the "Industrial Music" genre that rose up a few years later. However one cuts it though, The Residents are in a class of their own.

The disc opens with a twisted deconstruction of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking” which is the first of six songs that segue into each other to form multiple ‘movements’ of a single body of work. Most of the tracks are instrumentals that mix ‘traditional’ instruments (predominately a piano) with sound effects and tape loops along with various (often unexpected) woodwind, string and percussion instruments. Vocals, where used, are generally twisted but provide enough structure so that you can recognize the intent behind adding them to the song but the vocals never become the focal part of any of the tracks.

The band still plays "Smelly Tongues" from this disc and below is a video of a live performance from a recent show.



Showcasing their sardonic sense of humor, the band blatantly takes a ‘swipe’ at The Beatles with their Meet the Beatles parody cover (which is fully reproduced for this reissue). At the time of the LPs original issue, Capital Records allegedly threatened to sue over the cover which resulted in the band replacing The Beatles photo with suit-wearing crawfish identified as George, John, and Paul Crawfish and Ringo Starfish.

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The Residents - "Randy's Ghost Stories" DVD Review (MVD Visual)

I missed The Residents’ Talking Light tour (late ’10 – early ’11) so I don’t have the complete context around the band’s new DVD, Randy’s Ghost Stories, but I've read some reviews of the tour that stated that portions of this disc were shown on the backdrop at the live show.

Randy’s Ghost Stories is a collection of eight ghost stories and two bonus videos that feature newly composed music from The Residents. These stories aren’t for children or the faint of heart as the subject of the stories include serial killers, psychosis and self-destruction. Each story is narrated (most frequently by “Randy”) and feature off-kilter and disturbing music from The Residents and “bad acid flashback” animated videos. This aura of unease is accentuated by the visual “twisting” of the narrator’s image so that, visually, they look either completely mad or like one of the wide-eyed waifs from the Dondi comic strip. All of this is punctuated with a few TV commercials for food from the 70’s and 80’s that highlight the “perfect” American family and this serves as a striking contrast to the severely dysfunctional people narrating and described within each story. The common thread between each of these stories is that each of the narrators are tortured (whether they acknowledge it or not) by ghosts from their past.



"What are ghosts" ask The Residents - spirits of those no longer inhabiting the flesh, but unable to leave their lives behind? Or could ghosts be a manifestation of something even less tangible, like loneliness, unfulfilled desire or isolation? In a world where nearly everything has become defined and categorized, how do we fill our obvious, purely human need for the fuzzy, vague and supernatural - with TV commercials?

The ghost stories include:

- The ghost of a morbidly obese woman who haunts her lesbian lover, filling the void of death with food and Dr. Phil;

- A man who becomes obsessed by the spirit of an executed serial killer who stuffed the mouths of his victims with Pudding Roll Ups, an extinct kid's food from the 1980's;

- A dead boa constrictor named Leonard (after Leonard Cohen) that plagues the mind of its former owner, who is currently consuming Oscar Meyer hot dogs by the dozen and

- A man who killed his wife while sleep-walking and now believes that his dead wife is giving instruction to their daughter on how to kill him.

The two bonus videos are interesting ventures into the surreal. “Mutts with Mustaches” features an exploration of visuals (with what looks to be tribal photos mixed in) and colors set to an instrumental soundtrack of Eskimo-style piano, keys and swirling background sounds. “Walking Women” is visually set like an early 60’s documentary and follows the evolution of, and is narrated by, a desert. The desert tells the story of a forest overrunning it, eventual man-driven deforestation and the land returning to the desert. This vignette ends with women who have come to (randomly) walk in the desert.

While some discs are perfect for late-night viewing with the lights low, this is the sort of disc that will have you turning on all the lights and checking the locks on the doors. While this disc is disturbing, it is a worthy addition to The Residents’ catalog.

Links:
The Residents

The Residents: "Not Available" CD Review (MVD Audio)

After Ralph Records shut its doors last summer, The Residents' back catalog releases have been coming out on MVD Audio. The label issued Meet the Residents (originally released in 1974) earlier this year and followed this up with an extended version of Not Available (recorded in 1974 but not released until 1978). This new release of Not Available extends the disc's original running time from 35 minutes to 42 minutes by including pieces of songs that were edited out of the original version.

Not Available is The Residents' first concept album and the disc contains four long songs along with a shorter "Epilogue" which tells the story of a dark love triangle. The liner notes describe this release as an exercise in group therapy: "By enacting this pseudo drama within a psycho drama, the internal conflict, still not completely understood by all of the participants, became much more clear, as the player characters instinctively acted out their roles. The love triangle between Edweena, Porcupine and Catbird became obvious ("Can two be more than three?") as well as Remus's role as the distant and objective commentator ("The aching and the breaking are the making of a soul."). The purpose of the Enigmatic Foe was of course still unclear when the rehearsals began, but once the Porcupine's breakdown was known ("He thought the end was overdue, but day broke him instead..."), the role of the noble Foe, as Porcupine's stand-in for the operetta's climatic duel scene, became clear.

As the faux piece reached its peak, the trio - two holding pistols while the third hid in a bush - came to a realization that the lovely young Edweena had eloped with the independently wealthy and no longer uninvolved Uncle Remus. At this point, the tension, previously thicker than frozen mayonnaise, was shattered by the Porcupine, emerging from the shrubbery to paraphrase Shakespeare ("To show or not to be shown...").

With illusions of love shattered, the three were then able to forgive, embrace and even welcome the traitorous Remus back to the fold, once he had returned from his less than blissful honeymoon."

This release shows a striking maturity in the band's songwriting over Meet the Residents as the pieces on Not Available flow together with a dark, discordant surrealism. The music ranges from orchestral to avant-jazz no wave and there are a number of "songs" within songs which are often separated by garbled and twisted vocals. This is a work of demented genius and one can hear how these songs served as a 'jumping off' point for later-day tracks like "Walter Westinghouse" (from Fingerprince).

The added seven minutes on this extended edition adds a noticeable color to each of the songs and makes this reissue worth picking up, even if you already own a copy of Not Available.

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)

The Residents - Legal Music Downloads

I was excited when I found The Residents podcasts (bogcasts) as they are one of my favorite bands and I downloaded the first two to my iPod. After listening, unfortunately, these podcasts are pretty boring. The first two podcasts are basically one person answering some pretty boring questions (when will The Residents play my town, will there be a live release from "fill in the blank" tour, have any of The Residents left the band, etc.) and 1-2 minutes of unreleased live material. For fans, the live material is too brief to warrant downloading these podcasts. I am not certain these podcasts are a good starting point for those unfamilar with the band as the questions start from a "fan boy" perspective.

Recommendation: For fans and neophytes, The Residents main site is a better place to get up to speed with the happenings of the band.