THE RESIDENTS - ESKIMO @45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the sixth studio LP from those mysterious masked music makers, The Residents, with their epic masterpiece, Eskimo, being released on September 26th, 1979. It's an album that would indelibly define the iconography of the group, while demonstrating their conceptual depth to a degree never previously achieved, and rarely match afterwards.

The background of Eskimo's genesis is shrouded by a combination of deliberate misinformation, myth and hearsay, with only fragments of the story seeming to have any firm basis in actual historical fact. Even the concept itself, while superficially intended to function as anthropological documentation, is in reality only conjecture based on cultural ignorance and stereotyping. This is a deliberate commentary on how British & European cultural imperialism has chosen to misrepresent indigenous peoples over the centuries. The album's themes and stories are all built on either popular misconceptions of Inuit culture and life, or outright fabrications, informed by consumerist archetypes and slogans. In that sense, the project is a deft commentary on how aboriginal culture has been distorted and appropriated by colonialist interlopers.

According to the group's internal mythologizing, the initial idea for the album came into consideration sometime in 1976, shortly after completing Third Reich 'N Roll, when the group's mysterious mentor, the enigmatic N. Senada. He had reappeared after going missing for a year, vanishing in the middle of the ill-fated Vileness Fats film project. He had apparently gone to the far north, returning with recordings of Arctic wind and a jar of air, and an inspiration for capturing the culture of the native peoples in song and stories. Given the group's penchant for fictionalizing their existence and history, trying to decipher the true instigation of the idea might be a little difficult. I can't be sure N. Senada even existed as a real person. Yet it is at least reasonable to accept that the idea for the album does, in fact, date to the period suggested.

What also seems to be believable, albeit with the specifics still being in question, is that the project became a beast for the group to tackle. It has been said that one critical reason for it taking 3 years to manifest is the fact that the technology for creating the album simply didn't exist at the time it was conceived, necessitating the group inventing instruments and techniques in order to achieve the desired results. Synthesizers were just beginning to become affordable for the average artist, and sampling was still a few years away from practical implementation. The conceptual complexity of the work, and its need to be a fully integrated and coherent expression, inevitably resulted in strained relationships within the collective, as various contributors held on to convictions that didn't always align with others. The brutal intricacy of it all put everyone involved into a state of high stress and exasperation as the project dragged on.

It's no wonder then that the group would have to let off some steam by indulging in some creativity unburdened by excessive conceptual constraints. Concurrent with the production of Eskimo, The Residents would release the Fingerprince LP (1977), and two EPs, which would quickly become combined into a single album known as Duck Stab / Buster and Glen (1978). Additionally, the Satisfaction single would see a reissue, spurred on by the success of DEVO's cover of the same song, and the Not Available album, recorded in 1974 immediately after Meet the Residents and intended to be an expression of the "theory of obscurity" by never being actually released, would be reluctantly issued as a stopgap while Eskimo's release kept getting delayed. According to the band's biographers, these latter releases caused conflicts between the band and their "management", the Cryptic Corporation, but given that those entities were, in reality, the same people, I can only assume what that means is that not everyone was in agreement with these titles coming to press when they did, further straining relationships within the group. There are even rumours of the "band" disappearing with the Eskimo master tapes in protest, requiring negotiations within the organization. Perhaps some faction did indeed take a powder with the masters, but all of this may simply be apocryphal fiction manufactured for the benefit of press and amusement of fans.

Despite all the struggles, the album did, finally, come together, as a single LP with six tracks, each accompanied by a narrative text relating the details of the tale being told by the music. Listeners were encouraged to read along with the music, a similar concept to what Michael Nesmith had done in 1974 with his concept album, The Prison, which was also a selection of songs that were accompanied by a book, with each chapter being integrated with a corresponding song.

Musically, what was presented was the most technically complex the group had ever constructed, with mostly electronic sounds emulating the cold, harsh environment of the Arctic while often unintelligible voices brought the stories to life, sometimes incorporating corporate giggle parodies, like the Coke-a-Cola song, into the tribal chanting. Taken as a whole, listening to the album was an entirely immersive experience.

For the cover graphics, the group debuted their brand new costumes, featuring the members in tuxedos with giant eyeball heads peaked by jaunty top hats. The effectiveness of the image was so utterly iconic and instantly recognizable that, virtually overnight, if became the default image for the group, a representation that would remain indelibly etched in the public mind for the rest of the band's career. Though they would subsequently evolve a wide variety of costumes, with entirely distinctive themes, they'd never be able to shake the association with those outfits.

Eskimo was my gateway into the world of The Residents. I'd seen the Ralph Records ads in various music magazines for a few years, but it was the striking look of that album, along with the crystal clear focus of its concept, that drew me to them, and I soon backtracked through their early catalogue thereafter, and followed the group closely through the Mole Trilogy. In my mind, Eskimo is something of a high watermark for the group, though they hit many highs before and after its release. Still, it remains the most emblematic of their albums. It certainly helped establish them as the masters of weirdness, securing them a dedicated fan-base among the alternative music fans of the post-punk era. They've done many concept albums throughout their career, but Eskimo will always stand in my mind as the most succinctly perfect of them all.

MEET THE RESIDENTS @ 50

Celebrating its golden anniversary today, at 50 years old, is the debut LP from The Residents, with Meet the Residents being released on April 1st, 1974. While it was resoundingly ignored at the time of its release, struggling to sell a mere 40 copies within its first year, the album would eventually be recognized as the cornerstone product of one of America's most influential and innovative experimental multi-media arts collectives.

The residents had been fermenting in their home state of Louisiana since the late 1960s, mostly inspired by the avant-garde experimentation of artists like Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. The relative success of that particular group was inspiration enough for the then unnamed group to send a demo of their early experiments to Beefheart label, Warner Bros, executive Hal Halverstadt, in the hopes of following in their wake. His rejection of the group, returning the tape to "Residents, 20 Sycamore St.", famously inspiring the band's name.

With that album being dismissed, the now named collective spent most of 1973 alternating between working on an ambitious film project, the never-to-be-finished "Vileness Fats", and recording fresh material for a proper debut. With thoughts of appealing to a major label now banished from their aspirations, they realized that creating their own imprint was the best way to get their work out there without having to be dependent on the whims of music executives. Thus, the Cryptic Corporation and Ralph Records were created, with the group members assuming anonymous identities within The Residents, while simultaneously using their real names to stand in as spokesmen for their freshly minted corporation. Thus, Hardy Fox, Homer Flynn, Jay Clem & John Kennedy became the corporate faces while claiming to have no relation to the mysterious, unidentified musicians responsible for creating The Residents' music.

At the time of their debut, the group had access to only the most basic instrumentation and recording equipment, relying heavily on acoustic percussion, piano, horns & reed instruments and guitar, along with a primitive form of analogue sampling, to create their strange fusion of experimental pop, jazz, blues and classical music. Layered with strange, heavily effected cartoon-like voices, the surreal results were unlike anything anyone else had concocted at that time. This was well before they would embrace electronics, synthesizers and digital samplers as their principal tools, yet they were still able to mutate their instruments into arrangements that belied their primitive resources.

The packaging for the album was a cleaver, hilarious bastardization of Meet The Beatles, the US debut LP by the "fab four". This association between the two groups would even lead to early rumours that The Residents were secretly The Beatles, working clandestinely to vent their more experimental ambitions. The initial version of the album, released in a mono mix in an edition of just over 1000 copies, sold extremely poorly, but was still reported to have drawn the ire of Beatles label, Capitol Records, who allegedly issued a "cease and desist" order on the use of the cover graphics, necessitating a redesign for the subsequent stereo mix reissue of the album in 1977. Whether this was actually true or just a promotional ploy by Ralph Records is up for debate, especially given that the reissue still incorporated many of the same design elements as the first pressing, and all subsequent reissues and special editions since 1988 reverted to the original design.

As mentioned, initial response to the album was virtually nil, and it wasn't until 1977 that the group began to develop a serious cult following, mostly riding on the wave of the burgeoning "punk" and "new wave" scenes, especially with the more adventurous artists of the era frequently citing The Residents as influencing their own excursions into the bizarre. Prior to the DIY aesthetics of punk taking hold, there simply wasn't any context for The Residents to be interpreted or understood. That all changed in the latter half of the decade as the group quickly became enigmatic underground darlings of outsider music.

Since its initial release, the album has received numerous reissues, including vastly expanded special editions, securing it a status as a foundational document of the group's early works, an era which remains the preference of most die-hard fans. No true aficionado would claim to appreciate the group without having this album in their collection. It's a visionary explosion of ideas that would provide the fertile ground for a career that has sustained itself for the past half century and, despite numerous personnel changes over the years (Homer Flynn remains as the only original member), continues to persist.
 

THE RESIDENTS - SANTA DOG @ 50

Marking their golden anniversary, 50 years since their first official musical product, The Residents were formally born on this day, December 20th, 1972, with the release of their double 7” single, Santa Dog. This four track EP would begin a career which would see this group of mysterious, anonymous artistic outcasts redefine the meaning of independent alternative music and outsider art.

While Santa Dog was their first proper release on their own imprint, Ralph Records, the group had been simmering away in obscurity for a few years before this, notoriously sending a demo to Warner Bros which was unceremoniously rejected, returned to the then nameless act c/o the “Residents”, who promptly turned defeat into victory by christening themselves based on WB’s seal of disapproval. Being dismissed by the majors was enough incentive for the group to decide to go completely independent and start their own label.

The first pressing of the EP was released by Residents, Uninc., with each track credited to a different fake performer: Ivory And The Brain Eaters - Fire, Delta Nudes - Explosion, The College Walkers - Lightning & Arf And Omega featuring The Singing Lawn Chairs - Aircraft Damage. Some copies had the tracks disordered, likely due to production oversights, and the gate-fold covers of many first pressings were stuck together due to the records being packaged before the lamination had a chance to properly dry. Most of these early pressings were given away to friends or mailed to celebrities like Frank Zappa and Richard Nixon, with Nixon refusing to accept his copy.

The EP immediately defined the off-kilter, bizarro aesthetic of the group and has since become a prized collectors item for the group’s ardent aficionados. The group has gone on to issue periodic updated recordings of the first song as a signpost whenever they’ve evolved to a level where they feel like there’s a need to reinstate the theme again to illustrate their evolution. A number of variations and compilations of Santa Dog recordings have appeared over the years and the original 1972 recordings have been added to expanded editions of Meet The Residents, as well as being included in various retrospective collections. Santa Dog is ground zero for The Residents. Everything that they were and are has progressed from this cornerstone little EP.

THE RESIDENTS - TUNES OF TWO CITIES @ 40

 

Marking it’s 40th anniversary this month is The Residents’ Tunes of Two Cities, which was issued in March of 1982. Though it was officially labeled “part two” of the infamous and unfinished Mole Trilogy, it does not technically constitute a continuation of the story begun by Mark of the Mole the previous year. The Residents considered it more of a prequel to Mark of the Mole and, rather than advancing the narrative, it seeks to illuminate the differences between the two cultures described in the story by presenting alternating examples of their popular music. In the case of the hedonistic, aquatic Chubs, the music is typified by a kind of mutant “jazz”. The industrious underground dwelling Mole music is, by contrast, expressed by more mechanically influenced hymns.

Technically, the album is notable for introducing the E-mu Emulator digital sampler into The Residents' production arsenal, one of the earliest commercially available keyboard samplers of its kind. This opened up a new vista of sounds for the band, though the primitive nature of the sampling technology of the time has tended to date recordings like this somewhat ungracefully. For many fans of the band, this album has become a demarcation point between their “golden era” and what has become known as their “digital decline”.

Personally, I have to agree that I much prefer the analogue classics that came before this. I largely gave up following their work after this release, though I have, in recent years, done some backtracking into some of their post “Mole” ‘80s releases and also enjoyed some of their more recent releases prior to the passing of Hardy Fox. This renewed interest was largely inspired by seeing them live on three separate occasions since 2011, experiences which renewed my appreciation for their craft.

THE RESIDENTS - FINGERPRINCE @ 45

 

February 15th marks the 45th anniversary of The Residents’ fourth LP, Fingerprince, which was released on this day in 1977. Technically, it was their third album to be released after Meet the Residents and Third Reich 'N Roll, but that’s only because their second album, Not Available, was withheld from actual release until 1978. It could also be considered their fifth album if you count the abandoned Warner Bros LP that was scrapped before releasing Meet the Residents in 1974. It’s all very confusing.

The original concept for Fingerprince was to issue a triple sided album, basically a double LP with the fourth side blank. This plan was eventually shelved due to budgetary restrictions. What was released on the album was the first two thirds and the remaining material was later issued in 1979 as a 7” EP called Babyfingers. All three parts of the album were finally reunited in 1987 when the album was reissued on CD. Subsequently, they have remained as a unit ever since. The 2018 pREServed edition of the album adds a second CD of unreleased outtakes, demos, live recordings and other bits of ephemera related to the album.

Musically, The Residents were in a transitional stage when recording this material as they were starting to evolve away from the raw, primitive approach of their first albums and were moving into more refined and concise compositions with streamlined, minimal arrangements. The rough edges are still there, but there’s more use of electronics coming to the fore and guitarist, Snakefinger, has a larger part in more of the songs. The production values for the recordings were also becoming more sophisticated. The album is split between sections of short songs on the first side with a long multi-movement instrumental “ballet” piece for the second side. The third “Babyfingers” movement reverts back to the short songs and then back to a longer piece to conclude the set.

Critical reception of the album was mostly positive with Jon Savage writing in Sounds that they sounded like a heavily warped hybrid between “Steely Dan” and “Frank Zappa”. Andy Gill wrote in NME that the extended instrumental, Six Things to a Cycle, brought to mind Harry Partch. The group were still lurking in the backwaters as independent oddballs, just the other side of “cult” status, but they were on the verge of cracking into more significant appreciation within the next couple of years. Historically, Fingerprince sits alongside the rest of the early catalogue as an essential listen from their “golden age”.

THE RESIDENTS - STARS AND HANK FOREVER @ 35

 

October 21st marks the 35th anniversary of The Residents most unlikely commercial success, Stars & Hank Forever!, which was issued on this day in 1986. It was Volume II in their American Composer Series, which began two years earlier with the release of the George & James album. For this second volume, the composers were Hank Williams on side one and John Philip Sousa on side two. Though the American Composer Series was intended to span as many as 10 volumes over 16 years, the project was abruptly abandoned after this second volume due to various logistical difficulties. These, in part, involved rising costs for licensing fees and the incompatibility of the project’s structure with the emerging CD format. The American Composer Series was built around two composers per release occupying separate sides of an LP. With CDs usurping vinyl at the time as the dominant release format, the split side concept didn’t work anymore.

To say the album was commercially successful does not necessarily mean that it was critically or artistically so, though it does have certain moments. While the first volume, which covered works by James Brown and George Gershwin, offered a lot of giddy interpretations for the group to indulge in, their irreverent approach maybe didn’t serve the revered nature of Hank Williams’ legacy. However, their toe tapping take on Kaw-Liga, which mounted the familiar “Indian” lament atop a rhythm section lifted straight from Michael Jackson’s hit, Billie Jean, proved to be extremely club friendly and The Residents found themselves suddenly in the unfamiliar position of being DJ faves in the underground clubs of the mid 1980s. Releasing the track in an extended 12” remixed format helped drive its popularity even more. That hit aside, however, their versions of other Williams classics like Jambalaya may have been seen by some as disrespectful, though personally, I find the Williams side pretty consistently enjoyable.

The Sousa side, on the other hand, offers up a far more challenging listening experience. The bombast of parade and marching music makes for some pretty brittle listening and the arrangements, with their accompanying sound effects intended to recreate the ambiance of a live parade, leave the whole side long mix of songs sounding jarring and alienating. A remix of this material without the sound FX was later released separately, though I’ve not bothered to check out that version.

The saddest aspect of this album is the fact it contains the last recordings done with frequent collaborator and unofficial “fifth” Resident, innovative guitar genius Snakefinger, before his untimely and tragic passing. This fatal blow was something of a culmination to a turbulent time for the band, which had gone through a lot of struggle thus far in the decade. With the Mole Trilogy faltering and failing to resolve itself into a completed project, its accompanying live tour nearly bankrupting them and then the American Composer Series going off the rails after only two volumes, the loss of Snakefinger must have dealt a serious blow to the group’s resolve. It’s no wonder they’d turn their attention to the realm of faith and religion with their next major project, God In Three Persons. Though this represented the end of the composer series, they would do a collection of Elvis Presley songs a few years later in 1989 for The King & Eye album.

THE RESIDENTS - MARK OF THE MOLE @ 40

Released in September of 1981, The Residents’ Mark of the Mole is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

After taking some time to decompress with something relatively “light” in the form of The Commercial Album in 1980, The Residents were ready to dig back into some serious conceptual ground again, similar to what they’d done with their epic and exhausting Eskimo LP from 1979. For this new project, they set their sights on something far more ambitious than a single album. The concept for this new project was to create a “six part trilogy” of releases to tell the tale of two vastly different fictional civilizations and their complex conflict with each other. Thus, they embarked on the creation of the infamous “Mole Trilogy”.

Mark of the Mole was the first chapter in this story, which told the terrible tale of the “Mole” people, a subterranean society who were driven from their underground homes by catastrophic flooding. The Moles were known for their work ethic and valued their labors above all else. As refugees, the Moles found themselves searching for new lands until they came across the aquatic “Chubs”, a race rooted in their hedonistic leisurely lifestyle. The Chubs initially welcomed the Moles as workers, but then rejected them when automation technology rendered them obsolete. Thus the conflict ensues.

The scale of this project proved to be rather more than the eyeball headed four had anticipated, but the project proceeded with some struggle. These efforts eventually resulted in The Residents mounting their first ever live tour after only ever having performed a couple of times in the prior decade of their existence. The complexity and expense of these endeavors would eventually take their tole on the group and there are rumors that these conflicts caused the eventual departure of at least one founding member of the group during this period. However, the touring and promotion of this release and the albums that followed on its heels raised the profile of the Residents to the higher echelons of “cult” status. Still, it didn’t make them rich, by any means.

Though Mark of the Mole was followed by releases such as The Tunes of Two Cities, Intermission and The Big Bubble, the narrative of The Mole Trilogy became very confused and fragmented and it was never made particularly clear if any of these releases was actually part of the “trilogy” proper. In that respect, the story of the Moles and Chubs never seemed to come to any resolution and the group moved on to other projects soon enough, abandoning the threads they’d woven thus far. Ultimately, it seems the Mole Trilogy proved to be a lesson learned as the group matured and became far more consistent when developing their larger conceptual works and bringing them to some kind of completion. In hindsight, however, the Mole story and the tours that were connected to it remain a high water mark for The Residents as far as creative depth and cultural impact are concerned.

THE RESIDENTS - THE THIRD REICH 'N' ROLL @ 45

 

 

In February of 1976, 45 years ago this month, The Residents released their 2nd official LP, The Third Reich 'n' Roll. While it was actually the third album they recorded, it was the second released as their prior LP was originally intended to be withheld form release as a conceptual exercise based on its title, Not Available. Thus Third Reich 'n' Roll became album 2 and NA was release a few years later.  

 

The origins of the album began back in 1972 with the filming of a short featuring the band on a set and in costumes made entirely of newspaper, which was eventually used to create the short "music video" version of Swastikas on Parade in 1974, the full version of which was also recorded that year. The second half of the album, Hitler Was a Vegetarian, was recorded in 1975. 

 

The concept for the album grew from an idea to do a collection of cover versions of pop songs from the 50s & 60s. As the group delved into this idea more, they began to understand the fascistic nature of popular music and the way in which it was designed, promoted and sold. Record labels imposed strict control over product and artists, manipulating and restricting their creative expressions in order to maximize commercial potential and also reinforce cultural stereotypes and norms as a means of maintaining the status quo within the civilization. To reflect this, the group made the controversial decision to incorporate Nazi symbols and iconography into the packaging and promotional materials, which included a bizarre swastika filled display window at a local San Francisco record shop that garnered much criticism and outrage. At this point in their career, they were barely a blip on the alternative music radar, but the record's achievements were enough to garner them some press. In the 31st of December 1977 issue of Sounds Magazine, Jon Savage described the album as "Funny – and frightening" and Peter Silverton described it as The Residents "One unqualified masterpiece", and the best party game of the 70s. 

 

Since its release, it has remained one of The Residents most iconic and eccentric releases, seeing numerous reissues in a multitude of occasionally elaborate and excessive packages. Personally, it's always been one of my all-time favorite albums from the group as it takes the hooks and accessibility of pop music and twists them into forms so exceptionally weird, one's sense of reality begins to unravel. It truly stands alone as one of the greatest experimental albums ever released.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - YELLO, CLARO QE SI

The Residents were one of the first indie bands to create their own corporate infrastructure for producing their products. Between Ralph Records and The Cryptic Corporation, they set up a system for recording, pressing, promoting and distributing the most idiosyncratic collection of vinyl on the market at the time. Soon after I started buying Residents albums, it became apparent to me that Ralph had other artists on offer and one of my first forays into these side roads was the 1981 sophomore LP by Swiss experimental trio, Yello, Claro Que Si.

Though they are now known as a duo, their first LPs were done by a trio consisting of Boris Blank, Carlos Peron & Dieter Meier (Carlos left by 1983). I think my initial attraction to this album came directly from the cover art, depicting a couple of very stylized, mid-century modern looking robots. The retro-futurismo of it all triggered some sort of latent nostalgia switch, even though I was only 18 at the time the album came out. It also just looked like a fun record and it definitely delivered on that.

While I was maybe expecting a Residents clone at first, I should have given them more credit because Yello turned out to be something distinctly their own from the start. It was equally as weird and alien sounding in a lot of ways, but also more accessible with its "pop" sensibility than anything from the eyeball wearing four. One could imagine most of these songs on some alternate universe radio station, someplace where good taste was the driving factor instead of profits, perhaps.

One of the most striking aspects of Yello's music was Dieter's vocals. He was an odd presence for fronting a "pop" band, being mature looking even then and not at all like the sorts of fellows generally behind the mic. And his vocal range and character were unlike anything I'd ever heard before. He could put on all sorts of strange personas and incarnations. From raspy growls to silky baritones, he was a distinct presence on each composition.

Musically, the album introduced me to a lot of very state of the art electronics and offered up an extremely sophisticated production. It was the kind of punchy, crisp production which was to set that bar for electronic music. It still incorporated some traditional musical elements, but it all sounded very modern and the arrangements were unique and full of unexpected dynamics.

As slick as this was, I still wasn't expecting Yello to become as iconic as they did in the next few years, particularly with the Oh Yeah single becoming a staple in cinematic soundtracks in the latter half of the 1980s. But this album was my introduction to the group and remains my sentimental favorite.