Documentation: The Residents

[womzilla]

As I'm going through the process of recovering the music lost in my external hard drive crash early this month, I realize that I've never actually posted this anywhere.

Back in college, I discovered The Residents, one of the oddest of the odd balls in the avant-garde of American music. My favorite of their musical projects was their early album The Third Reich and Roll (1976), two twenty-minute collages of 1960s pop/rock music reinterpreted in painfully strange ways that demonstrate a deep understanding of exactly what made the music work, by systematically breaking every part of it. Their version of The Rolling Stones's "Satisfaction" is so otherworldly and demonic that Devo's version of it seems almost staid by comparison.

One of the enduring questions of the Residents (besides "Why do they do this?") is, "Who are they?" The actual identities of the members of the band have never been openly admitted. Famously, they perform concerts in face-hiding costumes, including their famous white-tail-and-giant-eyeball uniform which is featured in the video linked above. (My brother was convinced that one of his landlords in San Francisco was a member of the band.) However, there are a lot of clues, which the Wikipedia entry currently summarizes:

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 (Born 1947), Homer Flynn (born April 1945), Hardy W. Fox (born 1945), and John Kennedy in 1976, all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982.) The Residents themselves don't grant interviews, though Flynn and Fox have conducted interviews with 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.

Further (the Wikipedia continues), William Poundstone, in Big Secrets (1983), zeroes in on Fox and Flynn and makes a strong, though far from definitive, case. However, I had a valuable piece of additional information.

In the 1990s, when I was working for Crossover Technologies, one of our freelance artists was a very amusing and interesting woman. One of her many interesting and amusing anecdotes was that she had been one of the backup singers on Third Reich and Roll. She said that the Residents she met at the recording sessions were two men, one called "Homer" and the other called simply "H".

So, I'd say Poundstone had it exactly right.

Comments

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

Surely Matt Howarth knows the secret of the faces that lurk behind those giant eyeballs... and Professor Ed, of course, but Professor Ed knows everything.

Y'know, I still have trouble understanding why Matt Howarth isn't a bigger deal than he is. Those Annoying Post Bros. has to be one of the greatest comics ever released, and I'd say that even if Dieter Meier of Yello hadn't been a guest star.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that Matt Howarth, at his height, was about 90% genius. Unfortunately, that 10% gap often left his stories feeling unfinished or half-told. It doesn't help that his magnum opus was published in such a confused and confusing manner, with the Post Brothers comic making little or no attempt to bring readers up to speed if they had missed the earlier parts of the epic.

In these days of easy reprinting, I think that a comprehensive Bugtown reprint series--starting with the Heavy Metal stories and then continuing into the welter of comics--would find an audience. But I dunno.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Much of The Resident's music doesn't work, at least for me, but about a third is unmatched brilliance. I still through a few of their cuts on mix CDs now and again, especially the shorter bits on The Commercial Album.

And they seem to have inspired Reynaldo and the Loaf, so good for them twice.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded while listening to the Residents cut you linked of Los Punk Rockers (http://planetmondo.blogspot.com/2007/08/randomiser-number-2-never-mind.html). I found two cuts by them (this is one) at WFMU, I thought, but maybe I was wrong. My heart leapt up and broke when I found what seemed to be a link to their entire cover album of "Never Mind the Bollocks" (but wasn't). I expect that the other cut, "Holidays in the Sun" is findable too, at least. It might have been even growlier than this one.

(This place (http://tagoo.ru/en/?search=Los+Punkrockers&artist=on) seems to have both cuts, and yes, they're via WFMU. I didn't test the link because I already have the songs.)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

ps: Just found No Feelings (http://www.divshare.com/download/launch/4714523-ce9) as well.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Holy Kindness of Strangers! The blogger who had the whole thing up in 2005 answered my e-mail with a link to the whole album (http://www.strangereaction.com/LosPunkrockers/), and gave me permission to pass the link around.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Thanks much! I've grabbed it myself.