As the legend goes, the band met Bavarian Avant-gardes, N.Senada who supposedly developed a new musical form, based upon Phonetic Organization. The group utilized this strange structure throughout their 70�s work. Their third album THE 3RD REICH N� ROLL, which seemed like an utter mess of noise on the surface, upon further inspection it reveals much more to the madness.
The album consists of two suites, �Swastikas on Parade� & �Hitler was a Vegetarian� which intermixed numerous tunes from the 50 & 60�s into a sounds cape, and this was way before sampling & mixin�. But this was only the beginning; The Residents have always been way ahead of the public on most uses of media. They began working w/ film very early and their early experimental videos are part of The NY Museum of Modern Art�s permanent collection.
The group has always dealt in concepts not individual songs. They got their first critical acclaim for their ESKIMO (�79) album which was instrumental album that painted an envirmental picture of the artic. They followed this project with THE COMMERCIAL ALBUM as a quasi-protest to the fact they would never get radio airplay. It featured 40 one minute songs. At the time the band actually bought commercial time on a California station to play the whole album. Much of the 80�s saw the group involved in even larger projects. The MOLE TRILOGY, took several years and five albums to complete. They had a whole story about two competing societies, the Moles & Chubs who classed in all ways. The other project, The American Composer�s Series was never completed. The concept was to make 20 albums over the 16 years featuring their interpretation of tow very different composers on each release. There were only two released before they lost interest; GEORGE & JAMES [Gershwin & Brown] (84) and STARS & HANK FOREVER [Sousa & Williams] (86). The next such project on Elvis took them off in another whole project covering the history of American Music in general, CUBE-E (89). I really looked forward to the completion of the initial project � dreaming of pairing such as; Brian Wilson & Charles Ives or Zappa & Copland or Todd Rundgren & I. Berlin. Along the way the group began occasionally touring when a project struck them; they were never about being a band just playing some tunes on a stage, just like they have never been just musicians. Additionally they started to compose soundtracks for very diverse projects, "Centustaker" movie, PeeWee's Playhouse, several MTV cartoon series and "The Hunter; World of Preditors" for the Learning Channel.
As the 90�s progressed the Residents� music became a bit more accessible as their musicianship & uses of electronic instruments increased, but it never detracted from the originality. As the group was at the forefront of other innovative media, they were the first to get entrenched in interactive media and CD-Roms; FREAKSHOW (90), GINGERBREAD MAN(94) and HAVE A BAD DAY (96). A controversial WORMWOOD (98) CD & show documented a collection of curious Bible stories closed out the 90�s. The new millennium saw the group focusing on reliving their almost 30 year past, then new project DEMONS DANCE ALONE (02) perhaps their most accessible project of all feature even more participation from Molly Harvey, the only female member who has to this day officially shown her face. 2005�s ANIMAL LOVERS is perhaps my least favorite project so far in their history, the beloved vocals from the original member MR. SKULL are very limited and choral vocals are featured. But I look forward to the future as always, the group has never disappointed and they have always made it very interesting for the die head fans with numerous limited released CDs for the US.
The Residents have released two great RetrospectiveCareer CD Box Sets;
HUDDLE MASSES is a 4 CD set which covers the first 25 years arranged in converse order and featured condensed mix versions of there longer pieces and a number of rarites. KETTLE OF FISH
is a Live Recording Retrospective including 3 CDs and one DVD. Among their various DVD releases, I would recommend ICKY FLIX which covers all the videos navigated in a unique way,
[also there are two different soundtracks for each song - the original or newly recorded versions],
THE COMMERCIAL ALBUM DVD, which has 40 different videos accompanying the original one minute songs and their 2004 tour for DEMONS DANCE ALONE is also pretty interesting.
I would recommend starting your collection w/; PETTING ZOO {latest sampler} , CUBE-E ,
NOT AVAILABLE (78) , GOG IN THREE PERSONS (88), DEMONS (02) or ICKY FLIX (01)
residents.com theresidents.co.uk ralphamerica.com
