1999
REFUSED
SANTA
DOG '99
Special
Release
Santa Dog '84
(unfinished) (a work in progress) (1984-99)
Fire (1972)
Lightning (1972)
Explosion (1972)
Aircraft Damage (1972)
Flood (1999)
Santa Dog '78 (Fire) (1978)
Famine (1999)
Santa Dog '88 (1988)
Plague (1999)
Santa Dog NYE (live) (1990)
Pestilence (1999)
Where are your Dogs? Show us your Ugly! (1992)
Fire '99/Santa Dog 2nd Millennium (1999)
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT*
In December 1999, the Residents
released "Santa Dog '99" as a free MP3 song through RalphAmerica's
website. Shortly afterwards, they
released Refused through RalphAmerica, in a limited edition of 1333.
Refused included the newly re-titled and lengthened "Fire '99;"
four additional "Santa Dog" tracks for 1999 ("Flood," "Famine,"
"Plague," and "Pestilence"); a freshly-appended version
of the unfinished "Santa Dog '84," now
labeled "a work in progress;" a bootleg live recording of "Santa
Dog" from New Year's Eve 1989/90, previously only released on a UWEB compilation;
and, as usual, all the previous editions of "Santa Dog."
The cover of Refused
shows a photograph of the copy of the copy of Santa
Dog that the Residents had mailed to then-President Nixon in 1972.
That package had been returned to the group unopened, and in the photograph
it still bore the 27-year-old Ralph Records mailing label that was stamped "REFUSED"
by the White House Post Office.
REVIEW
RATING: 9
YES!!!!!!!
They finally made it: the perfect
Santa Dog sequel! Santa Dog '99
is not only the best non-1972 "Dog" (no rendering outdoes the model),
it's a kaleidoscope of the Residents' sound at the turn of the century. Isn't
that enough? No? Then it's also their most adventurous music since I don't know
when. Still not enough? It also throws in the Ghost of Residents
Past AND the Ghost of Residents yet to come. God, it's so great!
Let's ignore the older stuff
here. That leaves us five and a half (with the retooled "'84"
as the half) new "Santa Dog" tracks to work with. Call the Unfinished
an intro (the past and the present collide there, see, and the "work in
progress" flag stands in for the future—the whole story summarized
before Chapter One!) Then you have "Flood," a sort of lush modern-classical
thing; by "Santa Dog, Santa Dog, where do you go?" they've got you
right where they want you. And you stay there for the short, funky (almost IDM-ish)
"Famine," the mandatory House version in "Plague," and the
pounding rhythm-and-chants of "Pestilence." And after all four Horsemen,
you're STILL unprepared for how good "Fire '99" is. It's like a Russian
novel: more musical ideas than you can count, twisitng and turning in directions
you'd never guess (from musique-concrète to George Gershwin). And all
this with the most familiar tune in their songbook. It's hard not to see this
"Santa Dog" as a major work.
Listen to the original 1972
tracks again and remember what made them great. They were completely naive,
but so dairng that they crossed over into ingenious. They're funny. And complex.
And experimental. And visionary. And damn it all, they just sound great. In
1999, the Residents are not so naive and the vision is narrower, but that's
because they've had three decades of experience to realize that earlier vision.
And all those other qualities, they've still got in spades. What else can you
say?
How about, "YES!!!!!!!"
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