SIDE A - Fire
SANTA DOG
Double 45rpm Single
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SIDE A - Fire |
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| SIDE B - Lightning | ||
| SIDE C - Explosion | ||
| SIDE D - Aircraft Damage |
The Residents' debut release was distributed on their own imprint, Ralph Records, in December 1972. It was essentially home-recorded and produced, with a total of 400 copies printed. The copies were mailed to the Residents' friends and families, not to mention Frank Zappa (returned — it was an old address) and President Nixon (refused by the White House Post Office).
Santa Dog was a double set of 45s containing 4 songs, each written and led by a different Resident: "Fire," "Lightning," "Explosion," and "Aircraft Damage." (The last track was an excerpt from the Residents' film-then-in-progress, Vileness Fats.) "Fire" has since become something of a signature song: The Residents have re-recorded it as "Santa Dog '78," "'84" (that one unfinished), "'88," "'90," "'92," "'99," and 2000 ("Santa Dog for Gamelan Orchestra"), as a milemarker for the group's stylistic changes.
RATING: 9
Make no mistake: in 1972, or in whatever year this is, Santa Dog is as weird as it gets. It sounds exactly like what my friends and I might have come up with after buying a bunch of instruments and practicing for a week. I love it.
I couldn't tell you WHAT was so great about it, mind you. I'll try, though: it's as unique as any music ever was, for one thing. It's also the sound of people who don't know what the Hell they're doing, and are doing it anyway. There's a real sense of daring to that—experimenting without knowing how your materials work—that I find kind of inspiring, especially when the results are as visionary as this.
I think the real trick, though, is that the weirdnesses of Santa Dog come in bursts of repetition. "Fire" is all riff and refrain, with most of it circling back to "Santa Dog's a Jesus Fetus, has no presents in the future." All of it is one chord, with nonsense words strung together and endlessly repeated: "Fleeting and a sleeting scene of snowness severed sleeves (bing bing bing, bong bong bong, snowness severed sleeves)" —maddening, but then the madness is the point isn't it?
The hooky repetition keeps going, too. "Lightning" is based around a rhythmic pattern (long-long-short-short-short-long, for you musicologists) and screwball vocal chants, one of which is even in English! "Explosion" is barely anything at all, save for an off-key "Jingle Bells" melody and some gorgeous violuns. Then there's "Aircraft Damage," talky excerpts from Vileness Fats that are pretty much poetic chants, with some musical help from The Singing Lawnchairs. The chants are nonsensical, but the characters say them with such joy that you're sucked in. "New Mexico delivers WEESCOOSA!"
It's certainly original, always imaginative, and before you know it, irresistible. If only every band's debut got off on that foot.