A two-in-one review of releases from The Residents that have made the journey from fan myth to bedraggled bootleg to majestic restoration. ‘A Nickle if Your Dick’s This Big’ – a coming together of the fabled ‘Warner Bros Album’ (or, as it’s still referred to on the sleeve, ‘The W***** B*** Album’) and ‘B.S.’ (‘Baby […]
If you only buy one seven-disc live dissection of 20th Century popular music by an avant-everything collective, make it this one. Already tremendously unwieldy and self-regarding in its original incarnation, the reissue of The Residents’ attempt to disseminate American popular music is now bigger in every way, an effort which only suits one possible person – […]
The Cryptic Corporation’s tireless piecing together of studio crumbs shows no sign of slacking. ‘God in Three Persons’ represents a milestone for The Residents, a period when they were forced to adapt to outside forces impacting both the way they worked and how they were experienced by their audiences. We’re in 1988 and the CD has […]
At six discs and over three hours of ‘new’ material, there is no doubting that The Residents’ reissue programme’s latest instalment is an abject lesson in how to both treat your audience and your catalogue with reverence. Now literally more than a trilogy and nearer a saga, the project was a result of both ambition […]
Music dullards will often, frothing at the mouth, offer well-meant but always hopeless tips as to how to tackle a band’s catalogue you are unfamiliar with. “DON’T listen to the one with all the hits, start with this bootleg of rare B-side performances first!” “It’s best you listen to them in this order – 3,1,4,2,8,7,5,6.. […]
1979 – the year of the eyeball. It was with the release of the album, ‘Eskimo’, that The Residents donned their tuxes and top hats and unveiled their ocular visages. From shadows and collages emerged an immediately recognisable band, though there was still no further clarity as to whom lurked beneath. It wasn’t the only […]
In 1967, to extract himself from a contract he had with Bang Records, Van Morrison recorded 31 songs, reputedly improvised and all, certainly, examples of Van putting in zero effort, even by his standards. It worked, and Van was able to carry on with his career elsewhere, one of the most notorious examples of throwing […]
When The Mothers of Invention released ‘Freak Out!’ in 1966, although it was groundbreaking in its vision and appropriately ignored by the record-buying public, it was very much an album that fitted its environment and reflected the gnarled and disgusting elements that the 1960s did a terrific job of airbrushing. In contrast, The Residents’ debut, 1974’s Meet […]
The Residents Present: Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982 This could be one of the most surprising retrospectives released this year. Not that it exists – maybe a few years ago, the notion of collecting some of the label’s releases would’ve been considered too niche, but Cherry Red’s ultra-deep Residents digging has put paid to […]
The Residents – Demons Dance Alone (pREServed re-issue) I’ve long since lost track of whether these releases are in any sort of order, but let’s at least rejoice that so much time and care has been given to a band’s legacy which could so easily have disappeared into complete obscurity. Of course, we’re still on […]
