Well, i went back to the shop where I picked up "Meet The Residents" & "Commercial", lo and behold, the EPS disc of "Third Reich 'n' Roll! This'll be my evening soundtrack & I'll probably be giggling as they butcher & stew the sacred cow of 60s Nuggets.
There's a new interview with Homer: The Quietus | Features | Strange World Of... | The Strange World Of... The Residents - Homer Flynn Interviewed Sadly, from THIS segment, it looks like a 're-boot' of "Bad Day...." is NOT gonna happen! Boo, I say..... Multi Media Work: CD-ROM, Comic Book, Commercial Album etc. HF: We recently did a demo for a VR developer who was interested in potentially licensing Bad Day On The Midway. It didn’t happen, but we needed to get a computer together that could run the old software in order to do that. I have a friend who has an old Mac, and we were able to take that old computer and get Bad Day On The Midway playing. Freak Show, was originally an album and then there was interest from a bunch of British comic artists, Brian Bolland, Savage Pencil and some others, who were Residents fans and were very enthusiastic about creating a comic. Around that same time we connected with the Voyager company who were doing CD-ROMs. So there was music and a lot of the visual material had been created for the comic and then we connected with an artist called Jim Ludtke. He was amazing, one of the most brilliant people that I ever worked with. Artists often have a tendency to break down into two categories, you get people that are very good technically but aren’t really all that creative, and you have people who are wildly creative but who it’s hard to get their stuff to work, because they can’t fit it into the box, technically speaking. Jim Ludtke is one of a handful of people that I’ve ever worked with who was just absolutely brilliant at both. As for the possibility of working on something new in this area, with new technology - The Residents and the Cryptic Corporation are always open to new ideas and new forms but I have to say, that Bad Day On The Midway had a budget of $400,000 in 1993/94, making it far and away the biggest Residents project. It was a beautiful thing and there were a lot of talented people who worked on it and yet, five years later it was obsolete. At least personally, this made me a little wary of cutting edge technology, stuff which may or may not be around very long.
Reading the book now. This fills in all the gaps I was expecting from the movie. Taken together they do a great job of painting a fairly complete picture. A lot of stuff I didn't know...
By 'the book', do you mean the new Ian Shirly book? I own the older one he wrote, "Meet The Residents", and was wondering how different the two are.
Sorry - yes - the new book. Surprisingly comprehensive, especially about the early days. I an and I share many opinions about the whole cryptic corp vs residents controversy. Seriously though, a very enjoyable read. Once I'm finished, I will be ready to watch the movie again.
Could the people who frequent this thread help me? I'm trying to get into the Residents but having a hard time. I like avant-garde and weird, but I don't much care for novelty; the voice who seems to be 'lead singer' just seems to turn recent stuff into novelty. A lot of the 70s and 80s stuff seems bogged down by dated musical equipment. Any jumping-in suggestions? I like "Hello Skinny" quite a lot. The American Composer series leaves me colder. From the 90s on, the discography is hard to follow.
Commercial Album. 40 songs all 1 minute long. You are bound to like something. I still love this one from the album:
Well.. the 'dated' musical equipment wasn't dated... at the time. BUT.... I'll try to help... you can see the 'break' in the 'band' quite clearly in the post-MUTE years.... The resident who calls himself 'Charles Bobuck' has released a wealth of recordings WITHOUT the 'singer'. IMO, I would start with "Smell My Picture", which you can get from their Bandcamp site! Smell My Picture, V1 (Pardon Me) | Residents Smell My Picture, V2 (Twilight Zone) | Residents
Essential Residents albums : (imho) Meet The Residents Not Available The Third Reich 'n' Roll Fingerprince Duck Stab! / Buster & Glen Eskimo The Commercial Album Mark of the Mole The Tunes of Two Cities Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? Freak Show Demons Dance Alone Animal Lover The Bunny Boy (as for instrumental / Bobuck titles , will need to do some research)
13th Anniversary Show is essential. And if we are calling Demons Dance Alone essential, we might as well call the live album from that tour essential as well, it's very very good. Other favorites of mine include Big Bubble, God In Three Persons, Our Finest Flowers, Wormwood and the Talking Light Live At Bimbos, which I think is only available as DVD.
There was a VERY limited official double cd-r actually, but you had to act VERY quickly... they'd sold out in minutes IIRC.
I like to think the 'story' he tells about meeting James Brown, was when I saw The RZ in Vegas... back during the "Wormwood" tour!
So the editing and all is OK? I read the earlier edition some time ago (Meet The Residents), and I seem to recall thinking it could've used another round or two of proofreading.
It reads nicely to me - very conversational. I'm a fan of the early Rez era so take it with a grain of salt, but I am finding it difficult to put the book down. For a fairly thin volume, it contains a lot of information. Very much about the evolution of the Residents as a recording and performing entity. Just curious, in light of the announcement that Chuck is leaving his eyeball behind, does that mean the Residents are essentially done as a recording entity at this point? It sure sounds that way. If so, what would have been their 'official' last album? Coochie Break?
It is worth considering, given all the games the Residents have played with their identities over the years, whether this whole thing of giving themselves 4 identities and then declaring that first Carlos and then Chuck quit the band is just another game they are playing with the concept of identity and anonymity. I pretty much assume that is the case. Taking anything these guys say about their identities and membership at face value seems to be missing the point of the whole enterprise.
There is a new album in the works. Something about trainwrecks. BTW, Coochie Brake was really an album by Sonidos de la Noche, i.e. without 'Randy'.
Glad you're liking it! For me, it's the 'collection' that proves that, while Mr. Bobuck may be heading in a different direction, he won't always be a 'serious' as some of his instrumental 'pieces' have been.
Yeah, I subsequently flipped through a few other Bobuck releases on Bandcamp there, and while I was quite fond of them (I want to explore more), I can see that they were certainly lacking in whimsy. That's not a negative, as far as I'm concerned. Why does he have a name? I mean, all humans do! but I thought anonymity was a Residents thing?
THIS SITE .... may not give you all the answers..... but, he 'introduces himself' to all who care... Welcome Sadly, it looks like many of his 'stories' have been deleted!! The were compiled under "Test Tubes Of Tomorrow"
