01	The Sleeper						02:59
	02	Whoopy Snorp						03:46
	03	Kamikazi Lady						01:41
	04	Boy in Love						02:58
	05	Shut Up! Shut Up!						01:13
	06	Anvil Forest						02:23
	07	Diskomo						04:34
	08	Jailhouse Rock						03:09
	09	Ups & Downs						03:06
	10	Scent of Mint						02:27
	11	Saint Nix						02:32
	12	Open Up						02:18
	13	From the Plains to Mexico						03:29
	14	In San Francisco			THE REPLACEMENT			02:04
	15	Dumbo the Clown						02:10
	16	Is He Really Bringing Roses?						02:37
	17	Time's Up						02:57
	18	Daydream Believer						02:58
	19	part I - Prelude for a Toddler			SAFETY IS A COOTIE WOOTIE			03:42
	20	part 2 - Toddler's Lullaby						02:40
	21	part 3 - Safety is a Cootie Wootie						04:05
	22	Daydream in Space						05:13

Residue Deux
Date of Release Apr 7, 1998
Styles Alternative Pop/Rock, Experimental

Residue Deux is a reconfigured version of the 1983 rarities/outtakes compilation Residue of the Residents; that album's twelve tracks are mostly present and accounted for (with a few minor changes), and ten new tracks ranging from 1983-1998 were added, including the brief song suites The Replacement and Safety is a Cootie Wootie. There are plenty of harsh textures and typical Residents instrumentals scattered over the album, with reinterpretations of "Jailhouse Rock" and "Daydream Believer" thrown in as well. Since it doesn't offer any new insights into the group, and since by design it carries no unifying concept like much of the best Residents work, Residue Deux is largely one for the diehards. - Steve Huey

1. The Sleeper (Residents) - 2:57
2. Whoopy Snorp (Residents) - 3:44
3. Kamikaze Lady (Residents) - 1:39
4. Boy in Love (Residents) - 2:56
5. Shut up! Shut Up! (Residents) - 1:11
6. Anvil Forest (Residents) - 2:21
7. Diskomo (Residents) - 4:32
8. Jailhouse Rock (Leiber/Stoller) - 3:07
9. Ups and Downs (Residents) - 3:04
10. Scent of Mint (Residents) - 2:25
11. Saint Nix (Residents) - 2:30
12. Open Up (Residents) - 2:16
13. From the Plains of Mexico (Residents) - 3:27
14. In San Francisco (Residents) - 2:02
15. Dumbo the Clown (Residents) - 2:08
16. Is He Really Bringing Roses? (Residents) - 2:35
17. Time's Up (Residents) - 2:55
18. Daydream Believer (Residents) - 2:56
19. Prelude for a Toddler (Residents) - 3:40
20. Toddler's Lullaby (Residents) - 2:38
21. Safety Is a Cootie Wootie (Residents) - 4:03
22. Daydream in Space (Residents) - 5:13


The Residents - Arranger
Cryptic Corporation - Producer
Fred Frith - Guitar

1998 CD Import 112744
1998 CD East Side Digital 81322



Residents, The [USA]
Updated 1/8/01

Discography
Santa Dog (EP) (72)
Meet the Residents (74)
The Third Reich and Roll (75)
Fingerprince (76)
Duck Stab! (EP) (77)
Duck Stab!/ Buster and Glen (78)
Not Available (78)
Eskimo (79)
Commercial Album (80)
Mark of the Mole (81)
The Tunes of Two Cities (82)
Intermission (EP) (83)
George and James (84)
Residue of the Residents (84)
Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? (84)
The Big Bubble (85)
The Census Taker (Soundtrack) (85)
Stars and Hank Forever (86)
Heaven? (86)
Hell! (86)
The Thirteenth Anniversary Show (Live in Japan) (87)
The Mole Show Live in Holland (87)
God in 3 Persons (88)
The King and Eye (89)
Cube-E: Live in Holland (90)
Freak Show (91)
Our Finest Flowers (92)
Gingerbread Man (94)
Have a Bad Day (96)
Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses (97)
Live at the Fillmore 1997 (98)
Wormwood (98)
Wormwood Live (99)
RoadWorms (00)


Reviews
The Residents - They've never shown their faces or given their names
According to legend, the Residents were school friends from Shreveport, Louisiana, who hopped into their car and high-tailed it to California in the late '60s, making it as far as San Mateo. Abandoning their car, they established their first residence and set about doing what they wanted to do. Not easy, since they wanted to make music, but had no idea how to play their instruments.

The music that they did make can best be divided into three periods. The first is from about 1969-1980, in which the band actually matured into something listenable. The first four releases (Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor, The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger, The Warner Bros. Album and Baby Sex) still remain unreleased as a whole. What has been released is heavily influenced by Frank Zappa, and made musical only by the presence of English guitar virtuoso Phil "Snakefinger" Lithman.

The Warner Bros. Album gave the group their name, since it was rejected by Warner Bros. and sent back to "Residents", due to the fact the group had not included a return name. The concept of anononymity was helped along by N. Senada (thought by some to be avant-Jazz composer Harry Partch), and the group decided to forever hide their identity. The early '70s albums used this mystique to hide a blatant amateurishness, even though the music is endearing in itself. Santa Dog and Meet The Residents are extensions of the unreleased Baby Sex, though a bit more cohesive and less offensive. The Third Reich and Roll features mutilated '60s radio nuggets thrown together into side-long suites. Fingerprince is probably the most progressive, originally intended as a three-sided album, featuring a number of shorter songs and the side-long percussive workout "Six Things to a Cycle". Duck Stab!/Buster and Glen stuck to more "normal" song structures, while Not Available, originally recorded in 1974 and intended to be unreleased until it was completely forgotten, is some sort of concept about souls and porcupines, etc. Eskimo featured mainly sound effects and "tribal" music, meant to be listened to while reading the stories in the liner notes about supposed Eskimo life. The culmination of this period was Commercial Album, a disk consisting of 40 one-minute songs.

The second period, from 1981-1987, is more chaotic. The Residents truly started the new decade with the Mole concept albums, meaning to release them as a six-part series, of which only parts one, two and four have been released. It dealt with the contact, war and ultimate forced integration between the Moles, a race of work-obsessed underground dwellers, and the hedonistic Chubs. The first record, Mark of the Mole, tells the story of the war, while the second, The Tunes of Two Cities, contrasts the musical styles of the two cultures. The Big Bubble is part four, supposedly a record released by a half-breed rock band for political reasons. The records resulted in an artistically successful, but financially disasterous world tour, documented best on 1987's The Mole Show Live in Holland. The second concept of the decade was the "American Composers' Series", of which George and James and Stars and Hank Forever are the only two full releases. The former, featuring selections by George Gershwin and James Brown, is one of the few Residents records to truly disappoint. Stars and Hank, featuring music by Hank Williams and John Philip Sousa, is better, at least on the Hank side. Vileness Fats is a soundtrack album to a short version of a video movie the group was working on in 1984, while Residue is an interesting compilation of outtakes. Heaven? and Hell! are also great compilations, including a number of hard-to-find singles, that would be of interest to beginners.

The third stage is that of a full concept band, and a trend toward more synthesized sounds after Snakefinger's death in 1988. God in 3 Persons, released along with an instrumental "soundtrack," tells the story of a huckster coming in contact with Siamese twins who have a true power of healing. The Cube-E performance, together with The King and Eye, is a show based on showing the roots of American music. Freak Show, which was later made into a CD-Rom, features stories about the participants and audience in a carnival sideshow. Gingerbread Man and Have a Bad Day are similar, both being tied to CD-Roms, and both featuring stories about tortured souls in the FS vein. Wormwood, the most recent release, features a number of violent and disturbing stories from none other than the Bible.

The reason for not reviewing each single album in its place is that Residents music must be taken as an entire body of work. The first period is probably the most interesting and adventurous, and the group has never sounded better than when working, or trying to work, with real instruments. Snakefinger was also a wonderful guitarist, and his best work is with the Residents during this period. Most of the '80s output is chaotic, a lot of it instrumental, and quite a bit unsatisfying. During this time half the group left, leading to a loss of creative direction, and Ralph Records, the record company that released everything, was going under. As for the third period, the group had trouble adjusting to life without Snakefinger. God in 3 Persons and the Cube-E related stuff was great, and Freak Show showed what the group could do with new digital technology. However, they got too involved in CD-Roms, and both Gingerbread Man and Have a Bad Day generally fall flat. Live at the Fillmore features performances from FS, GB and HaBD, all of which are much better than what was released. Also, a new direction was seen in the last part of the Fillmore performance, "Disfigured Night". The group has begun adding real instruments back into the mix, making the Wormwood project accessible, but still musically challenging.

The Residents' residence is currently thought to be in San Francisco. But who really knows? -- Eric Wincentsen

These guys did too much acid. Typical Ralph Records "I'm weirder than you are" fare. No chops.
Experimental rock. Bizarre. Good for getting rid of uninvited guests.
Possibly the most unique band anywhere, what they do can't really be easily compared to any other artists. Everything they do seems to defy convenient categorization, but the spirit in which they approach their music (and everyone elses) might be comparable to the early Mothers of Invention with Frank Zappa. Their sound is definitely odd, maybe strange or even weird, they often do mutant interpretations of pop songs, sometimes beyond recognition, or cloudy musical montages of voices, noise, music and dialogue. These guys are definitely too bizarre to appeal to the masses, but if you give them an open minded chance, they'll grow on you quickly. Best place to start: any of the late 70's albums, incl. Duck Stab, Fingerprince, Eskimo - even Not Available, but don't get them all at once - may result in overdose.
I was actually frightened by The Residents the first time I heard them. I'm sorta familiar with everything up to Eskimo, and I'd recommend buying *one* Residents album if you're adventurous. It probably doesn't matter which one. Really, I don't see that you'd sit and listen to them repeatedly; they're more like a band you'd just play occasionally for friends who haven't heard them.

Mysterious ultra-experimental band whose identities remain hidden behind enormous eyeballs. All their early stuff is excellent. Third Reich and Roll is a stream-of-conscience collage of a bunch of sixties songs, everything from "Light My Fire," to "Good Loving" to "In-a-gadda-da-vida," to "I’ve got love in my tummy," totally warped into another dimension, and many totally unrecognizable. Not Available is a bizarre rock (?) opera in four parts, totally alien and creepy and opaque. Eskimo uses homemade instruments to create an ethnic forgery much more fully realized than any of those by Can, and through the processed voices you can occasionally make out commercial jingles for stuff like Coke Cola. The other albums from this period are just as excellent, all sounding very different from each other and yet all sounding very much from the same unique band. Sometimes you’ll wonder if the Residents are from another world or something. Even the more song-oriented albums like the high energy Duck Stab/Buster & Glen and the first side of Fingerprince are utterly weird. The Commercial Album is a little less satisfying, with its concept of 40 one-minute songs. After that, they started working on longer concept projects (The Mole Trilogy, the Composers Series) but the actual music is slightly more conventional, almost approaching normal synth pop at times. I’ve also seen a couple of their rare live shows, which were very visual, more like experimental theatre, with other performers and elaborate sets. -- Rolf Semprebon



The Residents
Formed 1966 in Shreveport, LA
Group Members Snakefinger Chris Cutler Nessie Lessons
Styles Mixed Media, No Wave, Post-Punk, United States of America, Experimental, Avant-Garde

by Jason Ankeny

Over the course of a recording career spanning several decades, the Residents remained a riddle of Sphinx-like proportions; cloaking their lives and music in a haze of willful obscurity, the band's members never idenitified themselves by name, always appearing in public in disguise - usually tuxedos, top hats and giant eyeball masks - and refusing to grant media interviews. Drawing inspiration from the likes of fellow innovators including Harry Partch, Sun Ra, and Captain Beefheart, the Residents channelled the breadth of American music into their idiosyncratic, satiric vision, their mercurial blend of electronics, distortion, avant-jazz, classical symphonies and gratingly nasal vocals reinterpreting everyone from John Philip Sousa to James Brown while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of theatrical performance and multimedia interaction.

It was commonly accepted that the four-member group emigrated to San Francisco, California from Shreveport, Louisiana at some point in the early '70s. According to longtime group spokesman Jay Clem - one member of the so-called Cryptic Corporation, the band's representative body - they received their name when Warner Bros. mailed back their anonymous demo tape, addressed simply "for the attention of residents." Finding no takers for their oddball sounds, the Residents founded their own label, Ralph Records, for the purposes of issuing their 1972 debut "Santa Dog," released in a pressing of 300 copies which were mailed out to luminaries from Frank Zappa to President Richard Nixon. Their debut full-length, 1974's Meet the Residents, reportedly sold fewer than 50 copies before the group was threatened with a lawsuit from Capitol Records over its cover, a twisted, dadaesque parody of the art to Meet the Beatles.

The follow-up, 1974's neo-classical excursion Not Available, was recorded with the intention of its music remaining unissued; locked in cold storage upon its completion, only a 1978 contractual obligation resulted in its eventual release. 1976's Third Reich 'N' Roll was the next official offering, a collection of pop oldies covers presented in a controversial jacket portraying Adolf Hitler clutching an enormous carrot. After a 1976 concert in Berkeley, California which cloaked the Residents behind an opaque screen, wrapped up like mummies - the most famous of only three live performances mounted during their first decade of existence - they issued an abrasive 1977 cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," which became an underground hit on both sides of the Atlantic at the peak of the punk movement. As the decade drew to a close, the group released a flurry of recordings further building upon their growing cult following; among them were 1977's Duck Stab/Buster & Glen, 1979's Eskimo (purportedly a collection of native Arctic chants) and 1980's Commercial Album, a compilation of 40 one-minute mock advertising jingles.

In 1981 the Residents embarked upon their "Mole Trilogy," a prog-rock collection of albums - 1981's The Mark of the Mole, 1982's The Tunes of Two Cities and 1985's The Big Bubble - recounting an epic battle between a pair of tribes named the Moles and the Chubs; a lavish, multimedia tour, "The Mole Show," followed. In the interim, the group also mounted another ambitious project, the "American Composer" series, although only two of the projected titles - 1984's George and James (a reinterpration of songs by George Gershwin and James Brown) and 1986's Stars and Hank Forever (celebrating John Philip Sousa and Hank Williams) - ever appeared. Instead, in the wake of financial and corporate difficulties which resulted in the creation of a New Ralph label, the Residents issued the one-off God in Three Persons (a talking blues outing) and 1989's The King and Eye (a reinterpretation of Elvis Presley standards).

After losing control of the Ralph label as well as their back catalog, the Residents regained the rights to their music in 1990 and began reissuing long-out-of-print material as well as the new Freak Show, a meditation on circus sideshows and carnival dementia. Four years later, Freak Show was reissued as a CD-ROM, marking the group's first leap into the new digital interactive technology; The Residents Have a Bad Day followed in 1996, and included the soundtrack to the CD-ROM game "Bad Day on the Midway." In 1997, the band celebrated their silver anniversary with the release of the career-spanning overview Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses. Wormwood: Curious Stories from the Bible followed the next year, with Roadworms being issued in mid-2000. They followed that up with the awesome Icky Flix DVD, an incredibly detailed collection of their videos that featured both old and new soundtracks, 5.1 Digital Stereo Surround sound, countless hidden videos and indepth histories of each individual track. That was followed by one of their rare tours, which saw them incorporate the DVD into their live act and bring out guest singer Molly Harvey for some truly creative duets. The Petting Zoo retrospective followed in the spring of 2002, acting as a budget sampler for new fans and giving old fans something to tide them over while several high concept projects neared completion. The first was Demons Dance Alone, a complicated pop album that harkened back to the catchier material from Duck Stab and The Commercial Album.