Residents, The - Refused '1999 / 2021

Tracks list

Tracklist:

01. Santa Dog 84 (Unfinished; a Work in Progress)
02. Fire
03. Lightning
04. Explosion
05. Aircraft Damage
06. Flood
07. Santa Dog 78
08. Famine
09. Santa Dog 88
10. Plague
11. Santa Dog N.Y.E
12. Pestilence
13. Where Are Your Dogs? Show Us Your Ugly!
14. Fire 99 / Santa Dog 2nd Millennium


 Read MoreMeet the Beatles!It was commonly accepted that the artists and
musicians who would come to be known as the Residents first met in Shreveport,
Louisiana, during the early 60s, and late in the decade, they relocated to
California, eventually settling in San Francisco. They began making music
together, recording with the help of guitarist Philip Lithman (aka Snakefinger)
and N. Senada, a mysterious mentor to the group who was long rumored to be
Captain Beefheart. The group had no name at the time, and according to longtime
group spokesman J. Clem -- one member of the Cryptic Corporation, the bands
representative body -- they received their name when Warner Bros. mailed back
their anonymous demo tape, addressed simply for the attention of residents. (The
tape would see limited release in 2018 as The Warner Bros. Album, and a
collection of early recordings would be issued in 2013 using the after-the-fact
group name the Delta Nudes). 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, 1974s Meet the Residents, reportedly sold fewer than 50
copies before the group was threatened with a lawsuit from Capitol over its
cover, a twisted Dada-esque parody of the artwork for Meet the Beatles, though
the artwork remained unchanged.

The Third Reich N RollThe follow-up, 1974s 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. Released in 1976, The Third Reich N Roll was
their next official offering, two extended medleys of radically overhauled pop
oldies covers presented in a controversial jacket portraying a Nazi resembling
Dick Clark clutching an enormous carrot. After a 1976 concert in Berkeley,
California that 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, where the group began to find an
appreciative audience. As the decade drew to a close, the group expanded their
growing cult following with 1977s Duck Stab/Buster & Glen, a reissue of two
early EPs. 1979s Eskimo was the first Residents album to enjoy major coverage in
the music press and represented a critical and commercial breakthrough for the
musicians. The record was purported to be an adaptation of traditional Inuit
folktales and melodies, though a careful listen revealed this was a put-on.
1980s Commercial Album was a set of 40 pop songs, each 60 seconds long; the
group created short films for several of the tunes, and purchased 40 one minute
commercial spots on a major San Francisco radio station, with each of the albums
songs being played once over the course of several days.

The Tunes of Two CitiesIn 1981 the Residents launched their Mole Trilogy, a prog
rock collection of albums -- 1981s The Mark of the Mole, 1982s The Tunes of Two
Cities, and 1985s The Big Bubbles -- recounting an epic battle between a pair of
tribes named the Moles and the Chubs, though The Big Bubbles was billed as Part
Four of the series and a proper finale was never completed. A lavish, multimedia
tour, The Mole Show, followed, which marked the first extended live tour for the
group. They also mounted another ambitious project, the American Composer
series, although only two of the projected titles -- 1984s George and James (a
reinterpretation of songs by George Gershwin and James Brown) and 1986s Stars
and Hank Forever (celebrating John Philip Sousa and Hank Williams) -- ever
appeared. In the wake of financial and corporate difficulties brought on by the
expense of staging The Mole Show, the Residents lost control of the Ralph
Records catalog, and their next two albums were released by other labels --
1988s God in Three Persons (a talking blues outing issued by Rykodisc) and 1989s
The King and Eye (a reinterpretation of Elvis Presleys life and music released
by Enigma Records).

Have a Bad DayThe Residents regained the rights to their music in 1990; they
formed the New Ralph label and began reissuing long-out-of-print material as
well as Freak Show, a meditation on circus sideshows and carnival dementia. Four
years later, Freak Show was reissued as a CD-ROM, marking the groups first leap
into the new digital interactive technology; 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 its 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 (songs
from Wormwood as performed in the stage show) being issued in mid-2000. They
followed that up with the 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 in-depth histories of each
individual track. A subsequent tour incorporated the DVD, while guest singer
Molly Harvey joined the band on-stage for some truly creative duets. Several
high-concept projects followed the 2002 compilation Petting Zoo. The first was
Demons Dance Alone, a complicated pop album that recalled the catchier material
from Duck Stab and The Commercial Album. The live retrospective Kettles of Fish
on the Outskirts of Town contained three CDs and a DVD.

Animal LoverDespite the release of so much old content, new material wasnt in
short supply. Their releases throughout the latter end of the 2000s first decade
included Animal Lover (2005), Tweedles! (2006), The River of Crime (2006), The
Voice of Midnight (2007), The Bunny Boy (2008), The Ughs! (2009), Ten Little
Piggies (a sneak peek at projects in the pipeline, released in 2009), and
Coochie Brake in 2011. 2010 saw the group launch a tour that presented them in a
new light; performing without extensive props or dancers, the Residents played
as a three-piece, introducing gregarious lead singer Randy Rose clad in a
grotesque old-age mask, accompanied by guitarist Bob and multi-instrumentalist
Chuck, both sporting dreadlocks and robotic face gear. The trio was documented
on the 2013 album Ten Two Times, as well as 2014s The Wonder of Weird and
Marching to the See: The Wonder of Weird Tour, and 2015s Shadowland: Part 3 of
the Randy, Chuck & Bob Trilogy. Chuck was widely believed to be the same artist
who released a handful of solo projects under the moniker Charles Bobuck, who in
turn was alleged to be Hardy Fox, a longtime Cryptic Corporation figure and
occasional Residents spokesman.

The Ghost of HopeIn 2017, Fox revealed in a blog post that he had left the
Cryptic Corporation and would no longer be working with the Residents; one of
his last projects with the entity was one of their most idiosyncratic concept
albums, The Ghost of Hope, inspired by train accidents of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Fox made clear that the Residents would go on without him,
and putting another twist to the notion of the groups identity, the band
released an ambitious project in 2018 called I Am a Resident!, in which fans and
admirers presented their interpretations of songs from the Residents catalog,
along with an extended mashup mix assembled from the submissions for the
projects. The Residents also took a step toward preserving their legacy with a
series of pREServed Edition reissues, presenting remastered and expanded
versions of Meet the Residents, Fingerprince, Duck Stab/Buster & Glen, and Third
Reich N Roll. On October 30, 2018, Hardy Fox died at age 73 after battling brain
cancer. Recorded in 1971 in a failed attempt to secure a record deal, B.S. --
originally titled Baby Sex -- appeared as a bootleg in 2015 and was given an
official release in 2019.

Its Metal, Meat & Bone: The Songs of Dyin DogIn May 2020, the Residents
introduced a new track, Die! Die! Die!, featuring guest vocals from Pixies
frontman Black Francis. The track was a preview of the LP Its Metal, Meat &
Bone: The Songs of Dyin Dog, issued the following July. The album found the
Residents interpreting the work of fictive bluesman Alvin Snow, whose recordings
the group reissued on the 2019 set The Residents Present Alvin Snow aka Dyin
Dog, which collected ten songs on five 7 vinyl singles. 2020 also saw the
release of Eyeful, which gave a physical release to a handful of download-only
recordings from 2011, and Cube-E Box: The History of American Music in 3 E-Z
Pieces, an expansive collection of rare live and studio material related to The
King & Eye. ~ Mark Deming

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