The 80's Through A Series of Tubes; Part Two w/The Residents

I remember the first time someone told me about The Residents. I think it was my friend Josiah. I had spent the night in his dorm room and was wading through his record collection. He had a lot of great stuff and when I came across The Commercial Record he got this very devious grin on his face and grabbed it from my hands before I could really comment on it.

As each minute long song played it's course on his turntable, I felt dumbstruck by the music. Each song was a minute long, and as my friend was explaining to me as they played, meant to be repeated three times in order to become the "perfect" pop song, since the minute long clips consisted of a verse and a chorus and a pop song is simply those things repeated over and over again. The music sounded deranged, a bit of Captain Beefheart meets Moondog meets a lot of drugs, maybe. It was a little hard to pinpoint at times.

"Who the hell are these guys?" I asked.

His grin opened up to me, becoming larger and even more devious looking. "No one knows who they are."

Of course, I thought he was simply messing around with me, so I shook my head at him and said, "And how is that possible?"

And so Josiah proceeded, with an ever widening grin, to tell me all about The Residents.

The band, living in San Francisco, had been together since the early 70's. The Commercial Album, which had been self-released in 1980, was not their first album. Indeed, it wasn't their last either, because the band was still together (as far as anyone knew) and making music.

"How did they get their name?" I asked. "And how does no one know who they are? Do they ever play live?"

Josiah answered each question gleefully. It's wonderful when a friend obviously takes pleasure in introducing another friend to something new. The story behind how they ended up with a name like The Residents is probably my favorite story about a band, ever. Apparently, the band, having sent a major label their work, hadn't written any names down for the return address, so when the major label rejected the recording and sent it back to them, they'd written "To The Residents" on the return package, and that's how The Residents (as a band name) were born.


We don't know who they are, because in pictures and when the band appears publicly, they are always wearing masks and costumes. Most notably, the masks are of huge eyeballs with tophats and often they dress in suits to match the tophats. So, that's how no one knows who they are and yes, they make public appearances. Like this one, on Canada's MuchMusic in 1986;



And here they are playing live in Oslo that same year;