Aaron Tanner — The Residents: A Sight for Sore Eyes( Book)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of those great American Avant pop/ satirical genre shifters The Residents, and what better way to start off celebrating this impressive milestone, than this new hardcover coffee table book that focuses on the visual side of this truly one-off project. A Sight For Sore Eyes Vol 1, is a three hundred and fifty-six-page tome that homes in on the projects first or so decades- and boy it’s one wonderfully strange, bizarre, and thoroughly fascinating visual journey.
The book appears on Indiana based Melodic Virtue- a small, artist-focused and independent publisher, who chart and preserve the legacies of underground bands in their limited-edition coffee table books. And of course, it’s the ideal home for The Residents, as they really are one of the granddaddies of the underground/ cult music scene. Since the late 60’s the anonymous collective have focused on creating work that both mocks/ sends-up pop culture, and celebrates the darker/ skewed side of human existence. Over their (to date) forty-seven studio albums the project has darted in & out of sonic genres- going from the wonky dada blending of easy listening, show music, rudimental avant rock, and off-colour funk that was their 1974 debut Meet The Residents. Onto the chilling ethno-ambient oddness of 1979’s Eskimo, though to the one-minute avant- pop of The Commercial Album, onto the more layered and theatrical concept albums such as 1988’s God in Three Persons, 1998’s Wormwood: Curious Stories from the Bible, and 2006 Tweedles . Coming fully up-to-date with last years Metal, Meat And Bone which saw the project severing an often aggressively sneering sonic platter of churning-at-times industrialized blues.
The book is presented in a blue hardcover- which features on its front cover one of the projects most known images a giant eyeball with a top hat on. On the back, we see the four-piece in their shadowy newspaper mask get-up, with the early Residents quote “Ignorance of Your Culture is Not Considered Cool”- and space for the numbered edition of 2000 copies (ours is blank as it’s a promo copy). Inside the cover, we get blue, and repeated eyeball and top hat imagery on the endpapers- as well in the back cover- a seven inch, featuring an unreleased track- but more on that later.
The book is largely visual-based, though dotted throughout we have quotes/ short write-ups, and the first of these comes in the form of a two-page introduction from Les Claypool of quirky funk metal band Primus. Here he talks about the first time he heard the music of The Residents at the age of nineteen and the impact this had- moving on he discusses seeing the project live over the years, and how the project has influenced both his own sonic output and family life. It’s a nice personal and down to earth introduction to the book- really highlight his passion for The Residents
Getting into the main body of the book and this is broken into nine chapters- each of these runs around the forty-page mark. We start off with the chapter “The Warner Bros. Album/ Baby Sex”- this focuses on the years 1970-1972, and when The Residents truly became The Residents after being a few years a nameless art collective. Featured in this chapter we get a great selection of visuals, going from never before seen early pictures of the four-piece, a selection of playful negatives. The Warner Bros. Album artwork (this was the demo the collective sent to the record company) and related paperwork including the infamous rejection letter. We have early-stage show pictures, photos of N. Senadas(one of the band's mysterious early collaborators) saxophone. Floor plans for their Sycamore Street building and inside the building photos.
Moving on next we have “Vileness Fats Santa Dog”, and this as its title suggest focuses on the collectives bizarre-yet-never fully finished film Vileness Fats, and the collectives first release the two-disc single 1972’s Santa Dog. The chapter features a great selection of colour & Black ‘n’ white stills from VF, including quite a few I hadn’t seen before. A few paragraphs from soundtrack composer Danny Elfman, regarding his encounters with The Residents in the 70’s. The original Santa Dog photo, postcards, and stills from the wacky Santa photo session- with the four-piece in beards, hats, and silly eyes/ teeth get-ups. Chapter three focuses on the projects first & fourth (to be released) albums, Meet The Residents & Not Available- here we find a great array of cover artwork, paper adverts for the debut, a good selection of quotes from the likes of They Might Be Giants John Linnell. Early hand drawings of the Not Available cover, and more wacky/ bizarre stills.
Chapter four focuses on the projects second to be released album The Third Reich ‘n’ Roll & the bands cover single Satisfaction- which went on to be an underground new wave hit. Chapter five takes in the projects third album Fingerprince, its smaller companion release Babyfingers, and the single The Beatles Play The Residents And The Residents Play The Beatles. Chapter six homes in on the projects most known/ influential release of their early career Duck Stab!/ Buster & Glen. Seven focuses on their weird ethno-ambient masterwork Eskimo, and its disco up twelve-inch Diskomo. Eight The Commercial Album & the important/ influential videos the album spawned. With the final chapter focusing in on the first two Mole albums- Mark of The Mole and Tunes Of Two Cities, the connected EP Intermission, and the projects first large/ but financially disastrous tour the Mole Show. Each of these chapters offers up a fascinating collection of photos, album artwork, paperwork, and a great selection of short-write-ups/ quotes from those who have been impacted by The Residents.
In the back of the book, we find a single-sided seven inch entitled “Nobody’s NOS”. This features just one three-minute track, which is meant to be a left off track from the 1978 album Not Available- it’s a blend of pounding and smashing drums, layers of angular horn sneer, blunt bass guitar & wiry guitars- all topped with the singing Res telling a tale singing. It sounds like we have elements here from the ’70s, but there are more modern mixing & elements here too. It’s certainly a great bonus treat to the book, and I wonder if there are any more lost bits from the album that could be sonically re-animated too.
In conclusion, A Sight For Sore Eyes Vol 1 is a wonderful start to the celebrations of The Residents fifty years of existence- with an amazing selection of visual fare from the early, through to classic years of this truly one-off project. At present, you can buy the book, for I think (compared to similar books) reasonable price of $75.00- but don’t hang around as this book is ltd to just 2000 copies!....so very much buy now, or regret later on eBay situation. To find out more and buy direct from the folks at Melodic Virtue, drop by here