- 3 weeks ago
Dive into the mysterious and groundbreaking world of The Residents, one of the most influential and enigmatic avant-garde music groups in history, with Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents (2015) — a compelling documentary that explores creativity, anonymity, and radical artistic freedom.
This critically acclaimed documentary uncovers the philosophy behind the legendary concept of “Obscurity,” where artists create without concern for fame, identity, or commercial success. It showcases how The Residents pushed the boundaries of experimental music, visual art, performance, and multimedia storytelling, influencing generations of underground and experimental artists worldwide.
Through rare archival footage, interviews, and behind-the-scenes insights, this film reveals the evolution of The Residents and their unique approach to art, where mystery is part of the message and creativity knows no limits.
Whether you're a fan of experimental music, avant-garde cinema, or cultural documentaries, this film offers a deep and thought-provoking experience into one of the most secretive and innovative artistic collectives ever formed.
This critically acclaimed documentary uncovers the philosophy behind the legendary concept of “Obscurity,” where artists create without concern for fame, identity, or commercial success. It showcases how The Residents pushed the boundaries of experimental music, visual art, performance, and multimedia storytelling, influencing generations of underground and experimental artists worldwide.
Through rare archival footage, interviews, and behind-the-scenes insights, this film reveals the evolution of The Residents and their unique approach to art, where mystery is part of the message and creativity knows no limits.
Whether you're a fan of experimental music, avant-garde cinema, or cultural documentaries, this film offers a deep and thought-provoking experience into one of the most secretive and innovative artistic collectives ever formed.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00Okay, that should be recording now, I hope it is.
00:00:29There is a long history of masked people in pop culture.
00:00:39In a way, I think of the residents like the rock and roll version of masked wrestlers.
00:00:43You don't really know who they are, they're a little bit like superheroes, secret identities and all that.
00:00:48This is like ancient humans jumping over a fire and storytelling.
00:00:53It really taps into something that's so primal and so universal.
00:00:58They painted an incredible canvas. One minute it's tribal, the next minute the bowels of hell opened up.
00:01:10At first I was like, what the hell is this? But then it drew me in.
00:01:14The visual element is incredible. The images that come across when you listen to their music, it definitely puts you in a space that's odd, yet whimsical, yet kind of scary.
00:01:26I loved it from the first moment that I heard them. There was nothing like them.
00:01:35This was a group that came out of the arts, a group that really understood language and was very sensitive to music.
00:01:50They're this mysterious band, who are they?
00:01:52They have their own story, their own myth.
00:01:57For the residents to be anonymous gives them license to do anything.
00:02:08I'd sit around and wonder, is it one guy or is it four guys?
00:02:12There were rumors flying around everywhere about who they really were.
00:02:16Somebody told me that George Harrison was one of the residents and I believed it for like three or four years.
00:02:21It's Bono and Eddie Van Halen. That's exactly who it is. I'm spilling the beans right now.
00:02:26If I found out that the residents were David Byrne and Bob Seger, I'd be so stoked.
00:02:33Whether or not you're a man, woman, or werewolf, it doesn't really matter to me.
00:02:37It could be Barack Obama, if you enjoy it. That's the important thing. Success.
00:02:44The residents are offering a different perspective for freaks, because there are plenty of freaks out here.
00:03:02For a lot of people, it's very spiritual, their love for the residents.
00:03:05I've talked to so many people who have said, the residents saved my life.
00:03:10It's this deep, deep, deep connection that really hits them in a place that's beyond a pop culture affection.
00:03:19It's simple to call them a band, given that they perform music, but there's a lot more going on far beyond that.
00:03:27Everything about the residents is a paradox. By being willfully obscure, not showing your face, not saying who you are, you become famous.
00:03:37No matter how counter-culture you want to look at them, the heart and the ambitions of the residents seem to be the USA at its best.
00:03:47They just figure out how to do things and do them.
00:03:50The fact that they're still doing it 40 years later is just really, really inspiring to me.
00:03:55The San Francisco-based multimedia troupe called The Residents have managed to remain our mystery for the past 20 years.
00:04:02Never photographed without some strange costume, never interviewed, never identified in any way.
00:04:07So who are these people?
00:04:09The Residents!
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00:04:12The Residents, ladies and gentlemen, The Residents.
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00:06:30We were from an area that in the late 1960s was real conservative.
00:06:37We three, four, well actually five, were not that way and were looking for new things,
00:06:45whether it was music or art or whatever it was.
00:06:51I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana.
00:06:54The residents, at least some of them, went to the same high school and same college that
00:06:59I did.
00:07:00So they weren't really the residents at that time, but I had contact with them and, you
00:07:05know, kind of a vague passing friendship or something.
00:07:11Well, you know, the South is not always all that nice of a place.
00:07:15It's really strange to think in terms of that also being the Civil Rights era.
00:07:21And that was what was going on in the South.
00:07:23And there was a real sense that the South was a place to get away from.
00:07:27I mean, it was a place to get away from.
00:07:29It was a place to get away from.
00:07:31It was a place to get away from.
00:07:33It was a place to get away from.
00:07:35And that was what was going on in the South.
00:07:37And there was a real sense that the South was a place to get away from.
00:07:41And you know that in California, the hippie thing is happening, and it's embracing this
00:07:45whole thing of, you know, come be weird with us.
00:07:48And it's like, I mean, what are you going to do?
00:07:50You're going to leave and go to California?
00:07:54We're basically being pulled to San Francisco by getting laid or something, free love and
00:08:00drugs and stuff like that.
00:08:06Being from the South, you can't totally relate to California and all that.
00:08:10So you sort of stick with your own people a little bit.
00:08:13I arrived in San Francisco in June of 1970.
00:08:17And at that time, the people who later became known as the residents were living and working
00:08:22in a building in San Mateo.
00:08:26If you move from one section of the country to another section of the country, you know,
00:08:31there's a total opportunity to reinvent yourself.
00:08:33And I think they saw this.
00:08:34I think they felt this.
00:08:35You know, they were kind of like nerds back there.
00:08:39And I won't say that there wasn't some level of the famous drug culture of the Bay Area
00:08:45and San Francisco at that time involved, too.
00:08:47All these things are propelling you in a way.
00:08:50They're telling you you can reinvent yourself.
00:08:53Why not?
00:08:54And yeah, certainly I felt that myself.
00:08:56We were all engaged in life in the days when everyone's hair was getting longer and the
00:09:03social turmoil was at its greatest.
00:09:08We thought we were changing time.
00:09:11Basically, we weren't getting drafted.
00:09:17Inside, you want to be free, love everybody.
00:09:20And you feel like you're supposed to embrace them.
00:09:23But at the same time, there's that other side of you.
00:09:26It's like, that's not me.
00:09:27That's not my people.
00:09:28I don't want to be that.
00:09:30And so you end up saying, well, I guess I'm not a good hit to yours.
00:09:38At the same time, San Francisco was beautiful.
00:09:41And there was nothing to go back to.
00:09:44So you stay.
00:09:48From their point of view, they saw that starting with the psychedelic era,
00:09:53which is kind of their entry point into music of that contemporary period,
00:09:58entering into it from that point, if it just kept going out,
00:10:02the boundaries between music and sound experimentation
00:10:05were going to become more and more blurred.
00:10:07And that's kind of the wave that they imagined that they would ride.
00:10:23This was kind of the era of Crosby, Tills, and Nash, James Taylor.
00:10:28And so there were a lot of folk clubs.
00:10:31You would have an endless stream of James Taylor imitators
00:10:35coming up on stage with their acoustic guitar
00:10:38and singing their whiny little folk songs.
00:10:45Anybody could go up there.
00:10:46So the residents kind of indulged themselves upon this scene.
00:10:54It really was almost like a kind of a guerrilla happening or something.
00:10:58They just descended upon the place
00:11:00and took it over for about a 20 or 25-minute performance.
00:11:09It was completely groovy and out of sight.
00:11:16I was there. I was in the audience.
00:11:18It was completely crazy.
00:11:24Most of the people there who came to see
00:11:27singers, songwriters, acoustic singers,
00:11:30so they didn't have a chance.
00:11:38Mysterious Ensenada was there. Snake Finger was there.
00:11:41Peggy Honeydew was there.
00:11:43Oh, Go Fuck Yourself on the Doorknob Mom, she sang that.
00:11:47I was Peggy Honeydew.
00:11:50And they came up with that name.
00:11:53And I can't remember for the life of me how we ended up with Honeydew.
00:11:59So I kind of pranced back and forth
00:12:01trying to look as sexy as I can, you know,
00:12:05without wanting to cry because I was so scared.
00:12:08But afterwards, it was so exhilarating.
00:12:12That was the debut of the Mysterious Ensenada.
00:12:21He carried with him an alto sax.
00:12:24Mysterious got up there and riffed with the saxophone.
00:12:30And then he'd stop, and he'd do some off-the-wall poetry.
00:12:34And the audience would go,
00:12:36And then he'd stop, and he'd do some off-the-wall poetry.
00:12:40And the audience had no idea what to make of this.
00:12:47After that was over, a guy walked up to Mysterious.
00:12:51He was comparing Mysterious to Charlie Parker
00:12:56and a few other jazz greats.
00:12:59And we were all nodding our heads like, yeah, right.
00:13:03Ensenada, ensenada, schiff, boom, bop!
00:13:11He's the one that, as I understand it,
00:13:13is credited with the theory of obscurity.
00:13:15And the theory of obscurity is that
00:13:18artists do their best work in obscurity,
00:13:20and they do their best work when they're free
00:13:23from the scrutiny of fans, press, criticism.
00:13:27If they're obscure, they're free to do
00:13:30whatever purely comes out of them.
00:13:33And it satisfied, pleased, a small portion of the audience.
00:13:40I think it turned off a large portion.
00:13:43They didn't know what to do with it.
00:13:46There was no applause, no laughter, no booing.
00:13:49It was just stone's eyes.
00:13:51The important thing is that they reacted.
00:13:54A standing ovation might have been just as good,
00:13:57but what it was was just fine.
00:14:01Getting attention and some level of feedback
00:14:04from the outside world, well, that made them think,
00:14:06well, maybe we actually are doing something interesting here.
00:14:14I wanted to visit, so I rode out late one May.
00:14:19I brought a B-3 with me, a guitar, an electric piano.
00:14:24The residence owned a 2-track reel-to-reel recorder.
00:14:29That just led to us going, well, there's the organ,
00:14:33there's the guitar, there's the recorder,
00:14:36we ought to do something.
00:14:38clacking
00:14:48I feel like I'm on stage at the Los Angeles Symphony.
00:14:51I walked over to the window, looked down,
00:14:55and parked near the building was an old pickup truck,
00:15:00rusty all over, no paint on it,
00:15:02and in the back was a pile of rusty coat hangers
00:15:07that were taller than the truck.
00:15:10There must have been thousands of rusty coat hangers in there.
00:15:14I turned to the residence and I said,
00:15:17you've got to come look at this.
00:15:20Rusty coat hangers by the doctor
00:15:26I took out my guitar, the residence wrote the lyrics.
00:15:31The first recording was made with one microphone
00:15:35because I believe that was all we had.
00:15:38I was wanting to put just regular musical chords to the song.
00:15:45Well, the residence didn't want that.
00:15:48They said, make up your own chords.
00:15:50Do whatever you want, but just make up your own chords.
00:15:57Their view was, music was whatever you wanted it to be.
00:16:02You didn't have to be able to play
00:16:05a musical instrument in the usual sense.
00:16:09The residence idea was, if it works, that's fine.
00:16:18When it came time for them to try to audition,
00:16:21to create tapes, to send off to a label,
00:16:24they felt like, well, Warner Brothers is the place to be.
00:16:32They were big Captain Beefheart fans,
00:16:34and they had read an article, I think, in Rolling Stone
00:16:37that said when Captain Beefheart decided to go on tour,
00:16:41he didn't approach the A&R people at Warner Brothers,
00:16:44he approached this guy Hal Halverstad.
00:16:46Well, the residence thought, hey, it's good enough
00:16:48for Captain Beefheart, and it's good enough for us.
00:16:50They actually took one of the ads they felt like he had created
00:16:55somewhere in the music press,
00:16:57and they kind of paraphrased that ad.
00:16:59In other words, they were trying to sell themselves
00:17:02to Hal Halverstad the same way that Hal Halverstad
00:17:05was trying to sell music to the country.
00:17:08He responded to the ad.
00:17:10They were completely shocked.
00:17:12They had no idea that they would get a response.
00:17:14And so he was indeed asking for demo tapes,
00:17:17which, of course, they didn't have at that time.
00:17:23They had a lot of experimental tapes
00:17:25that they had been working on,
00:17:27so they feverishly worked night and day
00:17:30for a week or two weeks or whatever
00:17:32to take these experimental tapes and edit it into an album form,
00:17:36which they then called the Warner Brothers album.
00:17:39So they had sent it to him anonymously,
00:17:42and he sent it back to residents at that address in San Mateo,
00:17:46which is where they were living at that time.
00:17:48And so they went, hey, residents, that's us.
00:17:54By creating this kind of blanket identity and using that,
00:17:58and in a way standing behind that,
00:18:00hiding behind it, if you will,
00:18:02they created a mystique and a mystery around that
00:18:04that then gave them a lot of freedom.
00:18:43MUSIC
00:18:56I wanted to give it to someone else and hear what they would say.
00:19:01I wanted to give it to someone else and see what they would do.
00:19:06I wanted to give it to someone else and hear what they would say.
00:19:11I wanted to give it to someone else and watch them as they played.
00:19:16I left it helpless, all alone and waiting on the floor.
00:19:27Squirming just a little bit and looking at the door.
00:19:36He would take it as he wished and I would listen.
00:19:47Documenting as I would the sound of slapping skin.
00:19:57I wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:01I wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:07I wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:12I wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:17I wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:20Wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:22Wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:25Wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:27Wanted to give it to someone else.
00:20:30Yeah.
00:20:38I can see what they would do, I see what they would do.
00:20:43See what they would, see what they would, see what they would do.
00:20:48Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
00:20:52I can see what they would do.
00:20:55See what they would do, see
00:21:10We are simple, you are simple
00:21:14Life is simple too
00:21:17Yeah, okay
00:21:20That was from our commercial album
00:21:26Just like, give it to someone else, the song we just finished
00:21:30Okay, the commercial album was our follow-up to Eskimo
00:21:34Now, both of those albums sold like 25, 30,000 copies
00:21:40Straight out the door when they were first released
00:21:42And, you know, that was a pretty big number for a small independent label like Ralph Records back in the early 80s
00:21:51We were headed straight to the top
00:21:55We'd never stop, we'd die before our day
00:21:59And, we still will
00:22:12We hope to get some kind of deal where there's plenty of
00:22:15We need at least 20 foot ceilings, maybe higher
00:22:18And, maybe we were thinking about something like a warehouse with offices
00:22:26In February of 1972, the residents moved into this warehouse building on Sycamore Street
00:22:36That's when they picked up their level of activity
00:22:39And, I picked up my level of volunteer assistance
00:22:43We had a giant record collection at that time
00:22:45With probably a few thousand records
00:22:48And, all the various test pressings and stuff
00:22:51It was dark and full of a lot of memorabilia
00:22:53It was phenomenal, and of course they fixed it up in the residents' manner
00:22:58You never knew what you were going to see or walk into
00:23:01You know
00:23:09Even then, recording studios were the way things were done
00:23:13And, it was expensive to go to a recording studio
00:23:16And, the residents started doing home recording
00:23:18They started doing home everything
00:23:20Everything was consumer based
00:23:24Everybody was always busy
00:23:26If you're going to hang out, you have to help
00:23:28Creative juices were just exploding out of the place
00:23:31All kind of stuff was happening all the time
00:23:33It seemed like they were juggling like this
00:23:36I'm really a graphic designer
00:23:38And, when they began doing albums
00:23:42They needed help with their graphic presentation
00:23:45They had interesting ideas, but they had no techniques
00:23:48So, I became sort of a consultant for them
00:23:51On their early albums, in terms of graphics and printing
00:23:55Most album covers are really boring
00:23:57And, they feature hipsters with bad haircuts standing there casually
00:24:01And, the residents' albums are just beautifully designed
00:24:04And, very graphic
00:24:06Most of the residents' covers were about
00:24:09References to the culture
00:24:11And, I think that's what they were trying to do
00:24:14Most of the residents' covers were about
00:24:17References to the culture
00:24:19Obviously, the first one was a reference to the Beatles
00:24:22It was about taking something that had all of this meaning
00:24:26And, then messing with it
00:24:35This was about the time that they were working on
00:24:39Violinist Fats
00:24:41Violinist Fats was an attempt, really
00:24:44To bring the visual stuff along
00:24:47In the same way that they were bringing the music along on the other side
00:25:12They were shooting it all on half-inch open reel
00:25:16And, I think that they were very excited about that
00:25:19Because it was kind of, you know, the underground alternative medium
00:25:23Whoever's segment was, would spend a couple of weeks in the studio
00:25:28Building a fantastic set
00:25:30And, then getting costumes together
00:25:33You get all the friends together
00:25:35And, then you get together
00:25:38And, then at night, I'd smoke a bunch of pot
00:25:41And, watch what you shot
00:25:43And, go, wow, that's weird
00:25:45I moved to San Francisco from New York in 1974
00:25:48And, shortly thereafter, I got a day job
00:25:51As an administrative assistant
00:25:54In the University of California Med Center's
00:25:57Division of Dental Hygiene
00:25:59And, one weekend, I went to a nightclub
00:26:02And, I got a job as an administrative assistant
00:26:05And, one weekend, I went to an art show in the Civic Center
00:26:09And, saw some paintings by an artist named Irene Dogmatic
00:26:12Of dogs in bondage
00:26:14And, I was fascinated
00:26:16And, this being the 70s, I made myself a t-shirt
00:26:20Said, Irene Dogmatic t-shirt, hand-painted
00:26:23Figuring somebody would say, oh, do you know Irene Dogmatic?
00:26:26And, I'd say, no, do you?
00:26:28And, I wore it to work one day
00:26:30And, the summer tent that we had there said
00:26:33Oh, do you know Irene Dogmatic?
00:26:34And, I said, no, do you?
00:26:35And, he said, no, but I know the residents
00:26:37And, I said, who the fuck are the residents?
00:26:39And, she said, well, the residents are shooting
00:26:41Violinist Fats tomorrow
00:26:43And, she's got a part in that
00:26:45And, if you'd like to meet her, we'll put you in it, too
00:26:49So, they cast me in Violinist Fats
00:26:53As a one-armed dwarf waiter
00:26:55Serving gigantic heads of foam rubber broccoli
00:26:58To Irene Dogmatic, who was the mayor of Violinist Fats
00:27:00And, that was the first time I met her
00:27:01And, I was captured for all time on screen
00:27:03And, I got to know Irene a little bit better
00:27:06And, that friendship didn't go anywhere
00:27:08But, the friendship with the world of the residents did continue
00:27:21What is it? What is it?
00:27:22Yay! I know it!
00:27:24Where's my asbestos suit?
00:27:26It started to become obvious
00:27:28I don't look real good in black and white
00:27:32On a very primitive video system
00:27:42It was fun doing it
00:27:44But, it was also kind of a tragic process
00:27:47Because, it was so beautiful
00:27:50But, it wasn't being captured
00:27:52I bring a camera to all the sets
00:27:54Because, I wanted to document it
00:27:56Because, it was just some fantastic artwork in the sets
00:27:59And, I knew the half-inch video wasn't going to document it
00:28:02So, I took slides of everything
00:28:07You can get a glimpse of what it looked like now
00:28:11But, it's just a glimpse
00:28:14You know, a thing that has always been a big factor
00:28:17With the residents is naivete
00:28:20And, I think that's a lot of the charm of their early stuff
00:28:23But, when they were doing Violence Fats
00:28:26Nobody told them you couldn't put it in a movie theater
00:28:29Once they found out that they would never be able to do anything with this
00:28:33Except, gather a bunch of friends around their living room to watch it
00:28:37They kind of lost a certain level of enthusiasm and momentum towards it
00:28:54Violence Fats
00:29:05The residents had started making these records
00:29:07And, they didn't really have a concept of selling
00:29:10They're not really the business people
00:29:12They just wanted to do the art and then move to the next project
00:29:15So, four of us decided that we should try to help them out
00:29:20We formed the Cryptic Corporation in 1976
00:29:23For the purpose of providing administrative and marketing services
00:29:28For the residents and their products
00:29:31And, we signed them to a long-term exclusive contract
00:29:35I had an office title, which was treasurer of the corporation
00:29:39The only reason I was president is that I had the right name
00:29:44Any one of us could have been the president
00:29:49The other three had to be the three other officers
00:29:53The Cryptic Corporation's job really was to exploit what it was that they did
00:30:00So that they would continue to have income and resources to do it
00:30:04They would have been happy to have silkscreened every cover
00:30:08And, do like 50 of each album
00:30:10But, you can't really make a living doing that
00:30:13The philosophy from the beginning was
00:30:16You don't have to know how to do it
00:30:19You just have to figure out what to do next
00:30:22And, it's okay to make a mistake
00:30:24Because, if you guess wrong on what to do next
00:30:26You step back and then you try to take the appropriate step
00:30:29And, it worked
00:30:31To the extent that it worked, it worked
00:30:43Any minute now, we expect that the residents
00:30:45Hold it down back there!
00:30:47Just cool it, alright?
00:30:48You'll get your chance, the residents will be arriving
00:30:50Here they are, ladies and gentlemen
00:30:52Will you please welcome
00:30:54Ralph Rickards' recording artist, the residents
00:30:57Welcome, thank you very much for coming
00:30:59Keep the fans back, keep the fans back
00:31:01British press went crazy, just crazy
00:31:03Big five-star reviews
00:31:05Talking about how it made other people's work look puny by comparison
00:31:10And, this was like the real avant-garde
00:31:12Coming out of California
00:31:14Would you also please welcome Homer Flynn
00:31:16Who is the spokesman for the band
00:31:18And also for the Cryptic Corporation
00:31:20Welcome, Homer
00:31:21Hi, hi Chris
00:31:22It's nice to have you here today
00:31:23One of the things that the residents had seized upon
00:31:25Was the fact that so much art
00:31:27And so much avant-garde thinking
00:31:30Was an outgrowth of Europe
00:31:33The Brits are crazy about music
00:31:36There were more British publications at that time
00:31:39They're weekly magazines, they need a lot of content
00:31:43We basically started bombing the writers
00:31:45With stories and with press releases
00:31:47And with basically anything we could think of
00:31:50And started driving that fire
00:31:52In England, and in Europe in general
00:31:54You know, people were absolutely ready
00:31:56To listen to the residents
00:31:57I mean, it was exactly what they wanted
00:31:59It was something that wasn't as pompous as prog rock
00:32:03It wasn't musically stupid
00:32:05It worked on this kind of more intellectual level
00:32:08For those who wanted to take it that way
00:32:10You don't listen to the residents
00:32:12If you want to be doing the dishes, I don't think
00:32:15Wake up, wake up!
00:32:17It doesn't flow by like a babbling brook in the background
00:32:21It sort of demands attention
00:32:24Now the residents have been recording for over ten years now
00:32:27The first album was called Meet the Residents, is that right?
00:32:29Right, that's right
00:32:30And you've ranged musically
00:32:32Through an incredible variety of styles
00:32:34Are they just relentlessly curious
00:32:36To explore different areas?
00:32:37Or what's made them keep changing like that?
00:32:39Well, the residents started out with the idea
00:32:43Of trying to make each album
00:32:44As different from the previous one as possible
00:32:47And it has a lot to do with just, as you say
00:32:51A relentless drive towards experimentation
00:33:05The residents are actually filmmakers, failed filmmakers
00:33:11The music was sort of a secondary interest
00:33:15The technology, the cost of doing things
00:33:18Just wasn't there in the early 70s
00:33:21So music made more sense because there was audio tape
00:33:25You could get a tape recorder and you could record with it
00:33:28You could tell what you had immediately
00:33:30And you could redo something
00:33:33People who were working with music could play
00:33:35If you can't play, then you figure out some other way
00:33:38Of doing it and working with it
00:33:42If you can't draw a good horse, then you don't do horses
00:33:46You cut out pictures and you glue them down next to each other
00:33:49And you make something cool, because that's all that matters
00:33:52Is that it turned out cool
00:34:02Not that you get a horse, but it was true for a long time
00:34:06That pretty much music was dominated by people who could play
00:34:09And that makes logical sense, but it also leaves an area
00:34:13Of unexplored sound possibilities for people who can't play
00:34:17Jeder kommt her, und kommt! Ja, gut!
00:34:21The third Rachmaninoff made sense when they would describe it
00:34:24Just cut out all the good parts of songs
00:34:27String all the good parts together
00:34:29That would make for a great album
00:34:31Cut out all the boring stuff
00:34:34Anyway, that was like, okay, that sounds like a sound idea
00:34:42Just like if you were making a movie, say
00:34:45That you just shoot a whole lot of stuff
00:34:47And then you edit it and make something cool
00:34:50But the coolness is in the edit
00:34:52Perhaps even more so than what you're shooting
00:34:54It's how you are putting the things next to each other
00:35:01They should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame because of that record
00:35:04That tells you more about rock music and pop music
00:35:07Than pretty much anything else
00:35:09Because it celebrates it at the same time
00:35:12As showing you how ridiculous it is
00:35:16They were out there creating concept albums, in a sense
00:35:20Where the works and the songs all fit together
00:35:22To try and tell some kind of story
00:35:24And yes, the Beatles had done that on Sgt. Pepper
00:35:27But alternative artists weren't really doing that
00:35:31The third Rock & Roll promo film
00:35:34They just kind of did that as a lark
00:35:36They were bored one weekend and said, let's make a movie
00:35:39And they had a 16mm camera, they had some film
00:35:42And they had a lot of newspaper
00:35:44And so they went to one corner of their studio
00:35:47Completely covered the corner in newspaper
00:35:50And then made newspaper costumes
00:35:52Then covered up their instruments with newspaper
00:35:55It wasn't until three or four years later
00:35:59That they used that footage
00:36:01And then combined it with some new footage
00:36:03To create a promotional film for the third Rock & Roll
00:36:06And at that time, there was no category called music video
00:36:10They just felt like, we can make this
00:36:13We can find a few places to show it
00:36:15It will promote the third Rock & Roll album
00:36:18Which it did, but it took a while
00:36:20To find any kind of audience and catch on at all
00:36:30I love the video so much
00:36:32Completely G-rated, so it's not like
00:36:34Oh, you can't show your kid's dad
00:36:36It's a half-naked woman and the guy's getting shot
00:36:39Well, I guess someone does get shot in that video
00:36:42But it's the most comical part of the whole video
00:36:45When the cops bust in and get him up against the wall
00:36:49And he goes...
00:36:51Their sense of humour strikes me most of all
00:36:54The sheer creativity
00:36:58ELECTRONIC BEEPING
00:37:06I think we'll look back on the 80s and MTV
00:37:10And all that popping up and say, man
00:37:13That was a lot of hairspray and jive-ass
00:37:16Oh, and the residents were there
00:37:18What the fuck was that happening there?
00:37:22The video for Hello Skinny scared the shit out of me
00:37:27ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS
00:37:45I'd never seen a music video, but it kind of made sense
00:37:49Well, we'll do a short film to just a song
00:37:52Skinny was born in a bathtub
00:37:55And grew so incredibly thin
00:37:58That even the end of an eye
00:38:01Would drop a sudden dim end
00:38:04I'd gotten this guy, Bridget, who was a ward
00:38:08At a halfway house run by a transsexual in my neighbourhood
00:38:12Evil transsexual
00:38:14And the problem with Bridget was, he was living kind of on the edge
00:38:17So he decided he was going to clean up his act
00:38:19He came to me and he said, Grandma, I've decided to go home
00:38:23And that was the next day we were going to shoot
00:38:25Bridget, you can't do that, no, I'm going home
00:38:28I'm leaving on the bus today
00:38:30So I got him into the studio really quickly
00:38:32Shot his face in every angle I could
00:38:34And then walked with him down to the bus stop
00:38:37Shooting him all away
00:38:39And that was Hello Skinny
00:38:41ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS
00:38:53They never bothered to have smoke machines
00:38:56And women in knit stockings
00:39:06They worked in total opposition to that.
00:39:15I think that one part of their legacy will be that they found
00:39:19and were able to establish meaning
00:39:22within this completely corrupted form
00:39:25and kind of prosper through that
00:39:28rather than collapse into it like so many other bands did.
00:39:42I was not yet 15 years old,
00:39:45and there was on the USA Network
00:39:48a nighttime show called Night Flight
00:39:50And they would play cool movies
00:39:52and the type of stuff that you just didn't see on network television
00:39:56And they had The Resonance
00:39:58And I thought this was just out there, man
00:40:00It's such a cool thing
00:40:02If you're tuned in to what it is that they're doing,
00:40:05you can't help but want to be a part of it.
00:40:08ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS
00:40:16Every night, the door opens
00:40:18It's the freaks, it's the hippies
00:40:21But the last couple of years,
00:40:23there's more and more young people coming
00:40:25And I'm really talking about real young people, like in their 20s
00:40:28that are really digging what's going on
00:40:30They were punk before there was punk
00:40:32This is the most famous unknown band
00:40:35Even though it's strange,
00:40:37it fires something in your mind
00:40:39that no other band will do
00:40:42It's different, you know, it's not normal music
00:40:45that you'd listen to over the radio
00:40:47Here, this is for The Resonance
00:40:51I see more and more women, more young people
00:40:54When you look at the audience, it's got the comic book guys
00:40:57They're always there
00:40:59It's got, you know, some women,
00:41:01and they don't all look miserable
00:41:03I get a lot of updates on, like, why did you drag me here?
00:41:06Some of them are right there in the front
00:41:09You find a catalogue of 40, 50 records and DVDs
00:41:14and you want to dig into that
00:41:16There's more and more coming
00:41:18When you've followed The Resonance for 40 years,
00:41:20I mean, you're totally in it over your head
00:41:22and you invest a small fortune
00:41:26The main thing about knives is
00:41:28you want to stand back when I'm doing them
00:41:30I call this the circumcision shuffle
00:41:32When I started collecting, I wanted to do something simple
00:41:35I had seven major databases
00:41:38It grew and grew to be hard to even distinguish
00:41:42All my Resonance stuff, I would say up to the point
00:41:44where I started making money, was done by medical experiments
00:41:47So I've probably done 110 endoscopies of various kinds
00:41:52and colonoscopies and, you know, a Santa dog
00:41:55you can kind of hold and feel, and so you could suffer for that
00:41:58It was like, well, I'm sucking a tube for a Santa dog
00:42:00That's worth it, you know
00:42:04I bought four of everything that came out
00:42:06since the day I started collecting
00:42:08I wanted one that I could listen to
00:42:10I wanted two that I could put away
00:42:12in case one happened to the one that was bad
00:42:14and I wanted a fourth one to trade
00:42:16And then the dismount is the hard part
00:42:29The Resonance are not nostalgic
00:42:31They're not very much on sentiment
00:42:33They're obviously very flattered by it
00:42:35They somewhat have the point of view
00:42:37that so many people don't get anything out of the Resonance
00:42:41don't understand it, are even horrified by it
00:42:45or truly, deeply dislike it
00:42:48that when somebody does understand it
00:42:51there's a certain sense that it's almost like family
00:42:58Your words are empty hollow bleedings of a metal crutch
00:43:02They're open festered indigestion with a velvet touch
00:43:05I've been to 21 Resonance performances
00:43:08I like the Resonance a lot
00:43:11Your lichen-covered corpuscles are filthy to my fist
00:43:15Infection is your finest flower, mildewed in the mist
00:43:19I started experimenting with music, and I found the Resonance
00:43:23and it was great because they inspired me in a
00:43:26oh, you don't actually have to know
00:43:28how to play things very particularly well
00:43:32You just have to do the thing and own it
00:43:37The blue's not just a color of rain
00:43:48You may think you have seen
00:43:53some strange things in our little show
00:43:58But nothing you've seen so far
00:44:01could have possibly prepared you for our final act
00:44:06The Resonance have always been extremely interested
00:44:09in the evolution of technology as it relates to their art
00:44:13They're not techno-geeks per se,
00:44:16but I think that what they discovered is
00:44:19technology moves faster than culture, and this gap develops
00:44:23and pioneers of experimentation can find opportunities
00:44:27to create new work and develop new audiences
00:44:30by jumping into that gap
00:44:32They were pioneers of the Laserdisc format
00:44:35They were pioneers of the CD-ROM format
00:44:37They did this very innovative podcast experiment
00:44:40So they've constantly worked to create new art
00:44:43for evolving technology
00:44:51Freak Show to me was just a quantum leap
00:44:54in what a lot of other people were doing
00:44:57The idea of a CD-ROM, which had enormous limitations,
00:45:00especially in retrospect, they were able to just take it
00:45:04to a place that was like so unusual and uncanny
00:45:08and kind of seductive
00:45:13The Resonance took the whole crass idea
00:45:16of the business of art, and they turned it into their life
00:45:20and they created a 360 platform
00:45:22in their relationship with their fans
00:45:24So the cryptic corporation as a business
00:45:27is a self-perpetuating platform for the art of The Resonance
00:45:32They went directly to their fans,
00:45:34and they created a world that the fans could invest in
00:45:38At the end of the day, I think The Resonance recognized
00:45:41that you can't continue to make work the way that they make work
00:45:45if you don't figure out how to do it as a business
00:45:48And you can't separate the success of The Resonance as artists
00:45:52with the success of The Resonance as art business people
00:46:00The Resonance were pioneering the path for artists
00:46:05in the current generation
00:46:11A good friend of mine, his mother was into The Resonance,
00:46:15and we'd go over to his house, and she played me some Resonance
00:46:18and the first thing I heard was Constantinople,
00:46:21and I absolutely hated it
00:46:24To me, it was the music that they are probably playing in hell
00:46:28Here I come, Constantinople
00:46:30Here I come, Constantinople
00:46:33I am coming, Constantinople
00:46:35Here I come
00:46:37It's like a fungus, it just kind of takes over
00:46:40and then you kind of get used to the fungus
00:46:42and then you learn to appreciate the fungus
00:46:45So The Resonance was a big part of my musical fungus
00:46:53We are on the Delaware River
00:46:55All right guys, I'm going to get on it a little bit here
00:47:05When you're a kid, your imagination goes crazy on stuff
00:47:09You're very impressionable
00:47:11You imagine the musicians to be weirder than they actually are
00:47:15When the fish come through and they see this little shiny spoon in their face,
00:47:19they're not actually feeding, it's an aggression strike
00:47:22They attack it because they're going to do their spawning thing
00:47:25They just bite it out of hate
00:47:27They're like, you're pissing them off actually
00:47:30You're actually annoying the fish into biting it
00:47:33Originally the idea of Ween was to not have our identities known
00:47:36So when we made the first record, we took the names Gene and Gene Ween
00:47:39instead of using our real names
00:47:41Look at the size of that fish
00:47:43So the only picture that came with our first album
00:47:46was this ambiguous amalgamation of two of our faces melded together
00:47:51Is there another one on? Oh God
00:47:57That's a good start
00:47:59With The Resonance, we bought into that stuff
00:48:02It was a huge influence
00:48:04Oh, three on, guess I'm going to take that one
00:48:07Yep, this is unbelievable
00:48:11And we're out of here
00:48:13The first thing I thought when I heard Primus
00:48:17way, way back 20-some years ago
00:48:20I heard him and he was going like
00:48:24And I thought, man, he sounds like he just copped this vocal thing
00:48:28from The Resonance completely
00:48:30I wonder if he would cop to that
00:48:32Ripping off The Resonance
00:48:35Skinny found a Hello Dolly record in the hall
00:48:41Skinny found a Hello Dolly record in the hall
00:48:49The Resonance had been a huge influence on me
00:48:53So we just wanted to play this stuff
00:48:55to let people know where we were coming from
00:49:03I've been accused many times of being a member of The Resonance
00:49:07because I kind of have that twang thing going
00:49:10For me, that's always been a big part of what I like to do
00:49:15because, like my father has said,
00:49:18he's constantly told me since I was a very young man
00:49:22You know, kid, you can't sing for shit,
00:49:25but you can sure play that bass
00:49:33Mark and I became aware of The Resonance at the same time
00:49:36When we came from Ohio out to Southern California in 1977
00:49:42to play in the clubs, try to get noticed
00:49:48This is a man's world
00:49:51We would listen repeatedly to the I'm a Man cut
00:49:54and play it for our friends
00:49:56We laughed because we loved it
00:49:58because it was such good art
00:50:00Are we not men?
00:50:02We are Nemo
00:50:04Are we not men?
00:50:06Me, me, oh
00:50:08And what The Resonance were doing in a weird sense
00:50:11were analogous in keeping with what we had been doing
00:50:14in our own hermetically sealed world
00:50:16We didn't know about them
00:50:18I don't know if they knew about us, probably not
00:50:20But there were a lot of the same ideas
00:50:22which happens often artistically
00:50:25We loved the conceptual seriousness of their work
00:50:29What they were dedicated to, what their concept was
00:50:32the anonymity, the multimedia approach
00:50:35They were having fun as artists, you know
00:50:38They were really having one-off on people
00:50:40And that's what we were doing too
00:50:42And we had a lot of that all-for-one and one-for-all
00:50:46anonymity built into our concept too in the beginning
00:50:54I envy The Resonance because they stuck with it
00:50:58And if it had been up to me, I would have stuck with it
00:51:01But Devo quit being this unified force
00:51:06one-for-all for one
00:51:08because the cult of personality developed
00:51:11as soon as Mark with the Coke bottle glasses
00:51:14got singled out by the marketeers in L.A.
00:51:17and he ate it up
00:51:19So we were no longer resident-like then
00:51:23You know, one of the absolute great things
00:51:27about being a rock star on tour
00:51:34is all the BJs!
00:51:41OK, all right, so on with the show
00:51:43And then there were the Eyeballs
00:51:533, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
00:52:05The Resonance initial idea was a silver globe
00:52:09with a top hat on it, like a giant Christmas ornament
00:52:13And so as the facilitator, I went off to L.A.
00:52:16and started talking to people
00:52:18to try to find somebody that could make one of these
00:52:21In general, people said, you can't do that
00:52:24It'd be hard to breathe inside there, it'll fog up
00:52:27It'd be impossible to see, it just really won't work
00:52:30See you at 5
00:52:32Bye-bye
00:52:36I took that word back
00:52:39and everybody kind of brainstormed some more
00:52:42and somewhere in the process, the idea of an eyeball came up
00:52:45Fine, that's the business-like way to look at it, Mr. Johnson
00:52:52They described that it was a giant eyeball
00:52:55to be worn over the head as a mask, wearing a top hat with veins
00:52:59And they said they wanted 4 different eyeball heads
00:53:02Each iris would be a different color
00:53:04and each vein pattern would be a little bit different
00:53:07This is the original, one of the original eyeball heads
00:53:10So this was originally a beach ball
00:53:13This raised cornea part was a separate piece of plastic
00:53:17that I attached on there and blended in with clay
00:53:20Eventually I cut out the center
00:53:23I had a line indicated where this cut would be for the pupil
00:53:26And that's a piece of fabric that you can't see in
00:53:29but whoever wore it could see out
00:53:32And then the veins, if I remember correctly, I used some kind of thick cord
00:53:36that I just cut and glued on and coated them with a little plastic
00:53:40The interior, they have an adjustable plastic helmet thing
00:53:44with a little knob on the back
00:53:46So you can slip it on, tighten the knob, and it fits securely on the head
00:53:51The hat, I made some metal tabs with screws
00:53:54It just bolts on to the eyeball head
00:53:58And that's pretty much the assembly of it
00:54:07The whole eyeball thing was a godsend
00:54:09because the residents needed to look like something
00:54:12We needed pictures, people wanting pictures
00:54:14It doesn't matter what it is, it just needs to look the same
00:54:17So it's like people point and say, oh, well, that's that, I recognize that
00:54:21This is marketing, this isn't like art, this is marketing
00:54:25Both of them, the silver globe and the eyeball, are a reflection
00:54:31The silver globe is a direct reflection
00:54:35but the eyeball is a reflection in that
00:54:39it sends out the message that we are looking back at you
00:54:45Those big eyeballs are cute, come on
00:54:49That definitely put them on my radar
00:54:51There was something so science fiction, yet kind of dapper, yet kind of comical
00:54:58There's something quite blank about it
00:55:00and something quite authoritative about an eyeball as well
00:55:03Because they're sort of the grand observers of our culture
00:55:07and what it is that we do, but they're also observing themselves
00:55:10and sort of reporting that a little bit
00:55:15First of all, what a great icon
00:55:18You know, I think about icons all the time
00:55:20I think about Mickey Mouse, how you can identify Mickey Mouse by silhouette
00:55:24When I created The Simpsons, my goal was to make sure
00:55:28that the characters were identifiable in silhouettes
00:55:31so Bart has that ch-ch-ch-ch here
00:55:33And the eyeballs, that's just the residents
00:55:35And it irritates me when somebody rips them off
00:55:39Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!
00:55:52Hey look, I'm in the residence!
00:55:54That's them, eyeballs, top hats, that's the residence
00:55:58Goddamn it
00:56:02If this one visual has received iconic status
00:56:07then, you know, they feel like they've been successful.
00:56:10I think they find it kind of ironic
00:56:13because the classic eyeball image
00:56:18was created for a T-shirt.
00:56:20It wasn't even created for a piece of music.
00:56:23So if anything, if you look back
00:56:26at the summation of their career,
00:56:28what's their biggest hit?
00:56:30It's a T-shirt.
00:56:30They have a hit T-shirt.
00:56:33But I mean, you know,
00:56:34there's something that's real pop culture about that.
00:56:38Residents would have never continued with the eyeballs
00:56:41if we hadn't pressured them that,
00:56:45economically speaking, it was a requirement.
00:56:47And they complained, rightfully so,
00:56:49that people would start calling them the eyeballs
00:56:53or think of them as the eyeball band.
00:56:55They didn't want to wear them.
00:56:56They had no use for them.
00:56:57If we wanted a picture of the residents,
00:57:00we'd have to find people to wear the costumes.
00:57:04I remember we were doing a Man's World video
00:57:06and we wanted to use the eyeball costumes and everything.
00:57:10I'm sure you'll probably use a clip of it.
00:57:13Probably right now.
00:57:14Probably right now, it's a good place.
00:57:18The residents didn't want to be in the costumes
00:57:20because they didn't think that they moved well enough.
00:57:24So they wanted dancers to wear the costume.
00:57:28And it's like, why should it be them anyway?
00:57:30What difference does it make who is in them?
00:57:36When they went to do the first Wyrmwood tour,
00:57:39they had these eyeballs that are really, really heavy.
00:57:43They sort of pull your head down.
00:57:46And then after a couple of hours or even sooner,
00:57:50you just got these awful back and neck pains.
00:57:53So somebody thought of tying a bungee onto the strap
00:57:57and then attaching that to your belt.
00:57:59So it took the weight off of your neck.
00:58:00That was a lifesaver.
00:58:02I never wore the small costume.
00:58:04I never wore the small eyeball.
00:58:06I wore the larger QB thing, but it was just as annoying.
00:58:13I got to wear the eyeball on night music.
00:58:17I got to dance behind Conway Twitty wearing an eyeball mask.
00:58:35There are certain things in this world
00:58:37about which we dare not speak.
00:58:40People are so ingrained in the Beatles
00:58:42and so ingrained in the band concept
00:58:45that you've got the person who plays this instrument,
00:58:47this instrument, this instrument, this instrument.
00:58:51And that's the band.
00:58:52And they go out and they play.
00:58:53And anything that happens, it's those people.
00:58:57The residents do not exist.
00:59:06The residents are an idea.
00:59:07It's an evolving, perpetually warped idea.
00:59:11There are figures behind this wall who manipulate the ideas.
00:59:17But ultimately, the residents is kind of an overarching concept
00:59:22more so than an actual group of people
00:59:25performing strange music.
00:59:28You can name your cat Spot, but that doesn't
00:59:32mean that Spot is your cat.
00:59:33The cat is a cat.
00:59:34The cat doesn't have a name.
00:59:36But we need something to refer to this beast.
00:59:41So, you know, residents is a reference to some people
00:59:44and to their concepts and to the way they work
00:59:46and the way they think.
00:59:46But it's not the people.
00:59:48It could find another person and say, OK, what you're doing
00:59:53is the residents, because what you're doing
00:59:55fits the concept.
01:00:01Art, if it's too clear, it's not very compelling,
01:00:05unless it's telling you some very important message that
01:00:08has to do with clarity.
01:00:09But most art wants to ask questions.
01:00:12And that's a better role for it in a way.
01:00:13So having something to discover is a good thing
01:00:16about the residents.
01:00:18This story will be wrong, because my memory's damaged.
01:00:21But I just started working on whatever
01:00:22they wanted me to work on.
01:00:24Subterranean Modern album cover, I did that one.
01:00:26And that was a real joy, because it was an idea I
01:00:29had that involved, well, two things.
01:00:32Art that was mechanically made, you
01:00:34would draw it in four pieces in black and white.
01:00:37And when you composite it in the printing process,
01:00:39then it became full color.
01:00:41And so it was fun to do experiments.
01:00:44I did the Buy or Die series, this big skull
01:00:47in a beret image.
01:00:48And it was also a project that was all
01:00:51executed in black and white.
01:00:53And then became color in the printing process.
01:00:56I always felt like I was getting part of the picture.
01:00:59To whatever extent I know about the residents,
01:01:01or the cryptics, or whatever, there
01:01:03always seems to be a lot bigger part of the story.
01:01:06Like, who's under the eyeballs on stage, I don't know.
01:01:10I don't know.
01:01:40Out in the openness of night, she
01:01:52waits before my sucking sight.
01:01:56And his fire so soft and low, make her amber body glow.
01:02:07He takes what he wants with smiling lies.
01:02:11He takes what he wants and someone dies.
01:02:16Like caution to the newly blind,
01:02:21her image never leaves my mind.
01:02:27I have to hear her as she sighs underneath my burning eyes.
01:02:37At a certain level, what helps them endure
01:02:41is a kind of genius, and a kind of restlessness.
01:02:47If you plot their albums, and how
01:02:50they are discovering new music, or the way
01:02:53they've mounted these really extravagant shows.
01:02:57Takes what he wants with smiling lies.
01:03:02He takes what he wants and someone dies.
01:03:07Her husband is fighting far away.
01:03:12Get my army, so they'll say.
01:03:17I did his honor with his wife.
01:03:22So he must lose it with his life.
01:03:33They had secret identity.
01:03:35They were doing videos and live performance
01:03:38that was totally theatrical.
01:03:40They were using the state of the art
01:03:41in terms of the kind of equipment and technology
01:03:43that was available.
01:03:44And then on top of all of that, they
01:03:46want to explore themes that were uncomfortable,
01:03:50that were not Harry Met Sally.
01:03:52If it was Harry Met Sally, it was Harry Met Demented Sally.
01:04:03They never sit still in one place.
01:04:06You know, they're always kind of building something
01:04:08or invading something.
01:04:13The king is noble, strong, and bright.
01:04:18With appetite to match his might.
01:04:23Obsession.
01:04:24Obsession.
01:04:25Obsession.
01:04:27Obsession.
01:04:28Obsession.
01:04:29Obsession.
01:04:30Obsession.
01:04:31Obsession.
01:04:32It's where something gets stuck.
01:04:36It gets stuck in your brain and it just
01:04:38keeps going around and around and around.
01:04:42It's like a whirlpool.
01:04:44It's like a whirlpool in your brain.
01:04:46And the whirlpool has a bear trap.
01:04:49And it's a bear trap.
01:04:50And the bear trap goes gaaang!
01:04:53Right on your brain.
01:04:54Right on your brain.
01:04:55It won't let go.
01:04:56It won't let go.
01:04:56It just keeps going around and around and around.
01:05:00It happened to me, it happened to me, it happened to me 11 times and I married every one of them.
01:05:25No one has ever seen the residents' faces.
01:05:28Now, this is long before the group KISS.
01:05:30They rarely perform in public and when they do, or when cameras are around, the quartet produces an array of disguises.
01:05:41Not making their faces known wasn't particularly relevant to start with.
01:05:45I think it was an extension of their art.
01:05:47There's no cult of the personality with it when you're in these disguises.
01:05:52Nobody knows what your face looks like, so therefore you can be whatever you want to be.
01:05:56It's not their personal ego that's important to what they're doing.
01:05:59It's the collective power that comes off the stage.
01:06:03I think it has to do with a lack of desire and need for celebrity, which is so prevalent in our culture.
01:06:16Well, we certainly do live in a time where people are famous for merely being famous.
01:06:20Why does anyone care about the Kardashians? It is sort of beyond me.
01:06:25There's no body of work. I mean, there's nothing.
01:06:28Paris Hilton, at least it's named after a lot of hotels, you know.
01:06:32I don't think they started out to be anti-celebrity, but it certainly felt comfortable to them.
01:06:41And it kind of grew from the spot of being the other.
01:06:46Once they decided to be anonymous, well, they didn't want the same anonymous look over and over again.
01:06:53They felt like, in the same way that they wanted their sound to be changing musically,
01:06:58they wanted their look to be changing.
01:07:01They always found that, really, so much of modern music stuff,
01:07:06people wear the same clothes as people on the street. It's really boring.
01:07:12They always felt like performers should look like performers.
01:07:15They shouldn't look like somebody that walked in off the street and picked up a guitar.
01:07:19One of their big heroes was Sun Ra.
01:07:22Sun Ra would perform with all these gigantic robes and turbans,
01:07:27and he'd take a hubcap and put it on his head.
01:07:30Now, that's a performer.
01:07:35They loved Liberace. Liberace was a performer.
01:07:38You didn't mistake him for some guy that happened to walk in and start playing the piano.
01:07:42I mean, he walked on the stage, he was Liberace.
01:07:45Well, look me over.
01:07:49I didn't get dressed like this to go unnoticed.
01:07:53Tonight and tomorrow at the Kabuki Theater, the residents present The Mole Show.
01:07:57It's their first fully staged public concert.
01:08:00To celebrate this millennial event, an interview, granted, sort of.
01:08:04Residents, you won't talk to me.
01:08:06Okay, Mr. Narrator, why would a music act, apparently urgently in need of Visine,
01:08:12go into the music business to remain anonymous?
01:08:15The fact that no one knows who they are and the eyeball heads can be construed as a gimmick, and is.
01:08:20And that's the very superficial level.
01:08:22But once you get down to the fact they've put out nine records over the past ten years
01:08:26and lots of people buy them and they're accepted by what would be called serious musicians,
01:08:30the music does stand on its own.
01:08:39In The Mole Show, which is essentially an opera...
01:08:46I was the narrator.
01:08:48It's a role that I play to this day in The Penn & Teller Show.
01:08:51Now, first of all, in the script we had voices of the air,
01:08:54which as far as I can tell is simply a weather report, it wasn't the exposition.
01:08:58That was followed by the secret scene where the dancers ran around with the flashlights
01:09:02and that's supposed to show us, according to the script, how moles have sex or something.
01:09:06It didn't look like sex to me either, but we're not moles.
01:09:10The residents wanted it to be a different kind of unreliable narrator.
01:09:17The person leading you through who himself doesn't really understand it.
01:09:21And I think there were moments of that that we kind of hit kind of okay.
01:09:30Certainly anything I ever did was dwarfed by that huge, flowing tidal wave of ideas
01:09:38that came out of the residents in every way.
01:09:47A lot of big backdrops and a lot of stuff going on and a lot of chaos, but a lot of fun.
01:09:55There was never a dull spot.
01:09:57There were some zingers thrown, like equipment not showing up in America for the Uncle Sam Mole Show
01:10:03or being in Germany where things still hadn't come together,
01:10:07but it still went off and everything was done and people loved it.
01:10:10They basically came back to America broke and part of their partnerships with other people
01:10:15in the crypto corporation sort of changed.
01:10:31One of the big questions that gets asked a lot is,
01:10:34why did you decide to leave the crypto world?
01:10:37One of the big questions that gets asked a lot is,
01:10:39why did you decide to leave the crypto corporation?
01:10:42Money.
01:10:44I had to take care of myself.
01:10:47And business and money required reality.
01:10:52The residents were off on their own.
01:10:57They had met the real world and I had to go on and do the same myself.
01:11:03Well, one of the questions we talked a bit about is about you leaving Cryptic.
01:11:09Do you want to, you don't want to talk about that at all?
01:11:12No, thank you.
01:11:17It wasn't starting over, but it was like, you know,
01:11:20coming back from a sold out European tour, you think you would have made some money,
01:11:24but that was not the case.
01:11:27I had a lot of fun during those years,
01:11:29especially the Mole show through the 13th anniversary show,
01:11:33which to me surpassed even the Mole show,
01:11:36even though it was a lot more primitive,
01:11:38but it was to me the ultimate resident show.
01:11:42If you saw the 13th anniversary show, you saw the best resident show ever.
01:12:00They had 16 inflatable elephants
01:12:03and there was a guy on stage with two handheld lights lighting up the show,
01:12:07and that was it.
01:12:09Three people on stage, a couple of dancers,
01:12:12Snakefinger was there.
01:12:18I was dragged in by a friend of mine and I was blown away.
01:12:22And I think I bought four T-shirts.
01:12:24They were beautiful.
01:12:26And I was in love with the residents.
01:12:37One of the differences between the residents and just some band
01:12:40who has to maintain the same identity
01:12:43and they have to worry about doing the same thing over and over again,
01:12:47with the residents they can sort of build to a peak
01:12:52and then basically fall off and build again
01:12:56with a whole different point of view.
01:13:05One of my favorite pieces of work I've ever done in all my music
01:13:10was when we were working on Freak Show,
01:13:13we were doing Harry the Head.
01:13:16And I was working on the little solo in the middle.
01:13:19I loved it. And I loved it.
01:13:30It's just such beautiful music to me.
01:13:33And then to be in an atmosphere with people who are basically saying
01:13:36they trust you,
01:13:38go and spread the crazy wings.
01:13:50I'm Molly Harvey and I'm a preschool teacher
01:13:54in Atlanta, Georgia.
01:13:57And your other career?
01:13:59And for many years I sang and performed and recorded with the residents.
01:14:07It was always very, very weird to perform live with them
01:14:11the first time, the 50th time.
01:14:18You know, it was almost like living a secret life,
01:14:20like the lady who's a stripper or whatever
01:14:22and puts her latex suit back in her pants
01:14:25and she's like, oh, I'm a stripper.
01:14:27And I'm like, oh, I'm a stripper.
01:14:29And she's like, oh, I'm a stripper.
01:14:31And I'm like, oh, I'm a stripper.
01:14:33And she's like a stripper and puts her latex suit back in her backpack
01:14:36and then gets on the bus, you know, it's like did that just happen?
01:14:47And in some ways, the residents are such a quintessentially American band.
01:14:52They've gone out and forged their own path,
01:14:54their own way, completely independently.
01:15:00No matter what you think of the first record,
01:15:02they finished it.
01:15:04No matter what you think of the second record,
01:15:05they finished it.
01:15:06No matter what you think of the Mole Show Tour,
01:15:08they did it.
01:15:09No matter what you think of Violence Fats,
01:15:11okay, they didn't finish that.
01:15:13But you know, the idea is,
01:15:14they learned to run the video equipment.
01:15:17That's a lesson in life.
01:15:19That's a lesson for,
01:15:20not how you're the greatest avant-garde band of all time,
01:15:24but it's also how you start a dry cleaning business.
01:15:27It's also how you do road repair.
01:15:31If you wait until you understand enough to do something,
01:15:34you're never gonna get it done.
01:15:35♪♪
01:15:40♪♪
01:15:45♪♪
01:15:50♪♪
01:15:56♪♪
01:16:01♪♪
01:16:06♪♪
01:16:11♪♪
01:16:16♪♪
01:16:22♪♪
01:16:27♪♪
01:16:32♪♪
01:16:37♪♪
01:16:42♪♪
01:16:48♪♪
01:16:53♪♪
01:16:58♪♪
01:17:03♪♪
01:17:06What we all want from art is to experience work
01:17:10that we can't find anywhere else,
01:17:13that hits us in a deep way.
01:17:15Whether it's the lyrics or the visuals
01:17:18or the way the interactivity works.
01:17:21And then to think of this,
01:17:23I don't think I could ever imagine another group
01:17:27archiving their work in a refrigerator like this.
01:17:30So I think it's pretty special.
01:17:33♪♪
01:17:38♪♪
01:17:43♪♪
01:17:48♪♪
01:17:53♪♪
01:17:58♪♪
01:18:03♪♪
01:18:09So we're going to wrap up here.
01:18:11We got one more song we're going to wrap up.
01:18:14And this song, this is from our mole show.
01:18:20It was our first ever tour.
01:18:22And, you know, back then we saw ourselves
01:18:28as the valiant moles struggling out of the underground
01:18:33to challenge the stupid superficial chubs
01:18:37and so we toured all over Europe for six weeks.
01:18:42There was like 16 of us in two small vans
01:18:45and we traveled all over the place
01:18:47and we lost everything.
01:18:52We lost thousands and thousands of dollars.
01:18:56We even borrowed some money from our parents
01:18:58and we lost that too.
01:19:01And we said, fuck this shit.
01:19:04We are never touring again.
01:19:06No way.
01:19:07No way.
01:19:11But now here we are.
01:19:14Here we are in Dallas.
01:19:15Here we are in Warsaw.
01:19:16Here we are in Los Angeles.
01:19:17Here we are in Munich.
01:19:18Here we are in Houston.
01:19:20Here we are in London.
01:19:21Here we are in Milwaukee.
01:19:22Here we are in Prague.
01:19:24Here we are in Chicago.
01:19:33And, you know, what happened was, you know,
01:19:36actually we were kind of like the moles
01:19:39because the moles were marching to the sea.
01:19:41But we did the same thing.
01:19:43You know, we just kept marching to the sea
01:19:47and marching to the sea so we could see
01:19:50what would happen next.
01:19:52And, you know, this is all life is really.
01:19:56You know, you just keep putting one foot
01:19:58in front of the other and you keep marching
01:20:01to the sea and you see what happens next.
01:20:06whoo-hoo-hoo!
01:20:36whoo-hoo-hoo!
01:20:41whoo-hoo-hoo!
01:20:46We have left our home.
01:20:49We have left our land.
01:20:52We have left behind all we understand.
01:20:57Now we must cry out as we make our stand.
01:21:03We will not be damned!
01:21:06We are back!
01:21:10I listen to all kinds of different music,
01:21:14read all sorts of different things,
01:21:16but I always go back to the residents
01:21:19because the residents offer something
01:21:22that is not being offered anyplace else.
01:21:27There is still a power and a vibrancy in the music
01:21:31and an ability to still seem strange
01:21:34or still seem radical.
01:21:35I think they just said we're going to do what we do,
01:21:38and it still works.
01:21:39I'm not surprised that the residents have lasted this long
01:21:41and I expect them to continue to make important artwork
01:21:44because I really do believe
01:21:45that they are the greatest experimental art band
01:21:48of all time.
01:21:49Something says to me...
01:21:55Every artist out there should be very encouraged
01:21:58by the residents and every weird child out there
01:22:01who's playing with clay and making little stories or whatever
01:22:06should be very encouraged
01:22:08because these guys don't stop.
01:22:10I think if you're an artist, you're an artist.
01:22:12Whether you're finger painting and drawing vaginas with crayons
01:22:15when you're five years old
01:22:16or running around with a pig mask on your face,
01:22:19you do it because you're compelled to do it.
01:22:22If we could see clearly what we are inside
01:22:27If there was no expectation, would we be alive?
01:22:33If we were not fearful, somewhere deep inside
01:22:38If there was no desperation, would we be alive?
01:22:44The residents are a group of people
01:22:46who have earned their living doing exactly what they wanted to do.
01:22:50Doesn't mean it's easy,
01:22:52but it certainly means their life was worth living.
01:23:06Nickelback's gonna win Grammys
01:23:08before the residents win one.
01:23:10That's just the way it is.
01:23:12But who cares?
01:23:15Who fuck cares?
01:23:16Fuck all that.
01:23:18I think that the residents are, by any sane measure,
01:23:23more successful and happier than the Beatles.
01:23:27Bingo.
01:23:28I want you to make me helpless
01:23:31So that I can be
01:23:34Longing for the sight of something that I cannot see
01:23:38I'll be a boat that's on the ocean
01:23:42Floating from the sea
01:23:45Floating in the gripping wind
01:23:48I wish I could be
01:23:50Floating in a living room
01:23:53Nice and safe and warm
01:23:56Floating where there's no ocean
01:23:59And there's no harm
01:24:01Life would be so pleasant
01:24:04If we all could be
01:24:07Helpless, hopeless creatures
01:24:09Just marching to see
01:24:13Residents have delivered from the very beginning,
01:24:16and they keep surprising the audience,
01:24:18they keep surprising me,
01:24:19they keep surprising the people that are buying the records,
01:24:22and my guess is, they're surprising themselves,
01:24:25even though they don't exist. laughs
01:24:28Help, help, help, help, help, help
01:24:33Please, help us, help us, help us, help us
01:24:39Please, help us, help us, help us, help us
01:24:44Please, help us, help us, help us, help us
01:24:49Please, help us, help us, help us, help us
01:24:55Please
01:25:05applause
01:25:20What does it all mean?
01:25:23I have no idea.
01:25:35The theory of obscurity, to me,
01:25:42was not a celebration of failure,
01:25:47but a rejection that the only success
01:25:52was the absolute top.
01:25:54There's never a sense that the residents
01:25:58failed at what they were trying to do.
01:26:00They did not set their sights
01:26:03on being the next Nirvana,
01:26:06or the next Skrillex,
01:26:08or whatever you're supposed to be,
01:26:11to be a superstar.
01:26:12Maybe, just maybe, the residents
01:26:15aren't failed Led Zeppelin,
01:26:17they are completely successful residents,
01:26:20and that's an important thing to remember.
01:26:23Red, red rose,
01:26:25So big, big,
01:26:27On the edge of a silver dollar
01:26:31The end of his tail
01:26:34Was a long neck nail
01:26:36The place above his face
01:26:38Was a scarf
01:26:40Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:26:43Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:26:45Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:26:47Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:26:49Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:26:57Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:27:01Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho
01:27:07I was a fan of the residents
01:27:09for a long time
01:27:11before I lost my eyesight,
01:27:14before I went all blind again.
01:27:15So do you blame the residents
01:27:18I did actually see them once. I met them all. I met them all. And the minute I left the
01:27:24room is when I lost my sight. Everything went black.
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