Long before there was “Love,” Cirque du Soleil’s Las Vegas spectacular set to a score of Beatles mash-ups, and even before there was Danger Mouse’s illegal Grey Album,—a meeting of the minds between The White Album and Jay-Z’s's Black Album—an earlier and far more radical deconstruction of the Beatles’ oeuvre was done by the Residents.

This was not The Residents first stab at the skewering the Fab Four—their 1974 debut album, Meet The Residents, featured a demented pastiche of the first Beatles album cover that John Lennon was apparently quite fond of. Knowing of course, that they were foolishly risking an expensive lawsuit for copyright infringement this time out, The Residents released the song on a 7-inch record, in a limited edition of just 500 singles, as “The Beatles Play The Residents & The Residents Play The Beatles,” in 1977.

The A-side, “Beyond The Valley Of A Day In The Life,” contains about twenty Beatles samples, one from John Lennon and a line from one of their fan club only Christmas messages. The B-side was the Residents cover of “Flying” which they chose because it was one of the only Beatles songs (along with “Dig It”) attributed to all four members.

Folklore at the time imagined the Residents as the Beatles reformed undercover, making a mockery of their back catalog. The two songs were available at one point as CD extra tracks, but now it looks like they’ve been withdrawn.
 

 
“Ignorance of your culture is not considered cool.”—The Residents

I’ve been listening to The Residents a lot recently, so expect some Residents-related posts here in the coming days/weeks. You have been warned.

To kick things off right, here’s a fantastic, little-known record of their 1982-83 “Mole Show” tour, the live unveiling of The Residents on the world concert stage. “The Mole Show” was a progrock opera that began with their Mark of the Mole album in 1981, but was never really finished, unless the band was just pulling our legs.

Like The Gun Club material I posted earlier this week, this footage comes from the Spanish TV show La Edad de Oro and was taped in Madrid and broadcast originally on Jul 21, 1983.

Here’s the gist of what is going on here, via The Residents.com

The Story So Far: The Mohelmot people live underground in the desert in gigantic ant-like colonies. They are primitive and superstitious. Music has a ritualistic purpose that supports their love of darkness and their belief in work. A quirky storm causes water to fill their holes and forces them to cross the desert to seek another land. On the coast they meet the jolly Chubs who seem eager to welcome the exotic “Moles.” Soon it is apparent that the welcome has more to do with cheap labor than true acceptance. The Chub culture as reflected through their music is superficial and pleasure oriented. Tension eventually mounts [due to a scientist who invents a machine that makes the Mole’s work unnecessary—RM] and a form of war breaks out between the two groups. As usual, war solves nothing. Time passes. The Mohelmot are forbidden to use their language due to deeply paranoid Chub fears. Racial intermarriage has created a new lifeform referred to as a “Cross.” A pop group of Cross youth named “The Big Bubble” creates a sensation by singing in the forbidden Mohelmot tongue. The singer is jailed and begins to see himself as the new Messiah of traditional “Zinkenites.” The Zinkenite wished to form a new Mohelmot nation. Truth be known, the singer is merely a naïve puppet of an aggressive Cross named Kula Bocca. In fact, Bocca arranged the arrest just to stir up trouble. The story abruptly ends, but there is plenty of basis for a dynamic conclusion, if The Residents ever get around to it.

The audio/visual quality here is top notch, but the camerawork is pedestrian at best. All of the cameramen are holding wide shots. It cuts from one wide to another slightly more or less wide shot, throughout.
 

 

 
The following tribute to the late Steve Jobs was posted at The Residents’ website:

I wasn’t going to say anything. After all so many people are covering his accomplishments. But I thought it would be important to note how Steve Jobs has helped change and create The Residents.

Apple computers had a perspective that regular people should be able to do remarkable things that they would not normally be able to do if assisted by computers. Technicians should not be the exclusive controllers of that world.

The Residents have always been masters of using technology on a human scale. Ralph Records in the late ‘70’s ran on an old Apple II. The software used was custom written by Cryptic. That system meant that Ralph could operate cheaper and cheaper meant it could exist on smaller margins.

Macintosh arrived in 1984 and went to work immediately creating graphics. Album covers from 1984’s George & James to 2011’s Coochie Brake have been done on Macintosh computers.

Cryptic and Ralph launched a bulletin board on-line system (BBS) on an Apple II in 1984 named Big Brother. It is the Big Brother which this site honors as our first venture into on-line interactivity. You can read more about Big Brother in The Last Word.

The Residents ran MIDI live on an old Apple II at the Snakey Wake in 1988. The following year they toured CUBE E carrying their entire studio which centered around a Mac II, the most powerful personal computer that existed at the time.

When Apple invented Quicktime, the wiz kids that actually did it were Residents fans. The original logo which was a big “Q” had a top hat to reference The Residents and the videos used to demo the software were the One-Minute Movies from The Commercial Album.

I was one of the people who appeared in the Apple “Think Different” campaign.

There is no way I can cover all the ways Apple and Steve Jobs impacted The Residents. I do think it fitting to conclude with the fact that Chuck on the Talking Light tour was controlling a Mac Air computer with an iPad that was running wirelessly on a local network utilizing an Airport, all Apple products, to make the statement that The Residents appreciation of the technology of Steve Jobs’ company has never faltered.

Cryptic and The Residents join the long list of people who are saddened by the lose of Steve Jobs.

-Hardy Fox, The Cryptic Corporation

Below, recent 3-D live footage of The Residents performing in San Francisco.
 

 
Via Exile on Moan Street/The Quietus

 
I might be a little bit late on this item, but if you live in the Bay Area, you still have plenty of time to check out this amazing looking exhibit of Residents ephemera that is running through June 17 at Johansson Projects in Oakland. Featuring album cover production art, promotional photos, drawings, scratch-board illustrations, and digital imagery from the archives of Homer Flynn, principal architect of the band’s visual imagery, the show also has some of Flynn’s private, non-Residents work on display:

Through his work, Homer Flynn has created a unique folklore composed of morosely ironic tales intertwined with the poignancy of thinly veiled emotion, revealing Flynn’s obsession with both the vulnerable and perverse aspects of the human psyche. Using a wide vary of materials, he draws on imagery from Walt Disney comics, outsider art of the Deep South, M.C. Escher and fetish pulp. Committed as much to the discovery as to the revelation of ideas, Flynn pursues his vision through a diversity of media, allowing his rich artistic output to be driven by ideas manifesting themselves through drawing, painting, print making, sculpture, digital media, photography, film and performance. Flynn’s figurative prints and drawings are notable for their intense mark making, often rendered with stark, contrasting colors. Similarly bold, his photography reveals forceful characters through stark black and white compositions as well as a vivid, often garish, use of color. While the mood of these images is often confrontational, Flynn also reveals a vulnerability that deepens the reading of his work.

Homer Flynn is best known for his involvement with The Residents, the Bay Area based art collective internationally renowned for their avant-garde music, theatrical performances and filmmaking. In the main gallery Flynn will exhibit work he created for the Residents, including production art for original Residents album covers, promotional photos, art used in print advertising and set designs.

Since his work for The Residents has taken the primary focus of his output for nearly 40 years, Flynn has thus far chosen to keep his personal work private. At Johansson Projects he will show a survey of his entire career curated by his daughter, Jana Flynn, including much work that has never been shown publicly. This work, featuring pastel depictions of natural disasters collaged from the pages National Geographic magazine, scratch board illustrations, silkscreened prints and graphite sketches from his journals, will he featured in the project room of the gallery. Finally, a slideshow will be projected in the viewing room showing recent digital work produced for The Residents.

 

 
Below, the Residents cover James Brown:
 

 
Thank you Chris Musgrave!

 
The Cramps make an appearance on the exceedingly cool Chicago public access kiddie show Chic-A-Go-Go. Late 1990’s.

Lil’ Ratso goes nuts!

“Our next letter is C.”
 

 
The Residents on Chic-A-Go-Go after the jump…