{"id":23075,"date":"2022-06-02T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-02T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23075"},"modified":"2022-06-03T07:33:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T11:33:52","slug":"the-residents-the-eyes-have-it-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/02\/the-residents-the-eyes-have-it-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Residents: The Eyes Have It (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inscrutable art\/music collective celebrates its 50th<\/b><\/sup> anniversary with the first in a series of books chronicling its history<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Surveying the landscape of 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup> century music, one is unlikely to encounter anything stranger than the body of work credited to The Residents. The intentionally anonymous collective has been charting its own path \u2013 in music, video and the space in which those two creative disciplines overlap \u2013 since the late 1960s. Little is known about The Residents; they have steadfastly refused to reveal their identities, and even their working methods remain inscrutable. But the mysterious aggregation has created a staggering catalog, one that includes more than 60 albums of compelling, clever and often confounding avant-garde music.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s activities date back to 1968, but The Residents\u2019 official timeline pegs 1972 \u2013 when they adopted their name \u2013 as the true beginning. That makes 2022 the 50 year anniversary of the group jokingly self-billed as \u201cNorth Louisiana’s Phenomenal Pop Combo.\u201d It\u2019s a perfect time to look back at the group\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\"\"And now in 2022, the San Francisco-based collective has cooperated with author\/archivist Aaron Tanner in the creation of a massive hardcover book, A Sight for Sore Eyes, Vol. 1<\/i>. Chronicling in words and images The Residents\u2019 saga from its earliest days through 1983, the book is equal parts fascinating and illuminating. It won\u2019t answer perennial questions regarding The Residents\u2019 identities, but for those who dare to enter the bizarre world of the four (or however-many) myserious creatives, it\u2019s an essential piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n

Over the years, a few bits of solid information about The Residents have found their way into the pubic sphere. While the identity of its members has always remained officially secret, it\u2019s widely acknowledged that The Residents originally included Hardy Fox and Homer Flynn among their number. Even 15-plus years ago when the group released its uncharacteristically tuneful and accessible album The River of Crime<\/i>, Fox was the acknowledged spokesman for the group. He would speak on behalf of the group as a representative of The Cryptic Corporation, The Residents\u2019 business arm. And in live performances, Fox is likely to have been one of the figures behind the masks.<\/p>\n

Fox passed away in 2018, by which time he had officially left the orbit of The Residents. Homer Flynn, who had long been recognized as the graphic designer responsive for much of The Residents\u2019 visuals, took on the role of head of The Cryptic Corporation. And these days it\u2019s he who accepts requests for interviews. No masks are involved, and Flynn appears onscreen via Zoom conferencing (albeit with characteristically odd and unsettling digital images replacing the actual room in which he sits during those chats). Some things have changed, while others remain constant: whomever is speaking on behalf of The Residents invariably refers to the group in the third person plural (\u201cthem\u201d).<\/p>\n

Across more than 350 pages, The Residents\u2019 story is charted in A Sight for Sore Eyes<\/i>, making extensive use of images \u2013 photos, posters, collages and other memorabilia \u2013 from the collective\u2019s official archives. Flynn explains how The Residents came to work with Tanner, who is editor in chief and creative director at Melodic Virtue, the book\u2019s publisher. \u201cHe\u2019s somebody who had run across The Residents and [thought], \u2018Hey they\u2019ve got loyal fans; I can put a book together, and it\u2019ll sell,\u2019\u201d Flynn says. \u201cBut obviously,\u201d he quickly adds, \u201che\u2019s more committed than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI\u2019ve been creating coffee table books of bands \u2013 largely from the \u201880s \u2013 for the last few years,\u201d Tanner explains. \u201cAnd when the opportunity came up to do one with the most artful group in modern history, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.\u201d Tanner believes that there has never been a group to rival The Residents in terms of their visuals carrying as much weight as their music. \u201cThey had a massive impact on the way I approach my design work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tanner, who lives in Indiana, first came out to the Bay Area to meet Flynn just over a year ago. \u201cHe and his son stayed with me for about a week to ten days, and I pretty much gave them free access to The Residents\u2019 archives,\u201d Flynn says. \u201cAnd he gleefully pawed through it.\u201d The Tanners brought along a scanner and used it to capture super-high resolution digital images of the archival material.<\/p>\n

Flynn is quick to admit that his work over the last half century hasn\u2019t been focused primarily on building and maintaining a Residents archive. \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily have everything,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a good amount of memorabilia, but I mainly focus on \u2018the parts that were used to make other parts.\u2019\u201d So Flynn put Tanner in touch with what he describes as \u201ca handful of super collectors who had a lot more of the obscure stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inscrutable art\/music collective celebrates its 50th anniversary with the first in a series of books chronicling its history Surveying the landscape of 20th and 21st century music, one is unlikely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,38,41],"tags":[4851,4849,4850,4651],"class_list":["post-23075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avant-garde","category-book","category-incredibly-strange","category-interview","tag-aaron-tanner","tag-hardy-fox","tag-homer-flynn","tag-the-residents","cat-7-id","cat-10-id","cat-38-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23085,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23075\/revisions\/23085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}