{"id":23077,"date":"2022-06-03T05:30:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T09:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23077"},"modified":"2022-05-31T11:35:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T15:35:21","slug":"the-residents-the-eyes-have-it-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/03\/the-residents-the-eyes-have-it-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Residents: The Eyes Have It (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a><\/em>…<\/p>\n

That meeting in late 2020 was the first time Tanner and Flynn had met, but the groundwork for the project was already laid. \u201cSince we started this project one month before the pandemic hit, it took a lot longer than we were initially hoping,\u201d Tanner says. \u201cI opted to wait nearly a year until it was safer to visit The Cryptic Corporation archives.\u201d He notes that even though The Residents had compiled some material for the project, a lot of the most interesting pieces of the puzzle remained to be seen. \u201cNearly all of the unreleased material had yet to be unearthed,\u201d he says. Ultimately, the work of creating A Sight for Sore Eyes<\/i> took nearly eighteen months.<\/p>\n

And there were surprises all along the way. Tanner says that he was prepared to run across previously unseen artifacts such as handwritten notes and contact sheets from iconic photo sessions. \u201cBut,\u201d he says, \u201cI wasn\u2019t prepared for just how many<\/i> things I would find.\u201d He counts among his favorite discoveries the blueprint for The Residents\u2019 first studio at 18-20 Sycamore Street in San Francisco. \u201cThat\u2019s where Vileness Fats<\/i> was filmed and where everything from [the 1972 EP] \u2018Santa Dog\u2019 up through The Third Reich ‘n Roll<\/i> [1976] was recorded,\u201d Tanner says.<\/p>\n

\"\"A big part of The Residents\u2019 mystique has always been the group\u2019s anonymity, its obscurity. So it\u2019s reasonable to wonder if the idea of a book purporting to document the group\u2019s story in visual form threatens that carefully-constructed and cultivated air of mystery. \u201cI\u2019m not particularly concerned about it,\u201d says Flynn, noting that Tanner provided a review copy of the book before its publication. \u201cIf there was anything in there that I objected to, Aaron was happy to remove it.\u201d There were, he says, \u201ctwo or three minor things that I felt revealed too much, but for the most part\u2026 no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the eye-popping images that fill the pages, A Sight for Sore Eyes<\/i> also features reminiscences and observations from Residents fans of note. That list of luminaries includes Les Claypool (Primus, Claypool Lennon Delirium), magician Penn Jillette (Penn and Teller), Danny Elfman, Paul \u201cPee Wee Herman\u201d Reubens, Andy Partridge (XTC), David J (Bauhaus), \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic, Don Preston (The Mothers of Invention) and many, many more.<\/p>\n

While The Residents are nobody\u2019s idea of a commercial act (their 1980 Commercial Album<\/i> was named as such because it featured a collection of 30-second songs, like a commercial) the collective has exerted a deep and incalculable influence upon some of the artists inhabiting the more creative corners of the musical landscape. Flynn admits some surprise at the participation of so many respected names for the new book. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the names<\/i> so much that surprised me,\u201d he says. \u201cThe surprise was that so many of them showed up, [and] were willing to do something for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even longtime fan Tanner was struck by the written contributions from some of those creative figures. He singles out Jillette\u2019s remarks about the kindness of the band members. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with a handful of legendary bands over the years,\u201d Tanner says. \u201cSome were easier to deal with than others. But the mysterious beings behind the masks beat them all by a mile. I\u2019ve never met people that were more kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Vol. 1<\/i> part of the book\u2019s title suggests, there\u2019s more to come. Tanner cautions that the second volume remains a year or more away from production, but shares a brief outline. \u201cIt will start with The American Composers Series<\/i> [circa 1984] and will end with the multimedia era,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s my hope that the book will be every bit as revealing as Vol. 1<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Flynn notes that a third installment \u2013 publication date undetermined \u2013 will bring The Residents story up to present day. \u201cI’m kind of curious to see how that works out,\u201d he says. \u201cI can’t say enough positive stuff about Aaron,\u201d Flynn adds. \u201cI really enjoyed working with him, and not only that: I like him.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Residents\u2019 creative endeavors have long defied easy classification. Their music touches on, explores and often adds to the conversation about everything from electronica to punk to lounge music to world music. Selections from among their many video productions have been placed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.<\/p>\n

Tasked with summing up The Residents\u2019 significance in a few sentences, Aaron Tanner offers this: \u201cConstantly defying classification while remaining completely anonymous, The Residents have been regarded as icons in the world of experimental music for the last 50 years. They have been credited with being among the originators of performance art, the music video, and the music-based interactive CD-ROM.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a succinct, knowledgeable and accurate observation, but an incomplete one: it doesn\u2019t address The Residents\u2019 pioneering work in mashups and sampling. Still, mere words can\u2019t get at the heart of what makes The Residents special. But taken along with all of the collective\u2019s audio, visual and audiovisual output, Tanner\u2019s A Sight for Sore Eyes Vol. 1<\/i> brings us closer to that goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… That meeting in late 2020 was the first time Tanner and Flynn had met, but the groundwork for the project was already laid. \u201cSince we started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23071,"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-23077","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\/23077","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=23077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23078,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23077\/revisions\/23078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}