Even a hard-core pop-rock junkie can occasionally feel the urge for some bracingly ugly music: in the late sixties, that need was best met by Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention; in the late seventies, it was a group of anonymous wise asses named the Residents. Through a series of albums which simultaneously built upon and deconstructed Top Forty tropes (Meet the Residents, The Third Reich 'n' Roll, Fingerprince), this band of faceless conceptualists produced an amazing catalog of comically abrasive anti-pop pop: music designed to get on the nerves of even those who thought that punk was the pinnacle of musical rebelliousness.
Of the early Residents' releases, perhaps their best-known - and most accessible - was 1978's Duck Stab. Recently reissued by Mute Records in a handsomely designed hardbound booklet/CD, Stab first was released as a seven-song EP, which quickly was coupled with a second EP (Buster & Glen) into long-playing format. This gives the full disc a sort of Magical Mystery Tour feel - with two blocs of music jostling against each other. The disc's opening track "Constantinople" even gets reiterated with the chaotic seventh blues jazz cut "Elvis and His Boss," providing a sense of closure to the first batch of songs even if, lyrically, the listener doesn't really have a clue as to what it's really all about.
With the exception of one instrumental ("Booker Tease," which blends a soulful bass line with shrieking horn work), the two sets of music follow a similar strategy: hooky tune work subverted by out-of-tune instrumentation - some of which sounds like the background arrangement from some old warped '78 - dadaesque poetry and cartoonish vocals which manage to make Captain Beefheart sound mainstream. In "Blue Rosebuds," for instance, a damaged singer's sappy love song is interrupted by a high-pitched voice declaiming absurdest put downs ("Infection is your finest flower mildewed in the midst"), while "Sinister Exaggerator" undercuts its effectively ominous guitar stabs (courtesy of guest fingerman Snakefinger) with a barking background chorus that sounds like something the Manimals on the island of Dr. Moreau might've chanted. Good ambient music for those who've used the soundtrack to Eraserhead to put 'em to sleep at nights: the "In Heaven" song could've easily been non-sung by a Resident in one of his little girl voices.
Article comments
1 - Douglas Mays
My oh my!!!! 'Duck Stab', the first Resident's record I bought back in '79. Yeah, 'Constantinople'. Everybody sing along! "Third Riech and Roll" surely mutilated pop classics.
You know, at the same time some great things of a not mutilsated sense came out also. I am speaking of the 'Eskimo' album. That I thought (even though it my not have been their intent) that it came out as a very well done composition.
And then, they did the 'King and I' album. I think their version of "Heartbreak Hotel" is the best, most creative available.
hhhmmm...the Residents. What a statement. but for the most part, right on the money!!!!
best,
DM
2 - JC Mosquito
This was the first Residents' recording I ever heard. We kept singing, "Bach is Dead (Bach Bach Bach)" 'til the wee hours of the morning, along with "Marquee Moon," and we'd alternate those with an import copy of "White Light/White Heat" we had to drive 40 miles to an import store to find just to see what all the fuss was about. Yep - and everything was all right.