rlr (11/01/82)
Speaking of the Residents, did anyone see any of their performances in the Los Angeles area this past weekend? (10/29-30 at the Roxy, 10/31 at Perkins Palace) Please post reviews/summaries/whatever to net.music RLR
ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:upstill (11/02/82)
I caught the first of "The Residents Mole Show"s at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco Oct. 26. Though only passing familiar with their music, I (and other accompanying virgins driven there by a Residents- fanatic friend) was very favorably impressed. They didn't reveal their true identities, fans. They came out on a dark stage in their eyeball suits carrying flourescent lights, then went behind a loose scrim which stayed backlit the entire show, enabling Us to see Them as shadowy forms bending and playing. This was in the middle of the stage. To the left and right were two stacks of 8x16' flats painted with scenes from Mark of the Mole, and changed along with the story. The show included a half-dozen dancers who also served as prop movers. In pursuit of anonymity, they all wore fake-nose-and-eyeglasses joke-disguises throughout. Accompanying the show was Penn Gillette, who fans will remember from the Residents tenth-anniversary radio show. He provided a blow-by-blow, or song-by-song, commentary on the story told by Mark of the Mole. His purpose was apparently subversive, serving to puncture any possible pretensions of the show with dry-to-sarcastic asides. The music was "completely live", and the Residents were playing keyboards most of the time. It seems they have an instrument called an Emulator which is a synthesizer operating under digital control (Gillette claimed he was there to fill in the disk-changing time). The music was not quite up to recorded standards but was very widely-varying and complex nonetheless. The Residents played most of the first two Mole albums, although in more random order toward the end. Other than a suitably weird "Satisfaction", all the music was from these two records. Toward the end, Gillette started yelling about them going commercial and selling out, and eventually he was dragged offstage, then brought back on bound and gagged in a wheelchair, furiously swearing and bouncing around during the climax of the show, ultimately gettin untied and "converted". Anyway, much strangeness, but of a surprisingly accessible sort. I see no danger of the Residents showing up at your neighborhood football stadium, but to judge by this show, there is definitely the possibility of their broadening their audience without alienating the hardcore. Steve