The Residents

THE RESIDENTS Über Alles – Third Album ‘THIRD REICH AND ROLL’ Is 45

Posted on by JL

22 February 2021

Band: THE RESIDENTS
Who: Mask eccentrics from San Francisco,
operating on planet earth since 1965.

Album: THE THIRD REICH ‘N’ ROLL – 3rd LP
Released: 22 February 1976 – 45 years ago

What: (Only) two songs mashing-up tons of 60s pop hits.

1. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY – with schizophrenic snippets of “Der Twist beginnt” / “Land of a Thousand Dances” / “Hanky Panky” / “A Horse with No Name” / “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” / “The Letter” / “Psychotic Reaction” / “Little Girl” / “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (sung in German – first James Brown sample ever used) / “Talk Talk” (The Music Machine) / “I Want Candy” / “To Sir, with Love” / “Telstar” / “Wipe Out” / “Heroes and Villains” / Hitler Was a Vegetarian

2. 96 TEARS – with wacko fragments of “Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)” / “96 Tears” / “It’s My Party” / “Light My Fire” / “Ballad of the Green Berets” / “Yummy Yummy Yummy” / “Rock Around the Clock” / “Pushin’ Too Hard” / “Good Lovin'” / “Gloria” / “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” / “Sunshine of Your Love” / “Hey Jude” / “Sympathy for the Devil”

AllMusic: “Technically the third album from the group, though released as a follow-up to Meet the Residents, this 40-minute assault on the music of the ’60s follows Picasso’s dictum of all artists killing their (aesthetic) fathers. Two side-long medleys of songs both classic (“Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”) and obscure (“Telstar”) are destroyed, deconstructed, mangled, spat on, spit out, ground up, and injected with gleeful humor. If there’s any concept here, it’s that the brain-numbing catchiness of pop music was fascism in disguise, keeping teenyboppers docile while selling them rebellion, hence the cover art of a gestapo-uniformed Dick Clark holding a carrot.”

Full album…

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THE RESIDENTS: Facebook

Experimental Eccentrics THE RESIDENTS Released Their Spooky Album ‘ESKIMO’ 40 Years Ago…

Posted on by JL

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9 September 2019

40 years ago today, on 9 September 1979, THE RESIDENTS released ESKIMO. The
album was originally supposed to follow 1977’s Fingerprince, but  due to all sort of problems it was not issued until 1979. The critics loved its experimentation, its clever weirdness and its satirical view of the American people’s nescience and maltreatment
of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

ALL MUSIC wrote: “The most rewarding, the most difficult, and the most accomplished
of all the Residents’ albums, this was their departure into the field of imaginary ethno-musicography that they had begun on “Six Things to a Cycle” on Fingerprince. Ostensibly a musical documentary on the Eskimo, this is an album of icy atmospheres, poetic electronics, and imaginary landscapes, concocted around a loose narrative told in the liner notes… In any other group’s hands this would have been a pretentious disaster, but the Residents pull it off through spirit, humor, and sheer bravado.” Full review here – Score 4.5/5

2019 album edition in full…

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THE RESIDENTS: Facebook

THE RESIDENTS Released Mind-Expanding Musical ‘NOT AVAILABLE’ 40 Years Ago…

Posted on by JL

Going back in sonic history looking for memorable albums…

26 January 2018

BAND: THE RESIDENTS

ALBUM: NOT AVAILABLE

RELEASED: 27 January 1978 – 40 years ago!…

ALL MUSIC wrote: “This is one of the strangest and most interesting recordings in rock history, which speaks volumes coming from one of the strangest and more interesting bands in rock history. Not Available used what was referred to as “the theory of obscurity“ (which called for the album to not be released until its makers literally forgot about its existence). It is said to be, questionably, the Residents’ second recorded album (in 1974, only to be released in 1978 after utilizing “the theory of obscurity”). An underrated and forgotten achievement in the Residents’ body of work, Not Available is such an incredible recording to experience that it simply and truly cannot be classified as being like another. While the Residents have experimented within the confines of rock throughout their entire careers, with the exceptions of Eskimo, The Commercial Album, and God in Three Persons, this album achieves like no other. A surreal rock opera resulting in an incredibly weird circus of sound, it is one that simply must be heard to be believed.”

TURN UP THE VOLUME! says: After all these years I still have no clue about who these weird eyeballs really are and I actually don’t want to know as it would spoil the mystery. The Residents are classical avant-garde wackos, telling unearthly stories while producing soundtracks on Mars, their favorite planet. Although they’re more accessible than so-called intellectual critics want you to believe. Just try these aliens and discover their fascinating universe. Switch off the TV, turn off your smart-phone, ignore social media and open your mind for this ‘NOT AVAILABLE’ musical, right here, right now. A surreal journey sounding like Mozart on LSD, sounding like their very own Space Odyssey. Step into their eccentric galaxy…

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THE RESIDENTS: Website – Facebook –  Twitter