The Residents are four guys who just wanted to be pop stars without taking credit for it. The Residents are the image they have sold and continue to sell on over 60 or so albums (and a considerable number more of live albums, compilations, and reworkings), exploring aspects of depravity, depression, and sexual frustration. But ultimately, who the Residents are, or were, or might be, doesn’t matter. That is probably patently untrue, that last one. Here is the real way I know the identities of the Residents: I am – or have been – a member of the band. Skull” or “Randy” (but never “Randy Skull”) incorporated me into a solo concert he did called “Sam’s Enchanted Evening” at the Abron’s Arts Center in Manhattan and afterward I was invited backstage. Here is the real way I learned the identities of the Residents: The Singing Resident, sometimes also known as “Mr. Here is the real way I learned the identities of the Residents: A press representative at the Museum of Modern Art said he would arrange an interview with them for me and introduced me to them, not knowing that they weren’t doing interviews. Portions Of This Essay May Be Fabricated. And discussing them as individuals is every bit as impossible to do as it is possible. But with such a big red herring of a white elephant in the room as their much-guarded identity clouding the issue like a forest through which we can’t see the trees any easier than the nose on our societal face, it’s impossible to discuss them as a band (the collective singular) without discussing them (as individuals) and who they are. The biggest question in the Residents mythology is not one of identity but one of philosophy. Paul McCartney, too.Īnyway, there you go. Mike Kelley and his Destroy All Monsters bandmates have been involved with the band, as have Fred Frith and Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow and the Art Bears), Andy Partridge (of XTC), Neil Sedaka, Nina Hagen, Adrian Belew, and, of course, Snakefinger. From there, things fall together pretty easily. I don’t know if the similarity to the name “Paul McCartney” had anything to do with their building a mythos early in their career that they either hated or, alternately, actually were the Beatles, but I expect so. He didn’t tell me I could repeat what he said, but he didn’t tell me I couldn’t. He played guitar, banjo, and piano on some of their early albums and contributed to the songwriting, though he was careful to tell me that he was never the primary creative force. He, too, was a member of the band at one time and he told me over drinks one night all about his involvement. One of my fellow co-hosts there is a monologist who goes by the name “Hearty White”. I do a weekly show at the radio station WFMU. While other musicians have come and gone, sculptor, filmmaker, and installation artist Paul McCarthy has been the only consistent member of the Residents. It won’t inhibit the work he does as a painter or a musician, so I’ll just put it in print. I guess I shouldn’t say it except that I don’t see how it matters. And as it happens it is a name people know and once you know it, it just seems obvious. After all, that singing voice has been pretty consistent throughout the band’s 40-year recording history, if deepening with age. That should not come as a surprise to people who have followed the group. There is only one original member of the band remaining in the current lineup. In the parlance of the day, I should first say: OK, I’m sorry about the thing with the boxes above. Are their names, away from the work, any more important than the names of Banksy, Cost, and Revs, or Alan Smithee? What if I asked you this: Which is more important, to discuss who the Residents are or to discuss their work? The work of a group of artists who made their way from swampy Louisiana into the San Franciscan Summer of Love and within a few years time were donning masks, making films, and emblazoning a local record store with swastikas. What if I told you that I am going to reveal the truth because someday it will come out, and if I seize it now, I will be something of a star, infamous at least, a pariah perhaps, but a well-known one in the annals of music journalism? What if I told you that I have met the Residents and I was not even sworn to secrecy about their identities? And what if I said there is sort of an unspoken understanding that there’s no reason to ruin the fun, a sort of unspoken honor system, like the way all the rock mags had photos of KISS without their makeup in the ‘70s but nobody printed them because they didn’t want to spoil the party.
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