I'm looking to get into this band but I don't know where to start. Any helpers?

Meet The Residents is probably the best way. Definitely an acquired taste. The only others I have is Commercial Album and Tweedles. The latter is easier on the ear so maybe that one.

Check your PMs :)

I've got through Meet the Residents a few times today. Very bizarre stuff, but it's exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for for my iTunes library. Great band, I can see myself getting into these fellas

Demons Dance Alone from 2002 also has some good tracks on it.

From demons dance alone (possibly before?), they seem to have recruited a female person as well.

There are quite a few myths surrounding The Residents. One is that the manager who speaks to the media on their behalf (The Residents don't really say anything) is actually the lead singer in the band. Another interesting thing to think of is that we don't know how many lineup changes they've been through. Are the residents today the same who released Meet the Residents back then?

Most cryptic lyrics ever.

Bach is dead. Bach is dead.

Here I come Constantinople, I am coming Constantinople, here I come.

I always liked the song Lizard Lady.



What's a woman going to do
But throw away her bread;
Her feet are feeling funny
As she lies beneath the bed;
She reminisces of the pungent Adriatic Sea,
And then she crawls and counts her cans
And twitches like a flea.

What she really likes to do
Is sit upon a pew,
And make believe that time has stopped
And motionless is new;
Planes are stranded in the sky
And drains are stopping, too,
And she alone is laughing under
Eyelids full of flu.
She scurries hurries worries that
The wicked will receive
Their candy from a handsome man
And coffee from a thief;
She gazes at a hourglass and
Asks it if it cares,
And then she wonders if the lizard
Likes his lettuce rare:


"Lizard, yes a lizard, little lizard of the sea,
Conspicuously alcoholic, flicks his tongue at me!
Release me lizard! Licking lizard,
blizzard of the bea,
Mushed inside a sock you still
dare me --- to die
Dare me to die --- at home..."

"Coating all my lungs with honey,
Sticky coating running runny,
Feet of lizard fly!
And stop and fly and stop and fly
And flicker tongue is licking out
To find me --- feel me. Hide!
Hide from the tongue!
The tongue is coming! Cruising! Oozing!
Over land and under ashes,
In the sunlight, see -- it flashes,
Find a fly and eat his eye,
But don't believe in me.
Don't believe in me.
Don't believe in me."


.. Cryptic!

Re. the lineup, from what I understand, the original band was more a democratic organization, but then in the early 80s a couple of the guys quit, and it became more the band it's been since, which is basically one poet-dude writing songs and... well... I don't actually know, and I wouldn't be surprised if the lyricist was also the main guy arranging the music and programming everything, but it could equally well be a Depeche Mode kind of setup where there's one main music guy and one main lyrics guy.

In any case, I feel there's WAY too much unity in the musical style for it to be multiple main composers of the music. It feels very composed, even if the composition is by an ensemble (e.g. one long-time percussion dude doing kind of the same things against the keys).

I disagree that all Residents albums sound different from each other. In fact, they really fricking run together for me quite a lot, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like a good author like Kurt Vonnegut, the lyrics and themes are a growing variation on a core sensibility that's repeated through a lot of things, and likewise the music, as I said, sounds to me like the work of more or less one dude, using guest musicians (guitars/horns/etc.) to a greater or lesser extent on different albums.

In keeping with my somewhat-speculated-upon lineup history above, I also draw a pretty sharp distinction between the old Residents of Commercial Album/Duck Stab/Meet the Residents/3rd Reich (and my FAVORITE, "Not Available," which to me sounds more free and crazy), and the later, more story-oriented stuff starting maybe with God in Three Persons.

I think my favorite may be Wormwood, where the narrative is really strong and interesting and the music is in a lot of places downright pleasant. I also really dug the River of Crime stuff on iTunes, which drops all pretensions of being songs and just has some cool stories read over some cool musical backdrop. It's musical theater a la Frank Zappa.

I'm loving this forum, so many new experimental bands that I've never heard of are being mentioned here.

Anybody have any album recommendations for these guys? I'm looking into buying one of their albums.

Jesus read the thread would you?

I want to listen to this band, they've always been hovering around my list but i've never got round to it. If anybody has any material they think would be a good starting point that would be amazing?