Re: The Residents at the Warfield

[lum@osupyr.UUCP (Lum Johnson)]

In article <8701130803.AA00339@hplnpm> Niels Mayer <mayer%hplnpm@hplabs.HP.COM> writes:
>[A]re the Residents really supposed to sound so much like the severed heads
>and/or skinny puppy? ...  I found it to be undeniably deathrock....
>that deeesco backbeat with a sinister twist of noize, doom, and gloom...
>I'm used to the Residents being silly, not sinister. ...  It felt like a
>"the residents sell out" concert.

Yes, I believe the Residents' stuff should be viewed as parody/satire, and
not be taken too seriously, except as criticism/critique of whatever it
superficially appears to be.  My guess is that they find deathrock silly.

This has to be modified by noting that the level of what they are attacking
varies from case to case.  I'd say _George_and_James_, as indicated by the
alternate title _American_Composers_Series_Volume_I_, is intended not as
a criticism of G Gershwin and J Brown but of the formal _music_criticism_
apparatus and its peculiar way (both how and why) of deciding what music is
important or not.  Also note the complete intangency of any successive pair
of Residents' releases - they seem to grow easily bored of anything.

Lum Johnson  lum@ohio-state.arpa  ..!cbosgd!osu-eddie!lum

Oh, BTW, someone asked whether I actually receive WOSR.  Yes, and as I write
this I am (was) listening to _Kerosene_.  However, in addition to the other
difficulties I mentioned earlier, they tend to "broadcast" only NOAA weather
radio or tape loops whenever no one is there, which is often, since all the
staff are students.  And keep in mind that during quarter breaks (about ten
weeks a year) no one will be there anyhow.  Try afternoons or evenings.