The Residents

I am in love. I have been listening to this band on and off for a few years now and only yesterday decided to check them out on Youtube. Wow, what an idiot I was for not having done so before. To whomever is reading this: do yourself a favor and do the same.

I really, really feel like an idiot for thinking of that so late. They fit perfectly my grandiose sense of the absurd and ironic (and many know how grandiose it can be). They make no sense and they are just plainly strange (my Friday-flight-group would say that we were meant to be -and I hope that's true). I would marry the idea of them if it were possible (maybe after gay marriage?).

I have watched some of their videos over and over again and have felt a resurgence of inspiration! Release the floodgates! I feel an artistic connection - which everyone knows is more important than a romantic connection.

Watch this and this and this. You will not be sorry.

Another appealing thing about them is their mysterious personas. No one really knows who "The Residents" are. They hide behind their giant eyeball masks never revealing themselves. Some silly humans seem to think its actually The Beatles. The Beatles really aren't that cool, trust me.

Some Wikipedia tidbits:

-"Whilst attempting to make a living, they began to experiment with tape machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with "art" that they could get their hands on."

-"Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around their management team, known as "The Cryptic Corporation."

-"The group purchased crude recording equipment and instruments and began to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical proficiency stand in the way."

-"In 1971 the group sent a reel-to-reel tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, since he had worked with Captain Beefheart (one of the group's musical heroes). Halverstadt was not overly impressed with "The Warner Bros. Album" (he describes it as "okay at best" in "Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents"), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "The Residents". The members of the group then decided that this would be the name they would use (first becoming Residents Unincorporated, then shortening it to the current name)."