The Talk of Creatures

Yeah, so, the Klanggalerie tribute is a completely different project from this one! I think the Klanggalerie one is just going under a temporary name. Klanggalerie is not publishing this project and so far there are no plans to make a physical release of this album.

For the CD release of I Am A Resident we get some fancy mixed up lyrics, usually delivered by the singing Rz at the end of each section of the 1 hour Residents extravaganza.

I'm going to try to transcribe some of the lyrics (and Tweedles story) here. I'm also including any lyrics sung by the singing Rz, even if he's just singing normal Rz lyrics (I'm looking at you, Hello Duck Stab).

Lingering Illusions

I'm walking toward a light
In the dark of night.
A door is in my sight
and I can't lie... (?)

Lingering illusions love the lonely whore,
Hiding in the shadows, deep behind a door...
That isn't even there.



Hanging by His Habit

"Love... Love...
Sometimes it's so f*cking hard to be soft. But, you gotta do it. You gotta put the tender edge on the hard hammer to hit the home run, you know? You gotta sell the sweetness to cover the corruption within. The fact that you'll say anything, do anything, be anybody to get what you want. But... then what? Sure, it's fun for a while, but once you finally nail that fine piece of trim, you just want more. ...But not the same mushy gooey rubber-lipped lump you just knocked off, F*CK NO! It needs to be new nookie, nice nookie, nookie that turns you back into the duplicitous hard and tender dick you were fifteen minutes ago! The dick you love. The dick you love to hate. The dick that dances with demons."

...

I've got the rabbit habit!
I've got the rabbit habit!
I've got the rabbit habit!
And nobody has it like me!

I'm lying alone in my bed
wishing you were here instead
I'm bouncing around in my head
like a rabbit.

I'm stuck on your pitiless touch
a snake in a mouth full of fluff
I'm moving and can't get enough
like a habit.

You kick a cat when it's down
And love when I beg to be bound
I should have been a clown
for my mother.

I worship your sensual skin
Teasing the weakness within
I sigh on the alter of sin
for your other.

I hum for the secretive scent
surrounding me like a tent
destroying the self that I sent
to my b*tch master.

"God is waiting for me
The dark man in my eye
To watch the rabbit die
To kick a cat goodbye

God is waiting for you
Just to make you cry
A hard and tender lie
The dark man in your eye"

Freaky Wake
(Any lyrics from The Confused Transsexual appear to be added since to my knowledge no one contributed a cover of that song)

Some say the song of a crow is a cry...

Softly he was worrying
And tender he heard
Listening to the secret sounds
He wished he had not heard

Answer my prayer
answer my prayer tonight.
Let me stay one day
So I can say my goodbye.

Hello Duck Stab

Skinny was born in a bathtub...

...

All the leaves are off of the oak and
all the sheep have followed the spoken
word I'm coming Constantinople here I come.

So I stand out in the open.
All my friends are with you I hope and
pray I'm coming Constantinople here I come.

...

Skinny never knew any questions.
Skinny never looked at lights.

"Please, please, oh please
Please
Please help me
Somebody help me
There's something that I need!"

But skinny sold something every single night...

Commercial Bells Toll

When we were young
When we were young (There were!)
Bells to be rung (There were!)
Songs to be sung (There were!)
When we were young
When we were young (We were!)
Gloriously dumb (dreamers!)
When we were young...

Outro

"You can be one too!"

There is no more to say now
There is no more to say...

...

["We Are The Residents Theme"]

This is your invitation
To ambiguous humanity.
Both to and from a place of isolation
To ponder alternatively.

We exercise the art of creation,
Suspending vanity.
Giving life a grotesque mutilation
And obscuring celebrity.

This is your invitation
This is your invitation
This is your invitation
To the Theory of Obscurity!

We are The Residents
We are The Residents
We are The Residents
You are The Residents

We are The Residents
We are The Residents
We are The Residents
You are The Residents

Hi folks. After Hardy Fox's website updated last month with the "1945-2018" dates on it, I highly considered starting this project but ultimately decided to hold back. I'm like that... I get intimidated by my own project ideas and then never do them. My regret now is that I didn't start this project back then and unfortunately now Hardy Fox will never be able to see or hear it. I guess the best time to have started this project was back then, but the next best time to start it is now.

What is the project?

I wish to construct a tribute album dedicated to the late Hardy Fox. Essentially, it'll work similarly to the "I Am A Resident!" thing. You just submit your song and it goes on the album! That's it! We'll then compile the album together and you'll be able to stream or download it for free on the internet.

Well, it'll be a bit more complicated than that

My vision for this project includes the way the streaming content is presented. You see, this project is a way to celebrate Hardy Fox and express our gratitude for him and his art. The way I initially conceived this project (and how I still want the final product to be like) is that the entire album is a "web experience". When you stream it online on the site I'll be hosting it on, each track will be paired with text and/or visual art by the original track artist with their thank yous to the late Hardy Fox. In a way the album itself will be a big thank you card to Hardy Fox, but each track will come with what is more literally a thank you card. Of course, Hardy is not with us anymore so he cannot personally read them without spiritual intervention, but I still believe that there's something a bit romantic about creating a tribute like this, regardless if he can see it from the afterlife or we're making our expressions of gratitude into the void.

Think of it this way: the website will basically be like liner notes that load up with each song, where the liner notes are your messages and optional art.


How do I contribute?

Check out the submission form to submit a song, visual art, or a thank you note.
This project isn't just limited to the forum! Please share the URL: https://meiseki.mew151.net/hardyfox/

Guidelines:

• The song must be related to Hardy Fox in some way (duh!). You can cover his own songs, cover his work with The Residents, or even write your own song that is about him in some way. Try to stay away from just generic Residents covers, although I'm not going to not accept your submission. Basically I just want you to not reupload your IAAR submission since I want this to be its own distinct thing.
• You have to agree to let me distribute your song for free. It will be up for free download and streaming. Also that means that it has to be possible to legally distribute your song for free.
• You have to include all required fields (track title, artist name, thank you message) with your song or it will not be accepted

Also as a note if we somehow get a ridiculous number of contributions, I will probably pick a good number tracks to be part of a "main" album and include the rest of the tracks to listen to elsewhere.

I'm not a musician! Can I contribute in some way?

YES please! I'd like this album to be visual so if you can provide any visual art I'd be happy to try to include it somewhere in the presentation of it! Also we need album art!

BUT what if you aren't talented at the arts at all??? I still want you to contribute! I want to collect Thank You notes from EVERYONE and find some way to compile them on the front page of the album. Or somewhere else. I don't really know yet, I feel like this project will evolve depending on how active it is. Stay tuned for a general thank you note contribution form.

Alright but what will YOU be doing?

In a way I'm afraid of making art and in a way I subscribe heavily to the theory of obscurity; when I do make art I do not announce it and just put it somewhere quietly to maybe be discovered one day. But for this project I will try to record a track and put it out! I mean, it'd be kind of weird for the person running this whole thing not to do that, right? Even The Residents snuck "Doors" into "I Am A Resident!", right? I've asked myself a never known question and in this case I'm dedicated to SHOWING my art instead of just being shown for once.

I'll also be "producing" this project in general. I'll probably compile the final album and I'll also be developing the website that presents this album with all the art and thank you notes. I will also be working with some friends  who aren't on this forum but are a bit more musically passionate than me in trying to create an intro and outro to the album as a whole. I'll ask for additional help if we need it though!

 

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Well, that's all I can think of for now. Thank you for reading this giant post and I hope that you'll find the inspiration to contribute in some way! I'm asking everyone to contribute in some way, even if you just contribute words of gratitude! Please ask any questions here! If this thing actually gets some steam, I'll also post updates and ask questions so we can guide this idea to its final destination together!

I have one of those fancy microphones that game streamers use, but my voice is horrible. However if you need any technical/behind-the-scenes help at all, I'd love to help. Also if you need somewhere to host the podcast I have space on the interwebz.

My cover of "When We Were Young" made it into the IAAR mix with vocals from Randy, and also appeared on the vinyl release!

Wow! I really loved that cover!

In a way I always saw In My Room/Randyland as a way of The Residents continuing to explore the ideas of the Bunny Boy show. He even mentions this in In My Room Episode 6:

I loved playing Bunny... my friend in that show.
But poor Bunny, he just disappeared.
Nobody knows what happened to him.

From a meta perspective, I think the Randy videos were just them redoing certain Bunny Boy concepts but going in a different direction. With higher production value (thanks Don!) and a more casual tone. Well I mean it's still crazy, but it's presented as real events happening to a member of The Residents instead of The Residents playing out a story.

I still have a hard time understanding exactly what the whole "Randy Chuck & Bob" thing was all about (and even moreso The Bunny Boy since I haven't ever watched the full video series!). I do think that giving "The Residents" identities might have been a way to let Chuck leave all along, but the way TL introduces all these other weird concepts never brought up in the RCB Trilogy again muddies the waters over the true intentions behind why Randy Chuck & Bob ever existed-- and apparently according to Double Trouble, still continue to exist to some degree?

I just listened to I Am A Resident for the first time. HOLY EYEBALLS IT'S AMAZING!

I mean, I was expecting to like it since most of the songs covered in this album I like, but WOW. The remix concept is really what pushes this album from "cool fan compilation, Eyesore 2.0" to the advertised "NEW CONCEPT FROM THE RESIDENTS". It is fantastic. It really is a new Residents album, and it's pretty sweet.

I like the little radio framing device they use to open and close the album. It's cute and makes the album feel like this big event... I'm not sure properly how to explain it. Somehow it makes it feel more like "oh yeah, these people ARE Residents!" Honestly it reminds me of those 1 hour megamixes pop radio stations play on the weekends (... not that I listen to pop music radio...). It's a pretty genius way to frame this album because well... the remix concept really does make this a megamix in a way. I mean it's just one hour of straight Residential chaos and it's awesome.

The whole remix thing adds another layer to the thing as well. Because all the covers blend together and "The Real Residents?" add new textures (AND LYRICS!) on top of them, this really feels like "Our Finest Flowers 2". Which is pretty sweet! Honestly? I kind of like this more as a "Residents play The Residents" album compared to Our Finest Flowers. Maybe because we live in the future where computer synthesized music sounds better and we have even more Rz material to choose from. Maybe it's because the songs are longer and mixed together so they have time to flow between vastly more songs AND the songs get to live on their own for a bit instead of just being squashed together into one single song. Maybe because that cute radio thing and the "I Am A Resident theme" at the end made it more special. I don't know but I love it.

I'm honestly surprised that they thought of this project back in 2013. I mean, at this point I'm used to knowing that Residents albums take years to develop from just the basic idea, but wow... unlike whatever the "Blues Album" is going to be called, this one kind of just laid hidden for quite a while until they actually unveiled the pledgemusic campaign. It's weird that this Residents album was originally imagined up right when I became a "proper" Residents fan... and it just came out and I'm just now listening to it. Crazy!

I lack the musical talent to have properly contributed to the project... and even if I did, I had no money while the pledgemusic campaign was running. So do I consider myself to be a Resident? Maybe. Just maybe.

The In Between Dreams show I went to was just over 2 months ago and I still haven't written anything about it. I should probably change that.

I went to the show at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City. I was staying with my friend who was also going to the concert, despite not being a Residents fan herself (although being close to me means she was familiar with some of their works and I did give her daily "study material" leading up to the concert ). She lived close enough to the venue that we could walk there easily, although she wasn't happy about the fact that I insisted we get there like 2 hours before the show even started.

Well, we did get there pretty early... in fact we were the first ones in line as we stood outside the venue. I stared at the big purple tour bus parked not too far away. Eventually after standing there for quite a while, other people started to line up. I decided it'd be a good idea to put on a little nametag I made for myself that said "HELLO! I am mewee/meisekimiu". Said nametag actually was just from a joke in chat I made about wearing a nametag, but I decided to go through with it in case anyone from chat or the forum was present. I started chatting it up with this guy behind me in line about how great The Rz were, as well as other artists like Captain Beefheart and Snakefinger and such. In the middle of the conversation I had to stop talking as I noticed the H.F. walk by and enter the venue. It was so surreal to see him with my own eyes. Yes that's right, I saw Hein Fokker! also i saw captain doc as well

Anyway, we were finally let into the venue and I showed my fancy "I'm actually old enough to see one of these shows this time" ID to prove that I can consume the devil's liquor. I was first in the venue and I made a beeline for the merch stand. I bought the tour shirt and the venue poster! I was eyeing that MTR vinyl but I decided to skip it since I wanted things that were easier to take home. My friend bought a copy of Duck Stab pREServed since that was the only album she recognized. I remember the guy behind me in line bought a copy of Ghost of Hope. Afterwards I gave him my Real Name, which was a rather strange experience. He seemed a bit confused when I gave him my name so I gave it to him again and he seemed to accept it.

After I got a drink at the bar, I immediately went off to claim a spot up front, right in front of where Tyrone was supposed to be singing. After I talked to some other Rz fans who were reminiscing on the days of fan clubs and mail ordering things, the show finally began to start.

Flashback to around the same time of the year in 2014. I just got the Wonder of Weird CD, the first "new" Residents product I got my hands on. I had watched someone's upload of the Loser=Weed/Picnic in the Jungle performance from the Phoenix WoW show several times by this point, and I was so excited to finally hear clean audio of the whole show. When I hear that beautiful version of Jelly Jack my heart sinks a little bit. I wish I could have been at one of these shows. To listen to, to experience this live. Since then I've been to a few WoW shows in my dreams but I never thought I would hear any of these songs while in between those dreams.

My first thoughts were: "What is this song that they're playing? It sounds so familiar, but, there's no way that they'd..." Then the guitarist plays that same guitar riff that made me committed to seeing The Residents perform live four years prior. An evil cow man walked on stage and everything started to feel like a dream. I cannot believe I got to actually experience a version of the WoW version of Jelly Jack live (so this was a real residents cover of the world's greatest residents cover band's cover?). In fact, this version was even better than the WoW version!

I guess I should just talk about the setlist in general now. Everything was AMAZING. I can see how some might be disappointed with it, since many of the songs were just enhanced covers of the covers done during the WoW shows. But for me, a person who never even got to experience the WoW shows live but love those covers to death anyway, it really was a dream come true. I'll talk more about the similarity to the WoW shows a bit later though. All the new versions of songs were just incredible though. I'd say that one of the highlights of the show to me was It's a Man's World... I'm not sure how to explain it but that one in particular was just very powerful to me. All the actually new songs were great too! And Africa Tree was just...  Tourniquet of Roses was definitely the best way to end any Rz concert ever (pre-encore, anyway). Seriously I just had a crazy goofy smile on my face once I realized what was going on at the end. I will never forget the image of Tyrone alone on stage, just standing away from the mic, staring at us all as "THERE IS NO MORE TO SAY NO" kept echoing on.

The actual sound of the band this time was... just unreal. I had this idea in my head that the "Randy, Chuck, and Bob" incarnation of The Residents was sort of the pinnacle of their live sound. It sounded so great but this show just blew that out of the water. I did not know The Residents could get any better, but I guess most fans who have seen them evolve throughout the years are used to that by now. The almost organ-like sounds from those big keyboards were AMAZING. And the drums and everything else Cha-Cha was doing...! I used to joke about "liking the Residents before the drummer left" from Randyland but like... oh my god having an actual drum/etc guy is so great. I also liked his backup vocals and how he sometimes played melodic sections with his digital drum kit thing. I uh... stared at Cha-Cha a lot throughout the show. Anyway, one more thing about the sound of the show is that I'm glad the harmonica returned! That was such a cool part of Talking Light and it's so strange that it never returned at any of the other RCB shows (but I guess life in reverse yadda yadda).

The dream segments were very cool, but well, Residents concerts being Residents concerts, I couldn't hear them very well. I have no idea what the cowboy dream was about, although everyone was better behaved during the other segments. I loved the Nixon one. The keyboard guy dancing around to Nixon's blues was a really nice touch. It reminds me of how Randy reacted to the stories in Talking Light and Shadowland. It makes it seem like this isn't some prerecorded thing that The Residents have heard countless times by now but instead just some weird interruption to the show that we're all experiencing together for the first time. I dig it.

So, I guess I should put my more "analytical" thoughts on the show? In Japanese interviews they said something like The Residents were plague doctors trying to make the world continue dreaming despite a plague looming over us all, with said plague presumably being Donald Trump. Now, I didn't really get that from the show at all, although I can say that this show did make me very happy and I barely thought about Donald Trump during the show at all, so... I guess their goal was successful. I don't really know. I mainly just want to talk about this show from a more meta perspective.

I think that this show was what WoW was supposed to be but they changed it due to the 40th Anniversary, RCB Trilogy Concept, and Randy's own blog stories taking over WoW. I mean, I don't have proof, but if there was an alternate universe where this show was the 2013 tour, it would have fit in between Talking Light and Shadowland perfectly. And hey, one could interpret the strange stories of death from both Talking Light and Shadowland as "dreams" and BOOM, In Between Dreams is literally in between dreams.

That's all just theory, of course. My other theory is that they decided to play songs from WoW for the Japanese audience since they probably never got to experience those songs live before, and then decided to keep a lot of the "enhanced covers" from WoW. Sound and setlist wise, I really think that In Between Dreams is sort of the "definitive" version of WoW, even though both shows have different concepts and only one of the show has hilarious Randy stories. Whatever the story behind this show was, I'd like to think that The Residents really had creative motivation to make these definitive versions of the songs from WoW instead of just being lazy.


After the show ended my friend and I walked back to her apartment. I was gushing about all the cool things we saw and heard the whole time. The Wonder of Weird lost its place as my favorite Rz live show that night. All that's left is something else and there really is no more to say.

Behold! The album that (apparently) made Penn Jillette snap and finally become a fan of Ralph Records! This is the first official album put out by Renaldo and the Loaf and it's definitely a wacky and surreal one to start off with! Let's question the donut-like qualities of guavas and more in this installment of Finest Flowers Album Club!

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