VA: The Residents Present Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982 (Cherry Red)
Purchased mail order from the label
The will be some spoilers regarding The Residents below, if it matters to you.
I enjoyed watching Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents. It is largely a fan piece, similar to Zappa. Both films are filled with talking heads, both are essential to serious fans for otherwise publicly unavailable stills and film clips.
There's a passing moment in the former film that hinted at something deeper. All four of the Cryptic Corporation, The Residents' management and heads of Ralph Records: Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, Jay Clem, and John Kennedy. Jay would be the "human", non-eyeball-head representative of Ralph/Residents for public appearances in the latter years listed on this collection. When he was asked if he would say why he split from the Cryptic Corporation, his answer was simply "No." I could be over-interpreting the moment. I thought there was such a sadness in his eyes, it still seemed like something painful even after several decades had elapsed.
I was told by a mutual friend with The Residents that the split with Jay was "ugly." When I told him The Residents weren't around when I made a pilgrimage to Ralph Records in 1986, he said, "Sometimes it's better not to meet your heroes."
Ouch.
Despite their veil of secrecy to the general public, those close to The Residents have revealed bits and pieces of the story. It's no surprise that the Cryptic Corporation was The Residents, sort of. What started as a hippy art collective became a music and multimedia band. Hardy Fox, shortly before his death, came out as the musical director of the group. Anyone who's heard Homer speak will immediately recognize his voice as the primary singer. Those who have played in the studio for the band confirmed it was basically two guys. Jay's voice appears here and there on some of the early records, but he had to run the day to day business. John? I understand he owned the (in)famous 444 Grove St. It's quite possible they were all involved musically in the early recordings, but I lack details in that respect.
Ralph Records was created to release The Residents. The first double single, Santa Dog, wasn't even really sold for the most part. They sent a copy to the Nixon White House, to have it returned unopened with "Rejected" stamped on the package.
Within a few years, the label had started to sign other artists. It was believed (a notion I understand that was promoted by Homer) that to be a viable, profitable label, they had to include other bands and musicians. Maybe for a time it was sustainable, but largely it seems like a highly optimistic viewpoint. Having a small, artist-run label is difficult, and now practically impossible now.
We now have this triple-CD collection overview of Ralph Records. The emphasis is on the Ralph singles. It's a lot of music to write about, and I won't attempt to go into detail about everything.
Disc one: The Residents, Schwump, Snakefinger, Art Bears, Chrome
The earliest years, dating to 1972's "Fire" from Santa Dog. Tracks come from the singles, and all of the albums up to Duck Stab! and Not Available. Not included is anything from The Third Reich N Roll or Eskimo. The former isn't surprising, as it's two side-ling suites of unidentified covers of 60s pop and rock songs. "Satisfaction" is included though. As for Eskimo, perhaps they considered it another long suite, and wouldn't separate a portion of it. I can only speculate. Schwump was a one-off, a friend who sang for one limited edition single from 1976. The release includes both sides, and dangles an unreleased track in front of us fans.
Snakefinger was the first artist signed to the label, though he was friend of The Residents and appears on several of their albums. The songs in disc one are from Chewing Hides the Sound, which is Snakefinger singing and playing guitar with Residents supporting tracks. It sounds like The Residents with a different singer, more guitar, and generally more traditional songwriting (if still weird).
Ralph's association with Fred Frith begins with releasing music by Art Bears, his studio project with Henry Cow bandmates Damar Krause and Chris Cutler. There's a bit of that Henry Cow-style prog going on, but also more lieder-like perhaps? Dagmar sounds rather like Lotte Lenya, and it's appropriate she would record an LP of Weill and Eisler songs.
Disc one ends with Chrome, the most traditionally-rocking piece of the entire collection. Chrome only appeared on Ralph by way of the Subterranean Modern compilation. What I read recently is that Ralph tried to sign them, but they wanted too much money. They had already started releasing their own records, and would release Third From the Sun (an old WRCT favorite) on Subterranean Records, appropriately enough.
Disc two: Chrome, MX-80 Sound, The Residents, Tuxedomoon, Gary Panter, Snakefinger
Disc two opens with the four radical (and radically different) interpretations of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by the first four artists listed above. MX-80 and Tuxedomoon would be added to the Ralph roster.
MX-80 Sound would probably be the most atypical of the Ralph artists. A quartet (formerly quintet with two drummers) originally from Indiana, they were signed and quickly dropped from Island Records, producing the LP Hard Attack. I guess Island wanted in on this punk rock/new wave thing, but they're not typical of either. They had a non-singer singer who plays occasional saxophone and minimal guitar. The real star of the band was Bruce Anderson, blazing guitarist with a style I've described before was virtuosic sloppiness. I know that's an oxymoron, so maybe think of him as an action player. "Someday You'll Be King" should top any proper list of post-punk songs, and the single B side, "White Nights" is nearly as good. There's an unreleased MX-80 song that closes the disc, which is not bad but not at the same level.
Only two original songs by Tuxedomoon are included on this disc, which seems like a huge omission. They were probably as compelling a band as associated with Ralph. Both their albums for the label are great in different ways.
The really oddity on this disc are the three songs by Gary Panter. Gary was a visual artist did several covers for Ralph. The songs were produced by The Residents, but never appeared on the label. I am lucky to have the original issue, a 7" that folds out into a great Panter poster of a robot playing guitar. The third track, unreleased, is "Rozz Tox." Perhaps it's Gary reading the Rozz Tox manifesto he wrote, but I can't really tell what he's saying through the vocal processing. The Rozz Tox image is Gary's take on the huge Chicago Picasso sculpture, and appears inside the Eskimo gatefold Lp cover. There's also a picture of Gary with Philip K. Dick, wearing a Rozz Tox t shirt.
The Residents appear here with "Diskomo", their disco remix of Eskimo. With a hype sticker on the original cover, "Disco will never die!", and without even having heard the original album, my teenage self got the joke.
There's more Snakefinger here from Greener Postures. It sound like the he and The Residents became more accomplished with production, the sound is better than ever.
Disc three: Fred Frith, Yello, MX-80 Sound, Tuxedomoon, Renaldo and the Loaf, Snakefinger, The Residents
The third disc opens with Fred Frith and it's about time. Unfortunately, it's the two songs released as a 7" that appear on his album Gravity. While The Residents' Duck Stab is like comfort food for me. Gravity might be the single best record the label released. There's a European side with backing largely by Samla Mammas Manna, and an American side with The Muffins. It's his take on various dance musics. It's at times whimsical, serious, dense, abrasive, and you can even dance to it. His followup album, Speechless, follows the same form of the European side (Etron Fou Leloublan) and American side (Massacre). There are two tracks included here too. It's good but I don't like it as much as the earlier record.
After the opening Frith tracks, the collection dives deeper into Yello. Four pieces from their first album, plus a single B side from that period. Why so much? Could it be that Yello went on to be the most successful of all the groups here, largely due to the "Oh Yeah" song that appeared in Francis Bueller's Day Off? I can only speculate, but I suspect the answer is a yes. I bought this collection in large part due to the previously unreleased pieces; I fully understand it's a way of earning off The Residents' old work.
But Yello's recordings? The first album production has a kind of dead sound to it, the subsequent tracks the second album are clearer. The music is draws from various pop music idioms: a little exotica, some early jazz, bossa and salsa, and throws them into a mostly synthetic sound world. There are drums, some guitar, some sampled horns. Hearing recent Yello recordings, they really haven't changed at all.
Renaldo and the Loaf was accused by some listeners as being The Residents. They may be in a similar mode, but they don't really sound alike at all. I always got the impression (confirmed by the feature documentary about them) that R&TL was the closest to a folk group of anything on Ralph, even more than The Residents. But the voice is clearly different, the use of recording technology is different. Aggressive use of tape loops, backwards vocals, altered speeds on instruments, and especially high pitched whiney vocals, it's a different sound world than their labelmates. Only their first Ralph LP, Songs for Swinging Larvae, is represented in this collection. They released several more through Ralph, I own one. Maybe just that first was enough.
And what's left? A little MX-80 from Crowd Control, two pieces from Tuxedomoon's Desire. Again, the latter seems like a big omission, considering how great (and different from their first) that album is. There's more Snakefinger too, "Eva's Warning" from Manual of Errors, the first "band" record he released, plus a few unreleased demos.
And the conclusion? It all ends with The Residents, naturally, the conclusion of Mark of the Mole. "Would We Be Alive?" A fitting end. The beginning of their Emulator/digital instrument period. no more out of tune piano, very little awful squonky saxophone by Homer. The beginning when when I take less interest in their music.
Whew. Well, welcome to some of the soundtrack of my early adulthood. There's more I could have written, but this already feels like an immense knowledge and opinion dump. I'm tired and have been writing largely to distract myself.
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