Official News Blog, February 2008

Blog header, February 2008

URL

http://www.residents.com/ (archived March 7th 2008) by archive.org

Author

Big Brother

Entries

9

Publication

February 2nd - 28th 2008

BOG chronology

Previous	Next
Official News Blog, January 2008	Official News Blog, March 2008

The Residents' Official News Blog was a news blog maintained by Big Brother of The Cryptic Corporation beginning in August 2003, previously known as the Official News BOG (or simply BOG) until April 2007.

The BOG became The Cryptics' (and thus, The Residents') main outlet for communication with their fans until the website's redesign in April 2008.

This page collects posts made to this news blog in February 2008, as archived on archive.org, transcribed to this wiki by a Mysterious Spanish Lady.

Blog entries

Stampede for CD

Feb/02/08 09:03 AM

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Anyone hanging about thinking he will pick up Animal Lover Instrumental "later' might as well prepare to make that an eBay purchase. Dren is reporting a steady flow of orders even after the pre-orders have been shipped. Consider this a warning to get your order in if this is on your must-have-list. BTW, it is a must-have CD.

The Last Word

Feb/03/08 05:28 PM

Big Brother, always one to want the last word, now has a new opinion page in the Historical.

The new essay is called Scars.

Duck Stab / Eskimo Release Dates

Feb/06/08 08:30 AM

Mute has just announced the updated fancy Duck Stab and Eskimo albums will be released in the UK and Europe on April 28. No date for the US was announced so you can anticipate that it will be later.

Pee Wee TV Commercial music

Feb/07/08 07:23 AM

For your Chinese New Year treat:

pwee commercial

Duck Stab set for April 28 Release

Feb/19/08 09:17 AM

At some point in 1977, The Residents happened to stumble onto a review of their album, The Third Reich 'N' Roll, and the reviewer was joyously proclaiming, "Kids today don't want to listen to music like The Residents make. There is no fun in it. You certainly can't dance to it." That kind of pissed The Residents off, not so much because he said their music was no fun, but more because it implied that kids were complete idiots.

So The Residents set out to make an album of shorter, more fun tunes to prove to the world that it would be just as unpopular as their other recordings. So The Residents recorded Duck Stab.

However, when it came out in February of 1978, it was an instant smash. The kids ate it up, proving that The Residents were wrong yet again, and the pesky reviewer knew what he was talking about. The kids were idiots after all.

Duck Stab produced several instant classics. Hello Skinny, Constantinople, Bach is Dead, and Blue Rosebuds became anthems of Residents mania. The very reviewer who didn't take to earlier Residents works proclaimed, "Duck Stab lifts the country out of the slumber of the Seventies."

Even now, 30 long years later, Duck Stab is, to many people, the ultimate Residents album. The kids obviously grew into adult idiots. The Residents gave up trying to prove that catchy music would be unpopular and announced that next they would record an album of wind noises and grunting. Which is exactly what they did. But that is another story.

Mute UK Duck Stab Link

Eskimo Set for April 28 release

Feb/19/08 09:21 AM

In 1979 "punk" music was all the rage. The Residents had gone though the punk stage three years earlier with the release of "Satisfaction" and were ready for anything that was not punk.

They decided it was a good time to make the jump into world music, since by their own calculations it would not become popular for several more years. They scanned the map for a proper culture to exploit and, not finding one, became discouraged until seeing a large Coke sign featuring Santa Claus. Immediately they realized they had overlooked the North Pole because it is made of ice and therefore didn't exist on their world map.

Immediately rushing out to a library, they gathered all the information they could find on Eskimos. What they found was a government-issued book on Eskimo sanitation, a book of Eskimo legends, and one scratchy record of someone hitting a drum and chanting. Not exactly the rich cultural vein they had hoped to mine.

But it was enough, for it set the Eyeballs spinning off into their own imaginary world of six-month nights, marimbas made of frozen fish, and Eskimo sex lives. For almost four years the ideas tumbled around. Sometimes they would feel elated at some new breakthrough, but usually they moaned that the album would not only make dreary listening, but be pretentious beyond belief.

But when it was finally released ESKIMO was a hit, both in sales and in reviews. Andy Gill of New Music Express said, "I'm not sure quite how to convey the magnitude of The Residents' achievement with Eskimo. What I am sure of is that it's without doubt one of the most important albums ever made, if not the most important, and that its implications are of such an unprecedentedly revolutionary nature that the weak-minded polemical posturing of purportedly 'political' bands are positively bourgeois by comparison."

He says this because the album tells the story, without relying upon words, of the assimilation of a ritualistic society into consumer culture. This story unfolds as Eskimo fables, a lived experience, set to the grinding of sound effects and music. It is a mind movie rich with detail. ESKIMO is, quite literally, a unique experience.

Mute UK Eskimo Link

Ralph Records Catalog #2

Feb/23/08 07:53 AM

I just found some old catalogs from 1977.

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The order page allows you to order 1st edition Meet the Residents for $10.00. 1st edition Third Reich will set you back $4.00. Shipping costs $.50 no matter how much you order.

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