The Residents comes to Royce with fan favorites
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 24, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 UCLA Performing Arts The Residents will perform "Icky
Flix," channeling the space of American music through a blend of
eerie electronics.
By Kate Bristow
Daily Bruin Contributor
To be a rock star is to be perpetually in the public eye. Images
of these celebrities are plastered on the bedroom walls of
13-year-olds and recreated on iridescent 50-cent stickers sold in
pizza parlors and grocery stores.
The band The Residents dodged such material aspects of stardom
when it donned giant eyeball masks and tuxedos in the 1970s,
thereby concealing its member’s identities from the world for
the past three decades.
As part of its retrospective tour, “Icky Flix,” the
world’s most well-known anonymous band will perform in Royce
Hall at 8 p.m.
Although it features new, old and redone songs and videos from
the group’s recently released DVD of the same name, the
“Icky Flix” show has no set playlist, and what songs
are played will be largely up to fans.
“Generally people just sort of shout out what song they
want to hear, selecting it from the “˜Icky Flix’ DVD
menu projected on stage,” said Hardy Fox, co-owner of the
band’s production company, The Cryptic Corporation and
spokesperson for The Residents.
“The concert is a combination of what the audience wants
to hear and what the band wants to play,” he continued.
Each song will be played in front of its respective video that
will be projected on a large screen in the background. The audience
will decide which video The Residents will show by applauding as
each song title is highlighted on screen.
The “Icky Flix” show and DVD highlight the
band’s most famous video projects, many of which received
critical acclaim. Some of the projects are included in the New York
Museum of Modern Art’s permanent video collection.
“The “˜Icky Flix’ DVD was an interesting way to
revisit what they did in the past and bring it into the now,”
said Homer Flynn, co-owner of The Cryptic Corporation.
Pioneers of the music video, The Residents were among the first
bands to experiment with computer animation in video, and were the
forerunners of interactive CD-ROM with their games “Freak
Show” and “Bad Day on Midway.” Now in 2001, they
are experimenting with DVD.
“The Residents are sort of hooked on gadgets,” Fox
said. “In the beginning it was electric guitars and tape
recorders. Now there are synthesizers, samplers and, of course,
computers, and they’ve embraced every one.”
In the late-’60s, when electric guitars and tape recorders
were “hi-tech,” the four members of the band, who have
been friends since high school, moved to San Francisco from their
hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. Needless to say, their
avant-garde music that incorporates distorted popular song lyrics,
eerie electronics, squealing, grunting and groaning, was not well
received in the love-happy Californian town.
In fact, much of The Residents’ material is disturbingly
morbid, as their music and videos often depict harsh realities and
pessimistic views.
“A line from a recent episode of “˜The
Sopranos’ put a Zen quote in the mouth of the Mafia, and when
I heard it I thought “˜that sounds exactly like The
Residents,'” Flynn said. “They are joyfully
participating in the misery of life.”
Also somewhat un-traditional was the band’s initial lack
of a name. The band only chose a name when Warner Bros. promptly
turned down and returned their first anonymous demo tape addressed
simply “For the attention of residents.”
“You don’t have to make a decision to be an
anonymous band,” Fox said. “Everyone starts out
anonymous, but The Residents just never bothered to put their names
or pictures on anything. They wanted the whole group to get
attention, not individuals.”
Being completely nameless in a music industry where title and
image mean everything is in line with the band’s earlier
anarchic and anti-pop attitude. However, while the nonconformist
attitude will always be a part of The Residents, the band members
are not as ardent about political and societal issues now as they
were in the past.
“The Residents tended to be more political when they were
younger,” Fox said. “Their music was more of a front to
culture then and they thought they had something to
prove.”
The anonymous approach has certainly worked out well for the
band in the long run. While other bands are getting plastic surgery
and squeezing flabby legs into leather pants in desperate attempts
to remain attractive, The Residents happily hide behind their
masks, forever directing their audiences’ attention toward
the music, not the musicians.
“They wanted their image to remain fresh, not pinned to
aging bodies,” Fox said.
The Resident’s are currently working on another DVD and
hope to begin work on a new CD in the near future as well.
“They still really enjoy what they’re doing,”
Flynn said. “I think they are having as much fun with it now
as they ever did before.”
MUSIC: The Residents are performing at 8 p.m.
in Royce Hall. Tickets are available through the Central Ticket
Office for $35, $30, $25, and $15 (students with valid I.D.)
