The Residents

小简介
这个乐队堪称世界上最古怪的乐队之一，甚至最初连名字都没有。The Resident这个名字得来据说这样，“对于一个经常活跃在你周围的乐队极端崇拜，但又不知这几个人到底是谁，只是知道就住在你附近，所以乾脆叫‘居民’好了”一来二去这个名字就叫开了。
看看这个乐队在1966年时干了些什么——用电子乐、超级失真、先锋爵士乐和古典音乐、交响音乐搞实验音乐？这种创作直到今天也依然是很多人的梦想，可在三十多年前，The Resident就这样轻易做到了。
这个乐队自成立之初，就绝对“没脸见人”(不知道Kiss乐队是否就是受到了这个乐队的启发，学了这么一手)，乾脆乐队成员的名字也改成神话人物的了。还专门委托一个组织替他们出头露面，神秘的如同上帝。乐队讨厌现场演出，即使迫不得已登台时也总是打扮得连亲妈也识不得——类似木乃伊、各种蔬菜的装扮有很多，最为著名就是的超大眼球头罩，高礼帽、夜礼服和一条长尾巴了。他们从不接受任何采访，神秘到底。一些执著的记者和歌迷为一睹真容，绞尽脑汁，甚至闯乐队录音棚，甚至乾脆就捏造点乐队的图片，吹嘘自己是这几个高人的哥们了事。
看看推荐专辑里那据传只售出了五十张的专辑《Meet the Residents》，甲壳虫的四位帅歌都给改成那德行了，音乐自然不难想象。乐队第一支单曲“Santa Dog”也只是录制了三百张，还全部邮寄给Frank Zappa和尼克松总统这样的大人物了。直到1978年，乐队为了合约才懒洋洋地正式推出了第一张正式专辑《Third Reich N’Roll》(第三帝国摇滚乐？果然厉害)。乐队把前卫摇滚的实验特色同扭曲的流行音乐、各种古怪的音乐元素以及怪癖的念头堆砌在一起，对排行榜金曲进行了恶毒的攻击
朋克时代，乐队的胡搞才能得到了进一步发挥，后朋克的历史中也由此增加了一支最让人找不到北的乐队。无厘头的瞎打乱撞在此时也达到了乐队历史的巅峰，彻底没有了以前还算有根可查的音乐。愉快的在地下世界折腾了几年后，乐队开始向更加史诗化的大作发展，古典音乐此时有成为了主要实验的对象。80年代中期后开始篡改美国作曲家系列的创作过程…
总有人以为60年代只有The Velvet Underground这样的先锋，可比起像The Residents、Captain Beefheart这样的乐队，就有些大巫见小巫的味道了。我们是无法清晰地去定义The Residents的风格的，先锋爵士，实验电子，古典音乐，早期朋克，噪音实验，无浪潮……各种音乐元素被混杂在一起，却又随心所欲地不按任何道理出牌，无序的各种音乐样式被滑稽可笑地拼贴在一起，加上主唱鼻音浓重、乾瘪粗糙的噪音，营造了一个怪诞、荒谬的现代社会即景图。
2000年乐队的新专辑Roadworms: The Berlin Sessions，沿袭着乐队固有的玩闹风格，展现在我们面前。这张在柏林录音室里录制的唱片是明显地带有欧洲电子风格的，而追随着上一张专辑Wormwood的宗教主题，The Residents一再地将圣经故事解构，正话反说，有话不好好说，每首歌的结构往往是以宗教式的键盘开始，在没有节奏的电子方向上游走一段，然后就迫不及待地加入没有道理的吉它solo、吉它噪音，达至撕心裂肺的高潮，最后再一步一回头拖泥带水地哼哼几句。而一男一女两个主唱也是唱得东倒西歪、睡意惺忪，绝对地老没正劲！这是一张概念化的唱片，光是理解那些晦涩的歌名就够呛了，什么得到头的方法、头发的绞刑、神那有魔力的手指头、把猪在庙宇用帐篷遮盖、使秋天燃烧……好玩又荒诞。而最后一首8分多钟的噪音实验作品Judas Saves. Road更是在高潮处把一段可怕的吉它噪音和欢乐颂结合得天衣无缝，可谓是出人意表的奇异高潮和结局，他们每次都是这样，让你摸不着头脑。　
这就是30几年来不愿以真面目示人的另外一群居民，用他们自成一体的古怪乐理和道理充满恶意地幽默、充满刺激地诅咒、充满机智地尖刻、充满戏剧性地疏离、充满愤世嫉俗地挖苦。反正笑到你眼泪流出来，哭到你忍不住笑出来
Over the course of a recording career spanning several decades, the Residents remained a riddle of Sphinx-like proportions; cloaking their lives and music in a haze of willful obscurity, the bands members never identified themselves by name, always appearing in public in disguise — usually tuxedos, top hats and giant eyeball masks — and refusing to grant media interviews. Drawing inspiration from the likes of fellow innovators including Harry Partch, Sun Ra, and Captain Beefheart, the Residents channelled the breadth of American music into their idiosyncratic, satiric vision, their mercurial blend of electronics, distortion, avant-jazz, classical symphonies and gratingly nasal vocals reinterpreting everyone from John Philip Sousa to James Brown while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of theatrical performance and multimedia interaction.
It was commonly accepted that the four-member group emigrated to San Francisco, California from Shreveport, Louisiana at some point in the early 70s. According to longtime group spokesman Jay Clem — one member of the so-called Cryptic Corporation, the bands representative body — they received their name when Warner Bros. mailed back their anonymous demo tape, addressed simply for the attention of residents. Finding no takers for their oddball sounds, the Residents founded their own label, Ralph Records, for the purposes of issuing their 1972 debut Santa Dog, released in a pressing of 300 copies which were mailed out to luminaries from Frank Zappa to President Richard Nixon. Their debut full-length, 1974s Meet the Residents, reportedly sold fewer than 50 copies before the group was threatened with a lawsuit from Capitol Records over its cover, a twisted, dada-esque parody of the art to Meet the Beatles.
The follow-up, 1974s neo-classical excursion Not Available, was recorded with the intention of its music remaining unissued; locked in cold storage upon its completion, only a 1978 contractual obligation resulted in its eventual release. 1976s Third Reich N Roll was the next official offering, a collection of pop oldies covers presented in a controversial jacket portraying Adolf Hitler clutching an enormous carrot. After a 1976 concert in Berkeley, California which cloaked the Residents behind an opaque screen, wrapped up like mummies — the most famous of only three live performances mounted during their first decade of existence — they issued an abrasive 1977 cover of the Rolling Stones Satisfaction, which became an underground hit on both sides of the Atlantic at the peak of the punk movement. As the decade drew to a close, the group released a flurry of recordings, further building upon their growing cult following; among them were 1977s Duck Stab/Buster & Glen, 1979s Eskimo (purportedly a collection of native Arctic chants) and 1980s Commercial Album, a compilation of 40 one-minute pop songs that aired on San Francisco radio only because the Residents played them during the advertising time they bought.
In 1981 the Residents embarked upon their Mole Trilogy, a prog rock collection of albums — 1981s The Mark of the Mole, 1982s The Tunes of Two Cities and 1985s The Big Bubble — recounting an epic battle between a pair of tribes named the Moles and the Chubs; a lavish, multimedia tour, The Mole Show, followed. In the interim, the group also mounted another ambitious project, the American Composer series, although only two of the projected titles — 1984s George and James (a reinterpretation of songs by George Gershwin and James Brown) and 1986s Stars and Hank Forever (celebrating John Philip Sousa and Hank Williams) — ever appeared. Instead, in the wake of financial and corporate difficulties which resulted in the creation of a New Ralph label, the Residents issued the one-off God in Three Persons (a talking blues outing), and 1989s The King and Eye (a reinterpretation of Elvis Presley standards).
After losing control of the Ralph label as well as their back catalog, the Residents regained the rights to their music in 1990 and began reissuing long-out-of-print material as well as the new Freak Show, a meditation on circus sideshows and carnival dementia. Four years later, Freak Show was reissued as a CD-ROM, marking the groups first leap into the new digital interactive technology; Have a Bad Day followed in 1996, and included the soundtrack to the CD-ROM game Bad Day on the Midway. In 1997, the band celebrated their silver anniversary with the release of the career-spanning overview Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses. Wormwood: Curious Stories From the Bible followed the next year, with Roadworms (songs from Wormwood as performed in the stage show) being issued in mid-2000. They followed that up with the awesome Icky Flix DVD, an incredibly detailed collection of their videos that featured both old and new soundtracks, 5.1 Digital Stereo Surround sound, countless hidden videos and in-depth histories of each individual track. That was followed by another one of their rare tours, which saw them incorporate the DVD into their live act and bring out guest singer Molly Harvey for some truly creative duets. The Petting Zoo retrospective followed in the spring of 2002, acting as a budget sampler for new fans and giving old fans something to tide them over while several high concept projects neared completion. The first was Demons Dance Alone, a complicated pop album that hearkened back to the catchier material from Duck Stab and The Commercial Album. That was followed in 2002 by a live retrospective called Kettles of Fish on the Outskirts of Town that contained 3 cds and a DVD, and a further look at their past via remasters and remixes put out by EuroRalph (including a remix of their previously unreleased and notorious Warner Brothers Demo). A DVD of the Demons Dance Alone tour came out in 2004 and another new project, Animal Lover was released in 2005.