The Residents
The Residents are an American avant-garde rock band, active since 1974. They are notorious for their strange, haunting, amusing and dissonant songs, some of which are covers of well known popular songs. The band members are always masked during live concerts and their identities remain a mystery to this day.
Don Preston played on The Residents' album Eskimo (1979). Lene Lovich performed Picnic Boy on The Residents' Commercial Album (1980). Fred Frith also collaborated with The Residents
Zappa references
The Residents cite Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa as two of their prime influences. Their first official release, "Santa Dog" (1972) was mailed to various recipients, including Zappa and Richard Nixon. Zappa never replied since the address was incorrect.
The Residents covered King Kong, a track available on their compilation album Daydream B Liver (1991). [1] The guitar parts were played by Philip Lithman, better known as Snakefinger. [2]
Residents spokesman and collaborator, Homer Flynn,interviewed by Steven Cerio (Seconds, issue #43, 1997), said that: "People don’t understand how you can use humor in music and not be Spike Jones. People think if you’re using humor then it must be a joke and that couldn’t be further from the truth with The Residents, as it obviously wasn’t true with Frank Zappa. You can set up your seriousness with humor and vice versa. They’ve never had the view that things should be one-dimensional from an emotional standpoint." [3]
