Untitled Document

33-1/3 rpm 12” PICTURE DISC LP

RALPH RECORDS OP11 THE RESIDENTS FREAKSHOW
I got into the Residents, and other bands on their label Ralph Records, back in 1978. I had been a fan of weird music since discovering the Mothers in the late 60s and the Residents were even weirder. 
If you are into strange music you probably already know about this album… If you don’t and you’re curious it’s a good introduction to the band.
If you are unfamiliar with the Residents, or Freakshow you can check them out on YouTube.
Visually this disc looks like it has never been played. Near MINT. Both sides play perfectly from start to finish.
Minimal surface noise, no pops, no clicks. This album has obviously never been played more than a few times.
The sound quality is not audiophile ear candy or anything but it’s very good.  Freakshow After the Cube E tour The Residents were feeling rather dispirited. The last leg of the tour had been plagued with problems and they'd been feeling more and more like what had started out as a piece of musical theater had turned into an exhibition of bizarre cultural deformities with themselves as the star attraction. "Everyone comes to the freak-show" became a back-stage catch-phrase for the tour. It didn't help that after almost ten years of tours and major projects (not to mention nearly twenty years of albums), the musical press still spent far more time talking about their Eyeball heads than their music.
Building on their fears and worries (a frequent source of inspiration for them) and inspired by such sources as Daniel P. Mannix's book Freaks: We Who Are Not Like Others and the 1932 movie Freaks, they came up with a series of short stories about a troupe of side-show freaks.

The songs which grew out of these don't necessarily tell these stories (though some do) but instead concentrate on the character of the people -- with the reminder that these are people, in spite of their often disturbing appearances. The group also turn the situation upside-down for one song, Lillie. Lillie is a member of the audience who, in spite of being a so-called "normal" person, is so disturbing that she manages to freak the freaks out.

The Residents hired Tony Janssen, who had worked with them on the sound on Cube-E, to help out with the MIDI work on the album. The band had started experimenting with the technology when they were hired to write soundtracks for episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse but this was the most extensive use of the synthesizer networking system they had ever undertaken.

The album was fairly successful and The Residents decided to expand on the ideas within it. They teamed up with computer animator Jim Ludtke to produce a promotional video, Harry the Head. As part of their 20th Anniversary celebrations in 1992 they recruited a host of top-notch alternative comix artists to produce a full-color graphic novel based on the characters' songs and stories, which was published by Dark Horse Comics. A special limited-edition hard-cover version also included a single called Blowoff, a fifteen-minute instrumental piece based on musical ideas from Freak Show.

The graphic novel was a hit and was followed by a first for The Residents: a CD-ROM. The interactive program lets the viewer not only explore the actual Freak Show under the big top, but also go backstage to the Freaks' trailers and poke around in their personal belongings and private lives (and see videos for each character). The Residents themselves appear as a freak act and have a trailer for you to explore, which contains a history of the band.
The Residents: Freak Show is a CD-ROM by The Voyager Company. A few years earlier they had released a similar work based on The Residents entitled Twenty Twisted Questions. The project was spearheaded by James Ludtke. The Atlantic deemed it one of the most influential early CD-Roms. Wired noted it was "widely hailed as the best CD-ROM ever". PC Mag listed it as one of the top 100 CD-ROM titles. The book Resolution felt the title opened up the "poetic possibilities" of the interactive medium. The Book is Dead deemed it "obscure". The Voyager Company themselves noted the limitations of sound in the medium which had the potential of alienating players. The New York Times felt the game offered the player a chance to view the characters' "sad yet oddly exhilarating lives".
The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, Meet the Residents (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects, and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, the Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects. They founded Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, in 1972. Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have ostensibly attempted to work anonymously, preferring to have attention focused on their art. Much speculation and rumor has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, they appear silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tails—a costume now recognized as their signature iconography. In 2017, Hardy Fox, long known to be associated with the Residents, identified himself as the band's co-founder and primary composer; he died in 2018.

• Meet the Residents – 1974
• The Third Reich ’n Roll – 1976
• Fingerprince – 1977
• Not Available – 1978 (Recorded In 1974)
• Duck Stab! / Buster and Glen – 1978
• Eskimo – 1979
• Commercial Album – 1980
• Mark of the Mole – 1981
• The Tunes of Two Cities – 1982
• Title in Limbo with Renaldo and the Loaf – 1983
• George & James – 1984
• Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? – 1984
• The Big Bubble – 1985
• Stars & Hank Forever! – 1986
• God in Three Persons – 1988
• Buckaroo Blues – 1989 (Fan club release)
• The King & Eye – 1989
• Freak Show – 1990
• Our Finest Flowers – 1992
• Gingerbread Man – 1994
• Hunters – 1995 (Limited Release)
• Have a Bad Day – 1996
• Wormwood: Curious Stories From the Bible – 1998
• Roadworms: The Berlin Sessions – 2000
• Icky Flix (soundtrack of a DVD consisting of re-recordings) – 2001
• Demons Dance Alone – 2002
• 12 Days of Brumalia – 2004 (Mail-order only.)
• Animal Lover – 2005
• Tweedles! – 2006
• Night of the Hunters (Mail-Order only) – 2007
• The Voice of Midnight – 2007
• The Bunny Boy – 2008
• Postcards from Patmos (Sold at live shows and through mail-order) – 2008
• Hades – 2009 (Initially digital only)
• Dollar Generals (Sold at live shows and through mail-order) – 2010
• Lonely Teenager – 2011
• Chuck’s Ghost Music (credited to the Residents' Talking Light and later credited to Charles Bobuck) – 2010
• Night Train To Nowhere! – 2012 (Released with photo book of the same name)
• Bad Day on the Midway: Music From the Game Reconsidered – 2012 (Available through mail-order)
• Mush-Room – 2013
• The Ghost of Hope – 2017
• Intruders - 2018
• Metal, Meat & Bone: The Songs of Dyin’ Dog - 2020