With the Beatles now having committed their "virtual" reunion, it seems that we might truly have reached a glut in terms of the number and scope of performers caught up in self regurgitation. Every decade gone by seems to a handful of its musical icons trying to have the listening public buy into the notion that their current incarnation mirrors a fair amount of the validity of their heydays. So it's a peculiar thing in such a climate to contemplate the two decades plus of the Residents steady existence. The perpetually anonymous San Francisco quartet have been ever-present on rock's true periphery, looking on literally/symbolically with huge eyeballs without anything approaching wide recognition to fuel their modus operandi.
Recently extolled for their pioneering feats in the world of CD- ROM based entertainment, the Residents have gone from being the sponsors of those queer little mail order blurbs in the slush advert sections of mainstream rock mags to the gentile halls of modern day Prague where as of this writing the Czech orchestra is currently involved in an operatic staging of their 1993 "Freak Show" project. And if you bothered to sit through the whole of Starship's pukey "We Built This City" video figuring that MTV would eventually follow up with something palatable, the Residents are the eyeballs in tuxedo figures that do a cameo in the clip's closing moments. The Residents often tend to interfuse with the mainstream in this manner.
Musically, they could bear resemblance to scores of other avant- garde work that also remains largely unknown, but not having much footing in that realm, the only vague comparison I can draw to the likes of Gingerbread Man is a similarity it bears to the broadcasts of the Church of the SubGenius that I've heard at profane hours of the night when the truly odd and decadent rule the earth. Done up in near-symphonic synth tapestries, a dash or two of marimba flourishes, and based on a collection of tortured narratives, Gingerbread Man is like a walk through David Lynch's neighborhood (or at least the one we imagine he'd like to live in) - a spookhouse soundtrack for the unhinged and the fringe walkers. The music is almost formally a sub-text to what the characters portrayed are trying to convey. All caught in varying states of bitter social decay, the Residents take you to the parlours of the weird and the dispossessed and swear they'll be back to pick you up after they run down to the corner for some smokes. The voices, abstract and sometimes unearthly, mumble and groan and bitch about failed experiences as the listener also negotiates a brief tune that's the melodic glue of the whole enterprise. The Gingerbread Man warbles in on occasion with the "Can't catch me" refrain and as the only unifying element to the piece, it's probably the Residents honest attempt at offering to bridge the gap between their world and ours.
According to the credits, Todd Rundgren is somewhere inside all this, but in what capacity is anyone's guess. But that's the nature of the Residents beast. The seemingly principal intent is to envelope and to cloak experience in enough anonymity that purpose or the mode of construction is somewhat obscured and only the vibe is left standing. The sounds serve as an extended incantation, that once drawn to, leaves the listener in a realm where the gratification does not come at Wal-Mart level of immeadiacy. Nothing cheap or easy or fashioned to a greater state of disposability. Perhaps that's why for the moment they view the CD-ROM as the higher medium, because until we can all afford VR helmets, it's one of the more accessible technological expressways to the viscera. And while they continue to hover unabated by an excess of fame, they can continue to advance masked and gender free, unencumbered by a concern for who and how many are watching. Like the anonymous voice says on the 1-800 info line as it speaks out to touch tone users everywhere, "Press firmly and with great deliberation." Or was it "Press onward...?"
