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By John Corbett
The Residents
The Beatles Play The Residents
And The Residents Play The Beatles
(7-INCH SINGLE, RALPH RECORDS, 1977)
MICHAEL JACKSON
Among the weirdest record
artifacts in my collection is
the “registration card” that
accompanied this wonderfully
strange early 7-inch by
the mysterious band The
Residents. The single,
released in 1977, was produced
in a limited edition of
500, with quite beautiful
silkscreened cover featuring
The Beatles’ heads grafted
onto naked bodies (female
bottoms, male tops, I think).
Each one came hand-numbered
in pencil in an
embossed seal stamp
labeled “Official Limited
Edition—Ralph Records.”
As if someone would be
counterfeiting them.
The limited number—mine is number
89—is reiterated on the registration card,
which is tucked inside a little flap in the
interior of the gatefold cover. A text on the
card reads: “This record is a limited edition
and should be duly registered with the
Cryptic Corporation by returning this form
with name and address of owner. An annual
report of current collector values of
Ralph recordings will be made available to
Ralph’s friends.”
I’ll readily admit that I didn’t register my
copy, though I was tempted by the offer of
continued updates. What a strange concept,
playing on the fetishistic tendencies
of collectors, gathering info on the 500 odd
(and I mean odd) folks who would buy
such a single, sending them some sort of
investment review. But this was the subversive
’70s, when the idea of twisting the
codes of commercialism was an important
part of the cultural landscape.The
Residents, whose early years in the ’60s or
early ’70s are shrouded in secrecy, loved to
tease American fan culture, in this case
picking up on the cryptic cult that had
grown up around the Beatles. There is, of
course, a particularly rabid kind of fanaticism
associated with the Fab Four, which
flourishes among the “Paul Is Dead” crazies
who have sought hidden signs and
messages secreted in Beatles records.
Couple this with the Beatles’ own interest
in backwards recordings and tape music,
and you have the nut of the Residents’
nasty little homage.
On the A-side, “Beyond The Valley Of A
Day In The Life,” The Beatles are credited
with “covering” The Residents. It’s not
exactly true, but nicely screws up the whodid-what
acknowledgement, since the track
consists of snippets from Beatles songs (17
in total, plus one John Lennon solo song),
arranged a la Residents into a paranoid,
noisy, “Revolution No. 9” style Fluxus
sound piece, the center of which is a loop
of Paul McCartney saying: “Please everybody,
if we haven’t done what we could
have done we’ve tried.” Back before sampling
was a musical mainstay, this was still
called audio collage. You can hear the blueprint
for much of the subsequent Residents
music in their dismantling and reconfiguration
of Beatles tunes. On the B-side, The
Residents cover The Beatles’ “Flying” with
typical goofy, loping aplomb, adding a
sneering recap of the McCartney quote and
some mock-sinister cabaret music that
sounds dopey but is actually quite brilliant,
like much of the first part of The Residents’
discography.
DB
E-mail the Vinyl Freak: vinylfreak@downbeat.com
More than 60 years separate the first jazz recording in 1917 and the introduction of the CD in the early ’80s.
In this column, DB’s Vinyl Freak unearths some of the musical gems made during this time that have yet to be reissued on CD.
16 DOWNBEAT March 2010