Hacienda Bridge no. 11
"Hacienda Bridge #11" (subtitled "Lost and Found") is an issue of Hardy Fox and Charles Bobuck's Hacienda Bridge newsletter, sent to mailing list subscribers on March 1st, 2017.
This issue focuses on people who were not interviewed or featured in Don Hardy's 2016 documentary film Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents. An excerpt from this issue was featured in the final Hacienda Bridge newsletter, released October 30th 2018, which announced the death of Fox.
This newsletter is not archived on Mailchimp - the archived version below has been transposed from a copy kept in the personal archives of a Mysterious Spanish Lady.
The newsletter
Note: Some format changes have been made (image positioning, additional headings, etc.) to create an easily readable version of this newsletter within the restrictions of this wiki. Such changes have been made as infrequently as possible to present the closest possible representation of the text as it originally appeared. Links in the text to other wiki articles are included by the admin in order to help facilitate easy navigation and further reading.
Lost and Found
On one side we have the lost,
and on the other we have the found.
However, we also have the lost without the found.
Lost weekends, lost dreams, lost friends.
This newsletter is about the lost, the missing, the forgotten. The fruitless search for memories that have been misplaced and left to gather dust and mold in that place we call, Hacienda Bridge.
A Memory - Charles Bobuck
The show was ready to start, the audience was in place and the lights had gone down. The original design for The Residents "look" was that they didn’t have feet. Walking seemed very plebeian. Even rolling seemed a better option than feet, though no design for wheels was ever close to being implemented. For many years a front curtain was a requirement for Residents shows so that the group could already be on the stage when the curtain opened sparing the embarrassment of walking.
Having the Residents on stage meant there was no opportunity to fiddle around with equipment or make any noise what-so-ever until the show started. We were supposed to, at the perfect spot in the prerecorded overture, launch into the first piece of music without so much as a count-off. Count-offs were also considered too plebeian. The curtain lift was synced to the overture.
I had strolled onto the stage, my feet usage safely concealed by the closed curtain. I knew the overture by heart, having written it myself. I pressed the key to awaken my computer, and it asked me for a password. I rarely used passwords but this time I had locked the computer as it sat unguarded on stage. I typed the password into the computer and it gave me that cute no-no-no shake that Macs do. I typed it again only to get the same response.
I knew where we were in the overture and there was time to work it out if I didn’t panic, though others were watching me in horror as they realized the computer was not firing up as it usually did.
I started typing in passwords, variations of passwords, and short prayers, but I only got the now seemingly smug refusal to activate.
The overture was building to the point where I knew the curtain would trigger and I was painfully aware that I was not going to be able to launch that first song. Hein, our tour manager, had descended on me with questions about what was going on and I asked that he tell the others that I was not going to make the start of the show.
The Residents have always had a cover for technical problems, we have had a lot of them since we often used experimental equipment. The cover was a "music" piece called Kamakazi Lady. A fairly simple abstract noise piece that could repeat as necessary, at least to a point.
So as the curtain rose up into the fly space, the group launched into Kamakazi Lady. I guess the adrenaline helped my memory as the password suddenly popped back into my mind. Engulfed by a cacophony of sound, M**** held a high note. I swooped in under her with a rich synth sound and parked near her vocal pitch which caused an odd overtone. N**** immediately picked up on what was happening and sent his guitar into a howl, cresting at about three steps over her pitch introducing an additional higher phantom pitch. C***** shocked us, hitting hard at a 5th below which sent the guitar into a falling spiral. Just as his guitar note matched C**** pitch, I pushed that goddamn computer button that was supposed to launch at the end of the overture and the show lurched to life like Frankenstein's monster being hit by a bolt of lightning.
The audience, no longer people, melted into a room of vibrating molecules. Even the theater, the stage itself, seemed to accept that we were the masters of vibration. Perhaps we had found that long rumored "lost chord."
A smattering of applause ripped through the audience, others seemed stunned. We were getting credit for something we had not actually done, it was done to us.
We have never been able to repeat what happened that night.
--- CB
A Survey by Hardy Fox
The recent film about The Residents, The Theory of Obscurity, had a whole lot of talking heads in it. Thirty-seven people who had been associated with The Residents had things to say. But it did miss a few people, and some of those were of critical importance to The Residents' existence.
The fact that many people were overlooked does point out how big an undertaking the job of chronicling The Residents actually was.
So, here are the most notable people missed by the film, The Theory of Obscurity. The SUPER OBSCURE.
Some people listed here were interviewed for the film but running time restraints did not allow for their interview to be included.
The Delta Nudes
Much like The Residents, the Delta Nudes never existed. It was a loose assortment of people who got together and made noise, and never bothered with a name. The name was added only recently out of needing a convenient way to designate the time period.
But found in that group were the people who were to become The Residents, the man who would later become Snakefinger, and a handful of other regulars.
The Teenager
One of the critical ring leaders was a young guitar player named Bobby Tangney. He was younger by six or seven years, which would have made him a teenager at the time. He loved the music and the energy. He was bursting with ideas and plans.
But fate had other ideas for Bobby. He fell in with a bad crowd and we lost him to drugs. We lost contact with him decades ago but I heard he had cleaned up and was living in the California foothills. The filmmakers for The Theory of Obscurity were aware but could not locate him. That was too bad as he was, perhaps, the most important support person during the difficult beginning years.
The Piano Man
We had no piano. But we knew a guy who did. And that guy seemed to like to make noise with us. He was what I would normally think of as an intellectual. He was quiet. We didn't always know what was going on in his brain, but whatever it was, it was pretty interesting.
So whenever there was a need for piano, we would pack up everything and go to his house. Usually his kid brother was there and joined with wild kid energy.
I'm speaking of Jim Whitaker. I can't remember his brother's name. They are both on The Warner Bros Album.
I exchanged emails with Jim maybe ten years ago. He and his family seemed to be doing just fine.
The Singer
We just knew her as Zeibak, it was what her friends called her. She was an enthusiastic addition. If we needed backing singers, she would show up with two or three more young ladies who didn't blink an eye at singing, often, pornographic lyrics with sweet harmonies. Pamela Zeibak was fearless. The lady could sing. She was the best musician of any of us. She appeared on Meet The Residents and The Third Reich N Roll.
The Brit
One of the most obvious missing persons from The Theory of Obscurity was Philip Lithman. But the film makers had a good excuse. He was dead.
The Residents tackled making a movie with great energy. At the time music was still thought of as a side thing. Everyone's friends and their friends were involved in the four years of sporadic production before the project finally died, undone by technology and personal growth.
The Fifth Resident
The people who emerged unscathed from The Delta Nudes period included one extra person, not just the four one normally hears about. That is because the fifth guy didn't last too long. You can see him in the Vileness Fats footage though, lumbering along as half the Berry Boy Twins, Arf & Omega*.
That would be Palmer Eiland. A brilliant guy with a soldering iron, but San Francisco was proving too much for him, and he had to bow out and go back to the South. He pretty much disappeared, too. I talked to him on the phone a few years ago and he promised to give me a full explanation on what actually drove him out of California. He won't ever do it though. I'm okay with that.
If he had been approached by The Theory of Obscurity film makers, he would have refused to appear in the film.
The Real Fifth Resident
This is the person we always counted on to do everything without ever requiring to be the center of attention. A big heart and and a ready smile. Diane Flynn.
The Cast
George Ewart, Palmer Eiland (Arf & Omega)
Danny Williams (Ninnie / Weenie)
The Residents
The 1980s came knocking on the door with a certain harshness.
There is The Residents, but there is also a need for survival. As survival got more difficult, the group had to solidify their presence with an outlook for the future.
The Hollywood Guy
When the word got out that The Residents were wanting to tour The Mole Show, Hollywood came calling in the form of Bill Gerber. Mr. Gerber was a personal manager and agent who worked for Lookout Management. That doesn't mean much to readers here, I suspect, but their client list was prestigious, including people like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
The Residents even talked Mr. Gerber into flying to Washington DC and doing the part in The Mole Show written for Penn Jillette at New Music America. But The Residents were a money losing proposition and that relationship quickly dissipated.
Bill Gerber later became a film producer at Warner Bros. Bill Gerber's 2017 project is a remake of A Star is Born starring Bradley Cooper and Lady GaGa.
The Dancers
Carol LeMaitre and Sarah McLennan went around the world a few times with The Residents, choreographing and starring in The 13th Anniversary Show, Mole Show and CUBE E. They helped define the classic performance era.
The Wonder Boy
Rich Shupe started his music career by promoting a Snakefinger show in Baltimore. He was 13 at the time. By 15 he was a producer on the Mole Show for New Music America in Washington DC. At 18 he was booking shows for The 13th Anniversary Show as well as tour managing The Residents in the USA. He did the same job, booking and tour managing, for CUBE E in the USA at 21. He had the nickname of the Wonder Boy because he was exactly that. Self-confident, smart, charming, handsome.
The European Connection
When Ralph Records was discontinued in 1987, The Residents reached out to new distribution for albums. In Europe they signed with TORSO in Amsterdam. They quickly made friends with Eleanore Hamaker who was the artist relations persons for the label. TORSO gave The Residents their first big disco hit, Kawliga.
For many years The Residents were close friends with radio personality, Gerard J. Walhof, at VPRO in Holland.
The Bus Driver
The Theory of Obscurity film crew was on the tour bus, but they overlooked talking to the excellent multi-decade spanning driver of The Residents European tour bus, Michael Bednarck.
The American Partners
Ralph Records reemerged as Ralph America under the direction of Dren McDonald and Lorrieann Murray. They both have managed merchandising for tours and and currently Lorrieann is the social media spokes model for The Residents.
The German Partner
When the record company, TORSO in Amsterdam was closing its doors, The Residents were left without a label to represent them in Europe. Guido Randzio was the representative for TORSO for the German territory. He needed a job. It made sense for Cryptic to embrace Guido for the forming of a partner label, Euro Ralph.
Euro Ralph operated successfully from Wormwood through Demons Dance Alone.
The Voice On The Phone
The woman with the smiling voice you would talk to at Ralph Records when you called belonged to Sheenah Spece.
The Puppeteer
Packing Goblin and Miles Taber worked together to produce and sell CDs with Big Brother including titles like Coochie Brake, The Rivers of Hades, and Chuck's Ghost Music. Miles also ran merchandising on some tours.
The Salesman
If you ever attended a Residents show in Europe and picked up any treats at the merchandise table, the chance is high that you met Maarten Postma.
Maarten's work with The Residents dates back to the mid-80s. Back then a merchandise guy had to speak a lot of different languages and be quick with handling money in a variety of currencies. Maarten excelled at both. He often took the role of assistant tour manager as well.
He is still selling T-Shirts at European shows. If you see him, tell him, "Hardy says HI."
The Animator
Another person missing from The Theory of Obscurity was Jim Ludtke. But the film makers had a good excuse. He is dead.
The Assistant
Ryan Long was a production assistant in 2005 for The Way We Were tour of Australia.
The Brother
The Residents official web site was developed an operated for years by Big Brother, William Rothers.
Sound And Lights
The sound authority on CUBE E as well as in the studio for Freak Show and Our Finest Flowers.
Ger Arts Handling the sound on all the recent European tours and beyond: Russia, Israel, Australia, South America, and the USA.
Kevin Ink Ink was the owner and sound guy for the studio The Residents used for recording. We talked him into mixing sound for the USA tours sometimes.
Stage lighting for many tours.
The Agents
Long time European booking agent.
Christian Bernhardt Long time USA / Other booking agent.
The Filmmakers
Perhaps the person who would be best to interview would be the creators of The Theory of Obscurity, Don Hardy, Barton Bishoff and Josh Keppel.
A Survey by Will Rothers
The final days of The Cryptic Corporation's much loved record label, Ralph, saw a scramble to release music from emerging talent in the Bay Area. These titles are often overlooked by Ralph fanatics, not because they are not solid releases, but somehow the nostalgia of the original spate of releases was so overwhelming that they forced fans to draw lines where none actually existed.
Some of you may point out that there were releases after these on Ralph, but after these albums, Cryptic withdrew from being a record company in 1987. The name, Ralph, continued but not run by the original founders of Ralph Records.
The Club Foot Orchestra, founded in 1983 by Richard Marriott, got their name from the San Francisco nightclub called the "Club Foot." Marriott, who lived upstairs, formed a house band that came to be called the "Club Foot Orchestra". The performers on these recordings included Snakefinger, Beth Custer, Eric Feldman, Dave Barrett, Dick Egner, Josh Ende, Arny Young, Julian Smedley, Dave Kopplin, and Opter Flame.
The Plastics, was a short-lived Japanese new wave music group prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hajime Tachibana was their guitar player. In September 2007, Rolling Stone Japan rated The Plastics debut album Welcome Plastics at No. 19 on their list of the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time".
James Jeffrey "Jeff" Plewman, better known by his stage name Nash the Slash, was a Canadian musician. A multi-instrumentalist, he was known primarily for playing the electric violin and mandolin.
Nash worked as a solo artist beginning in 1975, then founded the progressive rock band FM. Their album, Black Noise, earned a gold record. He left the band in 1977 to resumed his solo career.
Jeff Pewman died in 2014.
Rhythm & Noise was an experimental music and multimedia ensemble from San Francisco. The group originally consisted of Naut Humon, Nik Fault, and Rex Probe, who started the project in the mid-70s under the name Cellar-M.
Later, Naut Humon disbanded Rhythm & Noise to focus on Sound Traffic Control.
The Current Hot Release - Charles Bobuck
Charles Bobuck is a big chicken. Chickens make horrible song writers. Their songs are just a bunch of repetitive clucking. However, they make a lot of them. Almost every morning you can hear them singing, having forced a big song lump out of their vaginas, or wherever those things come from.
Bobuck doesn’t have a vagina, but you can still hear him singing every morning over some song lump he left on the carpet, or on the stairs. Fortunately Klanggalerie picks them up so they don’t get stepped on. Well, some do get stepped on, but it is no matter. There are always more.
Eggs for Breakfast is a collection of 26 of Bobuck’s song eggs that did not get stepped on.
EGGS FOR BREAKFAST on CD
Observation by Walter Robotka
In every music scene there are artists who are overlooked or under appreciated. The reasons for this may vary. Maybe they weren’t good at promoting themselves. Maybe they didn’t get the necessary support from their labels. Or maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. For this newsletter, I’d like to introduce you to five artists that never got the recognition they deserve.
First in the list is A.C. Marias. British musician Angela Conway teamed up with Bruce Gilbert of influential post punk group Wire in the 1980s and 90s. They recorded a soundtrack together, plus various singles and an album. Guest musicians included Barry Adamson and Rowland S. Howard, both Nick Cave collaborators. Although the album came out on one of the biggest indie labels ever, Mute Records, A.C. Marias was widely ignored. One of our Girls, their only long player, shows a wide variety of styles. There’s electronic tracks, there’s ambient music, there’s rock’n’roll. All held together by Angela Conway’s ethereal voice. This should include something for everybody’s taste, but maybe that’s just the problem. A.C. Maria’s could not be labelled easily and split up after their debut album.
Bernthøler was a Belgian pop/avantgarde group between 1981 and 1985. John Peel was a fan of their music and played them on his influential radio show. They were signed to Blanco Y Negro in the UK. Nevertheless, the group never got attention outside of their home country. They played an eclectic kind of New Wave music and even teamed up with classical composer Wim Mertens on a 12“ named My Suitor. This highly unusual piece of music is a pop ballad that slowly morphs into a piece of classical music. It is the only one of its kind ever created and should, in a just world, be considered a high point in music history. As it is, it is another great lost piece that waits to be discovered.
Wim Mertens himself is also one of the most under appreciated composers of our time. A national treasure in his home country Belgium, he is largely ignored by the rest of the world, where colleagues like Philip Glass or Steve Reich get the highest honors. His body of work is impressive. Mertens sings falsetto and plays nearly every instrument. He has released over 60 albums, some of them cycles of 12 CDs or more. He is one of the few composers to write works for unusual line-ups, for example 12 piccolo flutes or 13 clarinets. In general his work can be considered as minimal music, but he takes influences from all musical genres and has even composed a work to be played on pin ball machines.
Another band that created a strange musical hybrid at their time was C Cat Trance. Originally a post-punk group from England, they soon incorporated elements of Arabian and African music into their songs. Ten years later, this "world music" would become a huge commercial success. C Cat Trance would wear the djellaba, a Northern African kind of tunic on stage, their heads under turbans and playing strange instruments like lute, kaval, baglama or mbira. They split up after only 4 years, largely unnoticed.
The last band to be mentioned here is from New Zealand, From Scratch. They created their own instruments (from scratch) and were a percussion ensemble that was active between 1972 and 2002. Their sound could be described as somewhere between Gamelan and Steve Reich. Impossible to put into a category, and hidden away from the world in a time before the internet, the band barely got any recognition outside of their home continent. Although some of its members are active until this day, the ensemble quit after 30 years of obscurity.
Luckily, music by all the aforementioned artists is available today - thanks to enthusiasts that keep the spirit alive. Maybe you’d like to check out some of them before they are gone forever.
--- Walter Robotka
Walter Robotka is the owner of Klanggalerie in Vienna, Austria.
Your musical moment from Bobuck featuring Nolan Cook
Ask Hardy shit
Q. I saw the Mole Show in Copenhagen in 1983. Why was Penn Jillette tied to a wheelchair?
The Mole Show was not a concert, it was musical theater. The original script called for a narrator part. The narrator was a character who was to "explain" the show to the audience. The script called for the actor to "hate" the show and gradually become hostile. At that point the character would be bound and gagged to restrain him. A wheelchair allowed the "restraining" to be done off stage by the stagehands and then he could be easily moved back onto the stage for the continuation of the performance.
Casting a narrator was not an easy job. It was a demanding part and required an actor comfortable being seen as an idiot by the audience. Penn and Teller were friends of ours and we talked to them about helping find an actor to play the part. Penn said that he would love to play the part himself if it weren't for the fact that Penn & Teller had a show in production at the expected time of the tour.
Show business being the way it is, the tour was delayed and it turned out that Penn could do the tour after all, so he did.
Penn & Teller and The Residents also did a show together at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco three years later. It was not a touring show.
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RIDEAU - new from Klanggalerie
RIDEAU - Un Drame Musical Instantané
[RIDEAU - An Instant Musical Drama]
Un Drame Musical Instantané are a legend of French avant-garde music.
Since its creation in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé, the group has decided to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they try to renew every time they play.
Un Drame Musical Instantané borrowed their sources from:
ROCK
Jean-Jacques Birgé - Synthesizer
Francis Gorgé - Guitar
(both authors of the album, Défense de [Prohibited])
JAZZ
Bernard Vitet - Trumpeter - Vitet founded the first free jazz band in France
François Tusques
Michel Portal
CLASSICAL MODERN MUSIC
The first in France to give a new impetus to live music for silent films. Birgé and Gorgé also recorded a duo album that was mentioned on the infamous Nurse With Wound list, Défense De.
On Rideau, you will hear their wild mix of styles, a very original, unclassifiable, inventive music, which drifts from jazz to electronic and contemporary music.
This is the start of a re-issue program on Klanggalerie. Difficult music indeed.
Next time on Hacienda Bridge
Next time we meet on Hacienda Bridge, we take a look at Bobuck's final work with The Residents, the Ghost of Hope album.
Lost by Carl Sandberg
Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes.
Links
- Web Site http://hardyfox.com
- Bandcamp https://bobuck.bandcamp.com/music
- Klanggalerie http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg240
- MVD http://mvdshop.com/search?q=BOBUCK
- Hacienda Bridge Blog https://hardyfoxblog.wordpress.com/
- iTunes Bookstore https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/the-swords-of-slidell/id1129364212?mt=11
- The Residents http://www.residents.com
Trump is a lost soul
Copyright © 2017 Hacienda Bridge, All rights reserved.
See also
- Hacienda Bridge
- Hacienda Bridge newsletter
- Hardy Fox
- Charles Bobuck
- Will Rothers
- Walter Robotka
- The Delta Nudes
- Kamakazi Lady
- Bob Tangney
- Jim Whitaker
- Vileness Fats
- Palmer Eiland
- Eggs For Breakfast
- The Ghost of Hope
Resources
- H. Fox & Bobuck #11 (PDF file, 2.33 MB)