The Residents

Throughout their four decades of nebulous existence, The Residents have remained consistently inconsistent, cloaking themselves in mystery—the band's nameless members hide behind masks and communicate solely through their management/misdirection team, The Cryptic Corporation—while releasing scores of albums unified only by their complete and utter disregard for traditional composition. The group’s performances are similarly mind-bending affairs, featuring heavily improvised songs structured around surreal concepts that no amount of LSD can help unravel. The Residents' latest tour, “Talking Light,” promises a death-obsessed succession of “ghost stories” involving boa constrictors, Dr. Phil, and Pudding Roll-Ups, and set to an “interactive electronic score” that even the group itself describes as more “experiment” than concert—and in The Residents’ case, that’s really saying something. 

Updated 01/20/2010