THE RESIDENTS - The New Machine & Song of the Wild live Spanish TV 1983

The New Machine (from Mark of the Mole), and Song of the Wild (from The Tunes of Two Cities), on The Mole Show live La Edad de Oro (City Of Gold), Madrid, tx. July 21 1983.

In 1983 I thought The Residents were gods and The Mole Show was perhaps the live highlight of the year, although it had stiff competition from Bernard Szajner in London and Klaus Schulze at Coventry Cathedral. I was lucky enough to catch the show three times and meet the band (and their compere, the wonderful, then-unknown Penn Jillette) in one of the most memorable weeks of my music life.

For those unaware of the genius of The Residents, find out! As they said themselves, "Ignorance of your culture is not considered cool." Most of their 70s and 80s output is phenomenal and Mark of the Mole is a good place to start: a concept album about the suppression and enslavement of a gentle, spiritual subterranean people (the Moles) by the greedy, superficial, powerful Chubs, and their subsequent uprising led by an inventor's new machine. Crazy, yes, but brilliantly so and with some of the most amazing electronic sounds ever committed to record.

The Tunes of Two Cities continued the milieu, a synthetic evocation of the type of music both peoples would make - dark and earthy on one hand, light and faux-jazzy on the other. The Mole Show combined elements of both albums in a theatrical extravaganza with dancers, props, a lot of moving scenery and the band - anonymous as ever - coaxing those sounds from their Emulators, silhouetted behind a scrim screen.

Many thanks to Kigonjiro -    / kigonjiro   - who had something to do with the Edad de Oro show, for making this and a host of other great concerts available to download at http://kigonjiro.com/