The Residents: Third Reich ‘n Roll (1976)

One thing you can expect with The Residents is the unexpected. Throught their entire existance no one knew for sure who they really were. They were always seen performing with eyeball masks and other costumes without ever revealing their faces. Many rumors surface, including their origins being from Louisiana, then moving to San Francisco, not to mention another where the founders of Ralph Records (which the Residents recorded for) were The Residents. It’ll probably never will be revealed who they are, after all they really wanted to be anonymous, to express art for art’s sake, rather than being manipulated by the audience (after all too often a band needs to meet audience expectations and The Residents didn’t feel that need).

In 1974 and 1975 they recorded two extended pieces, “Swastikas on Parade” and “Hitler was a Vegetarian”. These two cuts ended up as their second album, Third Reich ‘n Roll. If you listened to the oldies station that tends to play a lot of stuff from the ’60s, like Tommy James & the Shondells’ “Hanky Panky”, The Surfaris’ “Wipeout”, the Ohio Express’ “Yummy Tummy”, or any given girl group that was produced by Phil Spector and you got really annoyed by that stuff (feeling all glad there was a psychedelic and avant garde movement to blow that stuff out of the water), then The Residents had came to your doorstep. Imagine all those AM hits from the ’60s given a total butcher treatment. Weird, demented vocals, purposely badly played on instruments, including guitars, drums and synthesizers, in a completely avant garde fashion, as if the oldies ruined their lives. All these oldies songs, as done by The Residents, were all segued together, not as performances of entire songs, but as excerpts, usually the hooks, so you can halfway recognize these songs (but there are times they make a certain song almost completely unrecognizable).

Apparently the album was a take on the music industry, and how they thought the industry was ran by fascists. The cover even features a picture of Dick Clark in Nazi regalia, with Adolf Hitler dancing with Eva Braun. Realizing an album cover like that would likely not be allowed in Germany, they also released a Swastika-free cover for the German market.

And releasing albums like that you know could only spark controversy, and that’s also a big reason why the Residents always preferred to be anonymous.

When you listen to Third Reich ‘n Roll, you’ll notice a lot of songs you might missed the first time around, you’ll have a lot of fun figuring out just how many songs they twisted, butchered, and mangled on one album! Pure fun, in which the oldies will never be the same.
Well, since The Residents always chose to be anonymous, getting proper info of who was in the group is obviously next to impossible.