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Black Tar and the Cry Babies

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Black Tar and the Cry Babies (also known simply as Black Tar or TAR) was a name used by Hardy Fox on a number of digital downloads in 2015 and 2017, with a CD release following posthumously in 2019.

Described as a Residents offshoot project, Black Tar is considered the "minus" to The Residents' "plus," the group was supposedly formed by Charles Bobuck and producer/arranger Hardy Fox in 1982 by means of "natural cell division".

Black Tar and the Cry Babies first came to the attention of the public in October of 2015, with the release of the group's first single, "Season of the Witch." Further releases followed each Halloween until 2017. The complete works of Black Tar were compiled into a self-titled album and released on Klanggalerie in 2019.

History

The debut of Black Tar and the Cry Babies was on October 17th, 2015 through The Residents' Bandcamp, where a 17 minute single based around samples of Donovan's 1966 hit "Season of the Witch" and Residents material was released, with the description "Available through Halloween, probably." before being removed on November 2nd, 2015. The cover art for the single was changed four times.

The following year, on October 31st, 2016, Hardy Fox re-used the 'Black Tar' title again, when he released the digital album Black Tar - 13 Tiny Tunes for Hallow's Eve (as C. Bobuck / H. Fox,) with proceeds going to the Food For Thought charity.

A few months later, on the April 1st edition of Hardy Fox's newsletter Hacienda Bridge in 2017, Fox explained Black Tar.

"Black Tar and the Cry Babies formed in 1982 when natural cell division, as foretold in the Book of Ibbur, forced the creation of two groups from what was originally only singular.  One would carry the plus banner of the original Residents and the other would become the TAR, the minus creation, the un-Residents some would say, though that implies the un was a lesser embodiment. This was not true." - Hardy Fox, April 1st 2017[1]

The newsletter followed with a detailed description of the band's discography, with downloadable samples from each album. 5/6 of these downloads were actually the work of unrelated musician Stark Effect, who recorded songs based on vocal samples from 'mic in track' software shared on limewire between 1999 and 2002. A fake ad for a Black Tar compilation CD also appeared in the newsletter.

On October 13th, 2017, 'Black Tar' released a digital single, "Left With The Fires," through the Charles Bobuck Bandcamp page, with the profits going to The Sonoma Humane Society. It was removed on November 16th, 2017. A release titled Tarnation Serafini was also made available through the newsletter, although this was similar to the April 1st releases in that it was not the works of Fox.

On October 18th, 2019, following the death of Fox, Klanggalerie released a CD of Black Tar and the Cry Babies' three original compositions.

Discography

Fictional discography

Hardy Fox detailed a previously unknown and lengthy discography for Black Tar and the Cry Babies in his April 1st 2017 Hacienda Bridge newsletter, which included a sample from each of the unreleased "albums" listed in the newsletter.

The released sample tracks have since been said by Walter Robotka of Klanggalerie to have been nothing more than "ironic sound clips often not even using Hardy's own music", and as such these tracks were not included on the 2019 Klanggalerie compilation of the group's work.[2] 

See also

  1. ↑ Hacienda Bridge newsletter, April 1st 2017
  2. ↑ Black Tar and the Cry Babiesat Klanggalerie
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