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Hacienda Bridge no. 5

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"Hacienda Bridge no. 5" (subtitled "Charles Bobuck and Hardy Fox News #5") is an issue of Hardy Fox and Charles Bobuck's Hacienda Bridge newsletter, sent out to mailing list subscribers on December 1st 2016.

This issue of the newsletter is not archived on Mailchimp. The below text has been transcribed from a copy of the original newsletter supplied to a Mysterious Spanish Lady by Residents fan Steve Foster. The Ladies extend their thanks to Steve for his gracious assistance.

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. Typographical errors featured in the original text have not been corrected.

December 2016. Newsletter #5

TOOK #3  MISSING SOLDIERS - PRE SALE

TOOK is a limited edition CD label operated by a partnership of Klanggalerie/ HardyFox/ Bobuck.

The editions are generally limited to 300 CD copies.

--TOOK #1 The Swords of Slidell - August 2016 - sold out

--TOOK #2 Later Tonight - August 2016 - sold out

--TOOK #3 Missing Soldiers - PRE SALE DECEMBER 1

Missing Soldiers is a collection of early work for a Residents album that never materialized.  The concept was an album about the Civil War fought in the United States in the mid 1800s.

The plan was to integrate a number of songs from the era into the structure of the material.  These pieces were Bobuck's early MIDI sketches for those historic tunes.

This collection has been previously available as a download on the Bobuck Bandcamp page with a different cover.

TOOK #3 is an edition of 300 copies and available only by mail-order DIRECTLY from Klanggalerie (not MVD.)  €16 incl worldwide shipping.

Compact Disc === PRESALE STARTS DECEMBER 1

Missing Soldiers Pre-Sale

You're the Best and I have the proof!

For Halloween, me and my buddy, Bobuck, put the BLACK TAR album together as a benefit to raise money for a local charity that feeds people in need, FOOD FOR THOUGHT.  You donated and we matched your donations.

You did a spectacular job.  You downloaded the album and donated $1,125.  We matched your donations and then added a bit more money to make it a nice round number, so FOOD FOR THOUGHT got a check for $2,500!

Music turned into food.

This is not an abstract charity donation.  I personally have seen the way money is being used by Food For Thought for our fellow humans.

Charlie and I were touched by your generosity.  Thank you.

         - Hardy

New Bobuck Downloads

Bandcamp

CB SUITE - Bobuck - $4.00 - download

A sweet suite.  Nolan Cook joins Charles Bobuck on a fantasy music journey.

The Swords of Slidell - Bobuck - $6.00 - download

Music from the book (iTunes Bookstore) The Swords of Slidell by Hardy Fox music by Charles Bobuck.

Later Tonight - Bobuck - $3.00 - download

A four song pop collection. Include new take on the Pet Shop Boys, Later Tonight.

BOBUCK BANDCAMP

Bobuck CDs that are currently in print*

Codgers on the Moon (2012)

CD sold by MVD

Roman de la Rose (2014)

CD sold by MVD

THIS (2015)

CD sold by Klanggalerie and MVD

What Was Left of Grandpa (2015)

CD sold by Klanggalerie and MVD

Bobuck Plays The Residents (2016)

CD sold by Klanggalerie and MVD

*NOTE: Most Bobuck CDs are limited editions and are out of print.

Do you want to see the FULL discography?  This list does not include any DOWNLOAD projects, ONLY ACTUAL DISCS.

FULL BOBUCK DISCOGRAPHY

KLANG KORNER

Disfigured Night

If you can't get your fill of Bobuck's music, Klanggalerie is releasing a compilation of experiments known as The Residents' Disfigured Night.  This CD collects material written in 1997 when the band was focusing on CDROM game development.  Music needs were low so Bobuck experimented with harmonics found in Schoenberg's Transfigured Night.  He called his experiments, Disfigured Transfigured Night, but that was shortened when the music was developed for a Residents performance piece.  First time on CD.

ASK HARDY SHIT

Don't seek answers if you prefer questions.

Q. I've noticed a lot of lyrical references to metal songs in "What was Left of Grandpa." Is Bobuck a fan of metal music?

Bobuck is not so much a fan of metal, more of a fan of music and noise.  His good pal, Nolan Cook, who he has worked with for many years, introduced him to metal.  Nolan is with the excellent, Dimesland.  (We recommend Dimesland's newest album, Psychogenic Atrophy.)

Bobuck believes Dimesland's music should be classified as "jazz."

Q.  Is there any meaning to Residents songs?  Specifically, Sinister Exaggerator?

I tend to think music is a series of abstract noises which may or may not have experiences encoded as language on top, known as lyrics.  So music is abstract by definition and one must supply the meaning.  Of course I realize your are asking about the language encoding on top.  If a song is about a sinister (a dark and maybe evil person) exaggerator (a liar who makes up experiences) I think we have a fairly well defined piece of language encoding.  If you are wondering if there is a point to having a song about a person who exaggerates, the answer is probably, nope.  Most song lyrics in general have no meaning, Residents or not.  They are designed to be sounds to go with the abstract noises popularly called "music.".  A loose rule is that the louder the drums the less meaning in the lyrics.

Q. Did Snakefinger do the guitar solo on Moisture?

It sounds like him.  The other amazing guitar player on the album was Fred Frith.  But I have to go with Snakefinger on Moisture.  You might think I would remember something like that since I was engineering, but I don't.

Q. Can you give us any information about that unfinished Big Bang project?

There was never a Big Bang project, just a bit of absurdist humor.  If I remember correctly I started that idea.  Back then, I would say anything that I thought the press would pick up and print.  It is called publicity (our upcoming president is very good at saying stupid things to get the media to repeat it.)  I believed that piece of publicity died out decades ago.  Nice to hear my lies reverberating after all these years.  Thanks for making me smile.

Q. Why are there two versions of Not Available? Why was the longer version not originally released?

All albums start out longer.  Not just Residents.  Editing happens when there is a sense that something is not adding to the over-all.  Albums are never recorded with collectors or completists in mind.  However, 40 years later, we get those folks and they want to hear what was taken out.  So they get a release of the pre-real version.  The added parts are still not necessary except to the completist. A number of albums exist in two versions.  Fingerprince, Freak Show, and Residue come to mind.

Q. Was the 1972 single, Santa Dog recorded on a four track or a two track tape machine?

I ran that machine so you are asking the right guy.  But I don't remember for certain.  I am going to guess.... four track. Sometimes technology would change while a project was being worked on.  In the early days, album work could easily stretch over 8 or 9 months.

Q. Why is "Randy" continuing as the only original member? Why not let it end or better yet... let a new group of people keep the story going?

"Randy" is one of the characters in this long-winded Residents tale and the story is still going. Maybe all this election reality has made you lose your Residents fantasy mirror and you are getting sucked into believing things are real. I don't work with Residents now, so I am a bit out of touch, but I see no reason for "Randy" not to stay with the current script even if you don't like the plot line.

Any new group of people can wear costumes, make music, and tell stories whenever they wish.  There would be no reason to call them, "The Residents." The Residents isn't just some random dudes in costumes. The philosophy is critical.

Q.  How easy or difficult was it to keep anonymity during all those years?

The people of The Residents don't list names and faces publicly.  The focus stays on the group.  Otherwise, there is no anonymity or concern for such. That interest is generated primarily by fans and press who, for some unknown reason, think that what your parents named you at birth matters more than what you do.  The Residents are what they do, otherwise they don't particularily care.  They have never been anonymous other than publicly: photographs, on-stage.  Otherwise, they go through life as anyone else.  Anonymity is a fake issue.

A birth certificate give one no insight at all into the life experiences that made The Residents "The Residents."

Q. There has been hubbub surrounding a hidden spoken-word story that can be heard on older versions of Not Available. It seems to be about 3 types of awareness that are not directly associated with survival.

Bobuck recorded music that became Not Available on his own many months before anyone else even heard it.  He had recorded vocals on some of it.  But it was a collection of songs, and not the rambling "opera" it later became.  Some of those old vocal sketches stayed in as a textural elements.  I don't remember what was said but they do not relate to the album as we know it.  I might still have recordings of the original in my archive, but I would not release them.  That would not support the album's intent.

Q. What is Charles' music computer set up?

We have all been Mac based since the day Macs first went on sale.  Actually, we started with an Apple II before the Mac.  Technology is a moving target so I can't give much concrete on-going information because it changes so fast.  Bobuck is a long user of Ableton Live, both in the studio and for concerts.  These days he is wanting to go IOS, working with iPads and mobile devices.  He used iPads, in addition to computers, in Residents' shows but only in minor experimental parts.  He ran a local network on stage that brought all the devices into one working environment he controlled from his "space station."  If you saw Bobuck live with The Residents for Talking Light or The Wonder of Weird, what you thought was only a table he was sitting at, was additionally concealing his technology.

He talks about IOS in the Codgers on the Moon album liner notes website from 2012.  For your convenience, I reprinted that page at the bottom of this newsletter. Scroll down.

Q. Why the decision to unmask?

I think you are talking about The Residents rather than the guy sitting next to me (who says hello) so I will ignore the Bobuckian answer.  I have not heard of any decision to unmask, but I no longer work with The Residents.  I can say that the original idea of the Residents was that it was a concept, not a band... therefore, the people were irrelevant compared to the philosophy behind it - masked or not masked.  That has evolved over the 40+ years and now they operate as a touring band so maybe they had to change because of dealing with so many people all the time. I am not a part of that world anymore so I can't allude to the current philosophy.

To the best of my knowledge, they are still masked, but Residents was not a secret, personality was irrelevant other than to those few obsessed fans, maybe you.  It doesn't change a piece of music if you know that Charlie wrote it as opposed to some mysterious ill-defined creature (though "mysterious ill-defined creature" describes Bobuck rather well.)  If that does change things for you, you are missing the point of masks, maybe The Residents.

Q. How has sexual identity played a part over the years in The Residents music?

The humans who operate the idea of "Residents" and now "Bobuck" are open, card-carrying sexual beings.  To point to lyrics that has a sense of sexuality would be easy, but words are literal.  Music is not literal but is still regularity sexually structured.  Bobuck and The Residents music is often structured in the shape of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.  (Whew, is it hot in here or are you just happy to see me?)

Q. I don't think The Residents should call themselves, "The Residents" anymore.

Hey, I work with half of The Residents and he is not called The Residents. He calls himself Charles Bobuck. The other half can call themselves anything they wish.  Though with so many bands these days, probably there is already a band called, "Anything They Wish."

I'm not sure where the death wish for The Residents comes from.  If anyone feels the group doesn't suit them, they should start their own band.  That is what The Residents did decades ago and it worked out pretty well.  Besides, starting a band is way more fun than worrying about what they should be named.

Got a burning question about The Residents, Bobuck, me or the meaning of life.  I might ignore it, or I might answer.

I'm here:  newsletter@hardyfox.com

Codgers on the Moon notes

The liner notes to CODGERS ON THE MOON are extensive.  Some of it was duplicated in the book, THIS (available for free).

Full liner notes here

THIS - book with music - Apple products only here

THIS - book no music - PC here

Synth City by C. Bobuck (2012)

My first introduction to the synth world was around 1974. Patrick Gleeson had two Moog modular systems* sitting in his studio, Different Fur Trading Company.** I had only read about such beasts as they cost tens of thousands of dollars. A Moog was completely hand-wired, huge and heavy. Wendy Carlos*** had recorded a ground-breaking album using the Moog in 1968, Switched-on Bach. That album forced people to accept that a synthesizer was a serious musical instrument. I took a few lessons at the studio but found it was far too technical for me.

The problem that the Moog was way out of the financial reach of most people, was tackled by other innovative synth makers. After some serious lobbying on my part, I convinced Cryptic Corporation to part with about $1200 (mid-'70's dollars at that) to purchase an all-in-one device, the ARP Odyssey. I still have it and last recorded with it in 2008. Loser ⩰ Weed, was the first experiment with the device.

When a company in Santa Cruz, California named E-Mu**** showed me a keyboard they had built called an Emulator, I knew that life would never be the same again. The Emulator allowed a person to play back actual sound samples. The thing that many toys can easily do today was wildly revolutionary in 1982. The Residents bought two of them at $10,000 each. The Emulator is what made it possible for The Residents to tour with The Mole and The 13th Anniversary shows as well as changing their entire sound on their recordings. The first record of (almost) only Emulator was The Tunes of Two Cities.

There had been much written about a computer language called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) in the early '80's but computers were expensive. The basic idea was that programming code was typed into the computer and it used the data to play the keyboard, usually faster and with fewer errors than a human. When The Cryptic Corporation upgraded computers in the office, I grabbed their old Apple II and bought MIDI software.

When Snakefinger died in 1987, Cryptic started organizing a wake for him which included a Residents performance, and so I decided to make that 20 minute show MIDI-driven. Snakey Wake from 1987 is The Residents' historic first MIDI recording.

In the 25 years that has come since, the tools have not radically changed, but they did become more powerful and easier to use. Electronic music is no longer a category, it is an everyday reality for everyday music. What has changed is that electronic music made its way into the hands of the general public and now there is no reason that anyone cannot experiment and make music if they wish.

Codgers on the Moon, I am pleased to say, was developed and played incorporating two iPads. True, one iPad was controlling a powerful Mac, but the other was an independent sound source and an interactive touch screen. Several iPad programs were used including my favorites, the GEO SYNTH and TC-11.

GEO
TC-11

The future looks good for the synth. As long as people keep coming up with new technology, I intend to keep exploring how to incorporate it into The Residents' recordings.

*One of the Moogs belonged to Mothers of Invention keyboardist Don Preston. This same system would later be housed in The Residents' studio. It was used by Don on the Eskimo album recordings. The other, as I recall, belonged to electronic music pioneers, Beaver and Krause. The two were introduced to each other by Jac Holzman who was looking for synthesists for an album he was producing, Zodiac: Cosmic Signs. Much later Jac Holzman would executive produce River of Crime for The Residents.

**The Residents would later record The King & Eye at Different Fur Studios.

***Wendy Carlos and The Residents would later become label mates on the tiny East Side Digital label in Minneapolis.

****E-Mu was a very small company and the staff became friends with us quickly. Their super-secret testing room was called "The Residents" room. When The Residents opened New Music America in Washington DC with the Mole Show in 1983, E-Mu saved the show by shipping an Emulator from Santa Cruz for the performance.

Though I personally did not play them, I did want to mention that in addition to MOOG and ARP, we used synthesizers from SERGE and BUCHLA on recordings and in performance.

I believe Donald Trump lacks culture, taste and empathy.  While true that some people might benefit from his presidency, the world in general will not.  Sad for world.

Copyright © 2016 Hacienda Bridge, All rights reserved.

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