The Mole Show, Santa Monica, April 10th 1982
On April 10th 1982, The Residents previewed their upcoming live tour The Mole Show with a surprise performance in front of a limited audience of around sixty people at a show held by the Independent Composers Association at The House, a performance warehouse in Santa Monica, California.[1][2][3][4]
Effectively a rehearsal of the songs from the 1981 album Mark of the Mole, the thirty-five minute show was The Residents' first public appearance as a "touring entity",[1][3] and their first live performance since their June 1976 appearance at Rather Ripped Records' fifth anniversary party in Berkeley.
The show was recorded, and a slightly edited version of the recording was released on the limited edition cassette Assorted Secrets in 1984. The full, unedited recording was later included as a bonus track on the 2019 Klanggalerie reissue of the compilation album PAL TV LP.
History
Intended primarily to "test their ongoing preparation for their first tour", The Residents' performance at The House (a small performance space in a warehouse in Santa Monica, California) was not announced in advance.[1][2] The show, organized by the Independent Composers Association, was billed as featuring performances from tape-and-guitar artists Philip Perkins and Scott Fraser, as well as "a surprise or two".[2][4]
The venue was said to be only "half-full" following the scheduled performances by Perkins and Fraser.[2] The audience included only around sixty people,[3] including a handful of "in-the-know hipsters" who had been told of The Residents' performance. Comic artist Matt Groening was in attendance,[2] and on the recording, Mark Mothersbaugh can be heard making quips before the start of the show.
The Residents' performance was announced by Fraser at the end of his set. Around ten minutes later, the group entered the stage in "near darkness",[4] wearing identical white lab coats and "hats mounted with flashlights", standing at "four portable consoles at the back wall of the stage",[2] as far away from the audience as the venue's space would allow.[4]
During the performance, the group were obscured by a "thin scrim hanging from the ceiling" around fifteen feet in front of them, and lit only by "side-lighting from the area of the back door", with the lights from their headpieces shining on the scrim, making them even more difficult to see.[4] The set list consisted of the entirety of the 1981 album Mark of the Mole, and as it was a test performance, the show featured none of the narration, dancers, sets and props that would later be seen in the fully developed version of the Mole Show.
The performance is said to have gone well, "with no real problems".[3] After another six months of preparation, the official debut of The Mole Show took place on October 26th 1982, with the first of two sold out shows at the Kabuki Theatre in San Francisco.[3]
Reception
Comic artist Matt Groening reviewed the show for the weekly Los Angeles periodical Reader, praising The Residents' performance as "remarkable in the surefootedness of its execution and overwhelming in the sheer density of synthesized sound that came oozing and gleeping out of the amplifiers", and describing the music as "by turns chilling, beautiful, angry, and funny - the stuff of dreams and nightmares".[2]
Reviewer Brent Wilcox described being "dumbfounded with surprise" at the announcement that The Residents would be playing; he complimented the group's "electro-primitive style" and ability to duplicate the sound of their studio productions in a live setting, while noting that "much of it could have been pre-recorded" despite "a couple of 'mistakes'".[4]
Set list
Live recording
The Residents' performance at the House was recorded in full by Scott Fraser.[1] A slightly edited recording of the performance (33 minutes in length) was later featured as the first half of the limited edition cassette Assorted Secrets in 1984. Along with the other proto-Mole Show recordings featured on Assorted Secrets, is said that "The Residents were not proud of the recording and would rather [it] be forgotten".
Assorted Secrets was reissued on CD in 2000 by Ralph America, with the House performance split into three tracks, and sequenced at the end of the disc. The full 35 minute recording was later featured as a bonus track on the 2019 Klanggalerie reissue of the 1985 compilation PAL TV LP.
See also
External links and references
- The Mole Show at The Residents Historical
- Assorted Secrets at The Residents Historical
- The Mole Show at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Assorted Secrets CD reissue liner notes, 2000
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Matt Groening, "The Residents Bring Down The House", Reader Vol. 4, No. 25, April 16th 1982
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Ian Shirley, Never Known Questions: Five Decades of The Residents, Cherry Red Books, 2015
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Brent Wilcox, "The Residents at The House (Santa Monica, CA) 4/10/82", ca. April 1982
