Residents.com
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residents.com has been the official online home of The Residents since August 2003. The domain had previously directed users to the semi-official fan website RZWeb, which had been online since 1997.
The website, which originally took the form of an official news blog (known for many years simply as the BOG), supplanted the earlier Buy Or Die! catalogues and the official Ralph America and Euro Ralph websites as The Cryptic Corporation's primary means of communicating with fans.
The website contains an online store, links to videos, and a large "Historical" section covering a large majority of their projects. Outside of being the main source for news on the group, the page notably also hosts the group's Free! Weird! series of free online downloads.
History
RZWeb (1997-2003)
Between 1997 and 2003, the residents.com domain name linked to a semi-official website named RZWeb, which had been created by Residents fan tzoq (in association with members of the Smelly Tongues mailing list) in 1997.
On August 27th, 2003, the domain was bought from tzoq by The Cryptic Corporation, and was redirected to The Residents' new official website, which would later become known as the BOG.
RZWeb remained active at rzweb.net and rzweb.org for a short time after the creation of The Residents' official website; its last noted updates were in 2004.
Official News BOG (2003 - 2010)
Upon taking ownership of the residents.com domain, The Cryptic Corporation created the Official News Blog and Website Wrapper, later to become known simply as the BOG. In this iteration, the website was simply a news blog dedicated to The Residents' latest activities,[1] effectively supplanting the earlier Buy Or Die! catalogues and Ralph America website as the Cryptics' main outlet to communicate with fans.
The BOG was operated by a Cryptic employee known as Big Brother, or Will Rothers (who was ultimately revealed to be the group's former producer and arranger Hardy Fox). Rothers also maintained a sub-blog titled The Last Word, where he provided personal commentary on matters relating to The Residents. The Last Word was active between 2007 and 2010.
The 12 Days of Brumalia (2003 - 2004)
Shortly after acquiring the domain, The Residents took the opportunity to experiment with the format of free digtal downloads, as they had previously with the dot.com project through ralphamerica.com.
The group decided to release a series of thirteen MP3 files over the course of 13 days between December 24th 2003 and January 5th 2004, in a special seasonal event titled The 12 Days of Brumalia. The tracks were available on the website for a short time, then removed and made available physically on CD later in the year.
BOGcast (2005 - 2006)
Between 2005 and 2006, the BOG was also home to a bi-monthly BOGcast, hosted by Sparky. The early episodes feautred reports on then-recent events in the world of The Residents, whilst later episodes featured interviews with notable Residents collaborators.
Summer Tunes (2008)
In June 2008, Big Brother released a series of rare tracks by The Residents and The Vestal Virgins, in a collection known collectively as the Summer Beach Party, or Summer Tunes.
The Residents Historical (2005 - present)
In November 2005 Big Brother debuted a sub-site within the official website titled "The Residents Historical".[2] The Historical section featured information on all major Residents projects up to that point, much of which had been sourced, with amendments, corrections and expurgations, from the earlier, now defunct RZWeb.
The Historical pages have often revealed intriguing facts to the public, such as a detailed, scene-by-scene synopsis of the group's unfinished feature film Vileness Fats which accompanied the section's debut.[2]
The Residents Historical sub-site has continued to grow and develop alongside the group's catalog of projects; having survived all of the website's major redesigns to date, it has long been an integral part of the group's official online presence since its inception.
First major redesign (2008 - 2010)
The website went through its first significant redesign in April 2008, de-emphasizing the "BOG" as it was known, and replacing it with a new, more elaborate website design with a simpler version of the blog, now titled simply The Residents Blog.
Robot Selling Device (2009 - 2013)
Beginning in May 2009, residents.com began an official online digital music download store, issuing niche material by The Residents which had previously been deemed unsuitable for physical release by the group.
The store, known as the Robot Selling Device, also became home to the first Charles Bobuck solo releases, as well as the Talking Light (Live) series in 2010 and 2011. It became inactive in 2013.
Second major redesign (2010 - 2017)
On or around September 2010, residents.com underwent another redesign, completely de-emphasizing the news blog feature, centering the Historical section, embedding a specialized video streaming channel, and re-arranging the layout and navigation.
Due to its design and layout, much of the contents of this iteration of the site have not been successfully archived or are not easily accessible via the Internet Archive.
Change of ownership, third major redesign (2017 - present)
Another complete redesign of residents.com was launched on January 13th 2016, with entirely new navigation tools on the home page, and once again centering the Historical pages (which were also subject to a complete overhaul) as well as - once again - a news blog, now titled News Machine.
Around this time, The Cryptic Corporation became part-owned by Cherry Red Records and MVD Audio (alongside founder and "Captain Doc" Homer Flynn), and the group also began a mailing list through Cherry Red, sending out occasional newsletters to subscribers with news on upcoming Cherry Red/MVD/New Ralph Too Residents releases.
Free! Weird! (2017 - present)
Following the January 2017 redesign the website also began hosting a weekly Free! Weird! series of free files; offerings in the series ranged anywhere from MP3 music files, to MP4 videos, to JPEG images from the group's archive.
See also
- RZWeb
- BOG
- BOGcast
- Free! Weird!
- Ralphamerica.com
- The Cryptic Corporation
- Big Brother
- The Residents Historical
- Robot Selling Device
- News Machine
External links and references
- The Residents' official website
- residents.com, archived between 1997 and the present day by archive.org
