Blawnox, PA – 1982: The old man that we called ‘Lung Player (LP) Louie’ deftly pulled out a well-worn album from one of the many stacks of vinyl slabs littering his two room ‘studio apartment’ (as he called it), and placed it on the turntable.  As he sat down with a weathered cough, he tossed the album cover onto my lap and laughed.

“You think that last one was weird, Stevie?  Check this one out…”

– Introuniversal Jam

And so I was introduced to Kit Ream.

In my previous post on Gary Wilson’s ‘You Think You Really Know Me’, I mentioned a half-hearted comparison to Kit Ream’s ‘All That I Am’ album. It might seem a stretch – considering the different types of subject matter that Wilson and Ream specialized in.  However, an underlying sense of paranoia, uneasiness, and individualism unites both.

Don’t Be So Holy Poly Over My Souly

While Wilson’s jazz-based work would veer into the avant-garde with a touch of early electronica, Ream’s work has been described as ‘cocktail-by-the-pool crazy’; a compelling mix of soft jazz and new-age hippy philosophy, spiced by a menacingly stoned lounge singer who may or may not have been heir to the Nabisco Cookie fortune.

And who, after the recording of this album, may or may not have murdered his best friend after experiencing a psychotic break.

Funk

And surely that is the biggest difference between Ream and Wilson: Gary Wilson, I would like to think, doesn’t actually talk to mannequins named Cindy and Linda during his spare time.  Sure… he is probably an odd duck – but aren’t we all?

The ‘Gary Wilson’ persona is a gimmick.  A good one, mind you – but still a gimmick. Kit Ream?  Look at that face on the album cover again and tell me his was a put-on.

All That I Am is far from an Outsider masterpiece.

But if you subscribe to the theory that art must challenge the viewer – or in this case, the listener, then surely Kit Ream’s opus is artistic.

The End

The album that put The Residents on the collective map…

** Side One:  Swastikas on Parade

** Side Two:  Hitler Was A Vegetarian

Noted psychoanalyst Erik Erikson professed that humans go through eight stages of psychosocial development in their lifetime; the most significant stages, obviously, being the earliest.  According to Erikson, all early stages were meant to prepare the human for stage seven: Middle Adulthood (35-55).

When I was near ten years old, my Uncle Larry (AKA: Donald to you) felt it time to introduce a ‘proper music education’ to his sheltered nephew. In his infinite wisdom, the first album he ever played for me was the Residents’ Third Reich ‘n’ Roll. Within minutes, I became so disturbed that I began to cry. His reaction, at least initially, was to turn up the volume and laugh at me.

Being ten years older than myself, I have no doubt that the end result that day was exactly what he intended. Teenagers, after all, have cruel streaks in them. Had he known that his act of sonic terrorism would set me on a bohemian-laced, avant gardening path, he probably would have been twice as pleased with himself.

We all could use an Uncle Larry in our lives.

The Residents mythology is a complex one. The group and their hardcore fans steadfastly maintain a pro wrestling like gimmick of complete anonymity; 50+ years into their careers and people still pretend to debate the Residents’ identities. Whatever. They can try to pull the wool over my eyes, but I’ve never fallen for it.

The Residents were an art collective made up of a group of friends sometime around 1969. These friends, primarily consisting of Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, Jay Clem, and John Kennedy, were acid drenched fans of the avant-garde.  And Captain Beefheart. And Sun Ra. And Harry Partch. And all of the true psychedelics of the world.

The Grateful Dead? Pfft. They, like just about every big name psychedelic band you can think of, tiptoed around the avant-garde, pussyfooted the ‘Out There, Man’ act, then became a county and western band to a bunch of Dead Heads. 

Through sheer creativity and gumption, this art collective would end up producing some of the more powerful, interesting, and subversive material of the 1970s. Not bad for a bunch of hicks that couldn’t even play their instruments when they began recording in 1970.

After being largely ignored by the music press, 1976’s ‘The Third Reich ‘n’ Roll’ album and the companion cover of the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ single released that same year would make a splash. For a year or two, the ‘band’ (though they never really were a band) became darlings of the hipster press; right up through 1979’s Eskimo album, the Residents could do no wrong.

In 1982, the ‘art collective’ officially became a duo. After a severe financial crisis brought about by the ill-fated Mole Show tour, Clem and Kennedy abandoned the Residents to Flynn (the singer, lyricist, and principle visual designer), Fox (the composer), and anyone that would collaborate with them.

Despite the fact that sparks of genius have been produced ever since, many early fans will suggest that the Residents began to parody themselves the minute Clem left. While the mythology and respect for them runs deep, I am not one to argue that particular sentiment.

When I began experimenting with electronica in early 2020, one of the first projects I wanted to realize was a soundscape opera based upon Euripides’ tragedy Medea. 

With the resurgence of ‘Feminism’ at that time, and how much attention it was getting, I thought Medea was a great metaphor. You have it rough, lady in the Starbucks checkout line? Well dig this…

Euripides’ Medea

I’ve worked on it off and on in that time, but needed – at the least, a voice actor to read as Medea. I got one for a spell, resulting in ‘Her Loathed Existence’. The following pieces represent Medea as she realizes her husband has betrayed her – and then when she makes up her mind to see through her horrible revenge.

If interested, here are the demos…

Her Loathed Existence

Her Mind Unfurls Such Dreadful Horrors

Bärkər: Synthesizers, Sounds
G.A.B: Recitation 

Engineered and Produced: Bärkər
Equipment/Instrumental VSTs used: Ableton Live, Ableton Push 2
Recorded: Cyclops' Lair - Middleburg Heights, Ohio

Cover art: jprocyonart

Out now on Bandcamp, Live: From the Basement – Kent, Ohio ’24

Recorded Live at ‘The Residence’s Basement’ – July 12, 2024
Private Sound & Discussions Event – Kent, Ohio

Performed, Engineered, and Produced: Bärkər

Equipment/Instrumental VSTs used during live recording: Ableton Max for Live, Ableton Push 2, Apple MacBook Pro, Arturia Minifreak, Arturia Tape MELLO-Fi (tape emulator), Ember (Micro Collage Machine), Replicas (Splice Sampler), and Strom (Generative Micro Texture Synth) by Puremagnetik, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Zoom H5 portable recorder

Mixed: Cyclops’ Lair – Middleburg Heights, Ohio

Do You Believe?

Live mix of a looping Strom generative synth line, an interview with Ohio’s own, the former Ernest Winston Angley, and an Ember micro collaging of said interview fragments.

© All Rights (P)Reserved, 2024 – Mayfly Records

You smell that sound? Huh… Do ya?

It’s anger. Pure, unapologetic anger.

Look around! Anger in the news. Anger in music. Anger in comments left at the Betty Crocker forum. Anger in the half-played board game collecting dust on a forgotten table somewhere.

Even in the eyes of the stranger staring at you from the mirror.

It’s scary, man. But I’ve got a plan.

I’m gonna collect all those people that matter to me; all those people that I love. I’m gonna collect them and tell them there ain’t no more anger. Or bitterness. Or cynicism.

Those days as an angry young dog are behind me.

Are they behind you?

.
.
.

But then I get to thinkin’.

Hey, Dad! Remember the time you were called in to pick me up at the Parma Police station at 3 o’clock one Saturday morning? Remember how you spit in my face and declared me a disgust?

I do.

I remember it like one of those grainy VHS tapes of something recorded off late-night t.v.; low contrasted and jagged-edged with just a whisper of disjointed sound crackling through the static.

Still… I do have to admit my admiration. With nothing but Colt 45 malt liquor and saliva, you managed to create a black hole.

There isn’t a scientist alive who can say the same.

But I kid myself more than I kid you all.

The angry young dog will always morph into a mistrustful hog, rooting not for truffles – but for fragmented confidences.

Finding slim pickings, self-consumption typically begins with the tail and ends at the snout.

But…

But I do got a plan.

I’m gonna collect all those people that mattered to me; all those people that I loved. I’m gonna collect them and bury them like a dog does his bone.

Those days as an angry young hog are behind me.

Are they behind you?