THE RESIDENTS RADIO SPECIAL / EAT EXUDING OINKS

As a compilation I'm not gonna focus on the music itself that much and I'm gonna say that a lot of these supposedly rare songs at the time come with new editions of classic 70's albums which makes it less worthy a bit.

Songs are intertwined with a fake interview with the manager at the Cryptic Corporation or Ralph Records I think who takes care of THE RESIDENTS (they are walking around the studio during the interview). 30 years later I don't think there's too much obscure info in the interview; there are few lines about the upcoming "Eskimo" album and how N. Senada brought the recordings from the Arctic (well known story since it became their most famous feat), bits of small talk how THE RESIDENTS don't hate THE BEATLES but just find them boring, calling it hate would be overboard. The manager also dismisses some rumors of the time that THE RESIDENTS might be THE BEATLES. It seems that at the time (1977) public was maybe more curious about them than today, which is what made release this kind of material in the first place.

Music material is decent though, some stuff from singles and EP's, from around "Third Reich'n Roll" days and are not unlike collage songs on the albums themselves, avantgarde electronic manipulations with BEATLES songs mostly. "Satisfaction" and "Santa Dog" are for fans pretty famous so I don't think it would be interesting to them, anyone else would dismiss that banging noises than accept it as music, and I myself think that their early material is too raw. I do like "Looser=Weed" though, as it predates classic video games by a decade but I just can't remember where to put it, maybe some dungeon or Super Mario's sewer level. Real highlights are "Walter Westinghouse", a long pastoral electronic song with some talks by Walter and his wife from the song name (available on the album "Fingerprince" which reminds me a lot of KRAFTWERK's debut as ORGANISATION as it features similar avantgarde percussions that carry most of the song), and the second highlight is a rarity as I don't see it in compilations a lot and it's a cover of FRANK ZAPPA's "King Kong" with RESIDENTS doing their stuff they usually do and SNAKEFINGERS on guitar helps them out to make this wonderful tune. I'm giving it 3 stars as it is this compilation that introduced me to "King Kong" (which I don't see released on a compilation, maybe just another one), all the other songs are pretty easily available with studio albums and the interview itself isn't that interesting as it was at the time and that kind of compilation would indeed be something for collectors only.