Friday, November 2, 2018

Hope I Get Too Old To Rock And Roll Before I Die

This week it was announced -- or rather, confirmed -- that Hardy Fox has died. Mr. Fox announced his death himself a few weeks ago. In 2015, he retired from The Residents, and last year he identified himself as their primary composer. This is an unprecedented series of public admissions from someone who created music in anonymity for almost 50 years. 

After numerous solo releases under several pseudonyms, he released his first album under his own name, Hardy Fox (Heart). He also completed an autobiographical book called This before he died, which is available for free at hardyfox.com. In this book he mentions that Talking Light was his favorite tour (the one that introduced "Randy, Chuck and Bob"), but he was uncomfortable with Randy's onstage revelations about Chuck's private life:


"Randy (said) that Chuck was gay, lived on a farm, and was the composer of The Residents music," Hardy wrote. "Since these things were all vaguely true I only became more and more certain that I was this person and not a member of some anonymous music ensemble. The two were not compatible. It was a small death.


"It was the start of the end. Or maybe it was the end, and therefore a start. A start of a new expression of independence. I had to stop touring since it no longer worked for me, but I was not yet ready to be placed in the proverbial pasture. The Touring Residents went on their usual circuits without me. I stayed on the farm writing music that was not needed by the Touring Residents. After 2008, I made personal albums disguised as The Residents, as Sonidos de la Noche, as Chuck, and eventually as Charles Bobuck."

I saw The Residents only once, in 2010. I can't describe the sensation of seeing and hearing "the Singing Resident" in person. It was a voice I had known since my teens. The singer wore a mask that covered half his face. He called himself Randy Rose. It was a new way for The Residents to play with the ideas of identity and anonymity, public and private selves.  

Hardy Fox's announcement of his own death drew another contrast between the lives we lead in public and in private. For several weeks, in music news and social media, he was Schrödinger's Fox: perhaps still alive, possibly already dead. Only his close friends and caregivers knew for sure.

"Despite any formal training," The Residents' official website curiously states in its obituary for Hardy Fox, "his musicality was nevertheless unique, highly refined and prolific." In Hardy's own words, "I don’t compose. I am a builder. I construct music from things both found and played. Music pieces are contraptions. Music is a well-told lie."
photo by Leigh Barbier


The Residents continue as an entity that records and performs music. A new album called Intruders was released in October; a 50th anniversary European tour called "In Between Dreams" begins in January. 

Homer Flynn has allowed the mask to slip a little further. On Halloween, he appeared (uncostumed) at City Lights Bookstore to read from The Brickeaters, a novel credited to The Residents. In an April interview, Flynn said that he has "no intention of retiring." 

Hardy Fox is gone, but the music (and the well-told lies) of The Residents will go on.

11 comments:

  1. See also: ubu.com/film/residents.html
    opiumhum.blogspot.com/search?q=residents
    nathannothinsez.blogspot.com/search?q=residents
    urbanaspirines.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Residents


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  2. Thanks for the great write-up. I had already heard the announcement & the confirmation (I wish he had made it to Halloween). The Residents are up there near the top in the pantheon of Musick Gawds to me. I can never do these R.I.P. things right & I always know there'll be hundreds, so I usually shy away. I'm please you took your stab at it, you always have a way with words.

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    1. I would love to see hundreds of remembrances for Hardy Fox! Here are a few good ones:
      dangerousminds.net/comments/rip_hardy_fox_primary_composer_and_co_founder_of_the_residents
      nytimes.com/2018/11/03/obituaries/hardy-fox-dead.html
      cdm.link/2018/10/hardy-fox-residents/

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  3. Replies
    1. Keep calm: take deep slow breaths. Breadth and width, and width and breadth. We'll all get through this together.

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  4. It's about time to end this theory of obscurity right here & now. We've got Hardy Fox & Homer Flynn...here's some more: Henry Flox; Hiram Flint; Honey Funx; & Philip Charles Lithman

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    1. So says the commenter who enjoys the cloak of anonymity! You need a clever nickname, like Fatty Hocks or Fillip Flam.

      I do agree: it's time to pull some new fake news out of the old top hat.

      Who is this sneaky Lithman fellow, and why have you fingered him as a Resident?

      I'd wager he's one of those lizard people who rule us all from the center of the earth, like a malevolent mole in the ground.

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  5. You, sir, are a great detective, equal in stature to the inimitable Nick Danger. I am in fact Fatty Hocks. That sneaky Lithman fellow rules us all from the serpentine aether.

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  6. You flatter me, Hocks. Now tell me: what's the bird's eye lowdown on this caper?

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  7. Hey, get with the program, flatfoot. Well, it's like in the Army, you know? The great prince issues commands, founds states, vests families with fiefs -- Inferior people should not be employed.

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    Replies
    1. Wise words, friend -- would that they had been heeded on Election Day. Instead we got nothing but a cheap prize in a crackerback jox.

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