CD Review: The Residents "The Bunny Boy"

The Residents: The Bunny BoyPublished in Goldmine Magazine, December 15, 2008
If you do not know The Residents (heck, even if you DO know them) strap yourself in, because you're in for quite a ride. Despite having created over sixty albums in their nearly 40–year history, this San Francisco avant–garde music and visual arts outfit to this day, is a mystery on purpose. Yes folks, they choose ambiguity.
Furthermore, their music is quite hard to pin point; is it alternative rock? Is it punk or some kind of hard core-techno? One thing is for certain, (along with making one ask a lot of questions) they obviously take their music seriously, yet also convey some strange sense of zany humor such as in the vein of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and The Tubes – another San Francisco band of outrageous performance artists.
The concept of their latest CD The Bunny Boy, is a strange stretch of the imagination even for The Residents, and what makes it even more unique is the fact that the original idea literally fell at their doorstep.
The band received a mysterious DVD package full of crude video footage at their private recording studio titled “Postcards From Pantos”, a strange story told by a former colleague known as “Bunny”, who was pleading for help (and apparently getting none from the authorities) over the disappearance of his brother on the Greek island of Patmos. Was this a joke?
When the band unsuccessfully tried to track down their friend (he seemed to have disappeared) and not even knowing if this DVD was an actual problem or evidence of some sort of personal breakdown, they were inspired to write an album revolving around the “Postcards” story appropriately titled The Bunny Boy. The songs (all 19 of them!) are pure Residents - bizarre, spooky pop slabs, all created in that eclectic, eccentric–Residents style.
The song titles and lyrical content is straight forward and down-right looney, which falls right in line with all aspects considered. “I'm Not Crazy”, “Butcher Shop”, “Blood On The Bunny” and “I Killed Him” are just a few samples of song titles , with accompanying lyrics of the same nature.
The full color CD booklet also includes some “interesting” photo images (courtesy of Bunny’s former wife, who also doesn’t know of his where abouts) that were taken from the real Bunny Boy's actual “secret room”. This is bizarre stuff alright, so go ahead and try to figure it out for yourself, if you dare. I’m still working on it.