13th Anniversary Show - Ritz NY - Jan 16, 1986, is a digital-only live album by The Residents. It was recorded on the Northern US leg of The 13th Anniversary Tour.
Background[]
13th Anniversary Show[]
Following their financially disastrous 10th Anniversary Mole Show, The Residents spent a year believing they would never tour or perform live again. At the time of said show, Ralph Records, The Residents' label which they helped nurture, was in financial trouble and had organized the tour in order to recoup some money caused by a decline in album sales. This decision that ultimately led to significant descaling on the label's operations.
But when Wave Records offered for the group to perform a fully funded series of Halloween concerts in Japan, The Residents could not refuse, and after a successful run of the show, the group realized that the minimalistic setup they had crafted would be not only financially viable to tour, but would also be very successful.
Ralph Records immediately funded a 24-date Northern US tour; ultimately resulting in three live albums, of which 13th Anniversary Show - Ritz NY - Jan 16, 1986, is the earliest recorded, featuring a significantly shortened set when compared to the other two shows.
The show notably doesn't feature the tour's regular opening track, Lizard Lady, and instead crossfades the short spoken intro with Semolina. It also features shortened versions of Where Is She? / Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers,Picnic In The Jungle, Ship's A Goin' Down, Success, Monkey & Bunny, Man's World, Walter Westinghouse, Amber, Red Rider, Eva's Warning / Coming of the Crow, as well as an excerpt of Theme From An American TV Show.
It was recorded onto a cassette through the soundboard at the Ritz rock club in New York City. The show was The Residents' first performance in New York and was attended by Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol.
Release[]
Perhaps due to the sonically inferior way it was recorded, the recording was initially rejected for release, in favor of Live In The USA! 13th Anniversary Tour, recorded four weeks later. This show eventually saw release in 2010 through The Residents' Robot Selling Device website, which was deemed the appropriate place for niche products, such as a second recording of the same tour.
The album cover depicts The Residents during the Big Bubble Salute. Unlike all over 13th Anniversary Show albums, this is not credited to The Residents & Snakefinger. In 2023, the album was re-released in an exnteded format, with re-indexing on the entire album extended versions of Duck Stab Songs, Smelly Tongues Plus, Commercial Album suite, and a bonus track version of Festival of Death.
Track Listing[]
- Duck Stab Songs (11:44)
- Intro / Semolina (3:53)
- Hello Skinny (3:15)
- Constantinople (4:35)
- Jailhouse Rock Plus (12:16)
- Jailhouse Rock (2:47)
- Where Is She? / Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (3:31)
- Picnic In The Jungle (5:57)
- Smelly Tongues Plus (17:14)
- Smelly Tongues (1:54)
- Eloise (1:06)
- Ship's A Goin' Down (2:18)
- Success (1:26)
- Tourniquet Of Roses (3:00)
- I Got Rhythm (2:55)
- Passing The Bottle (1:58)
- Monkey & Bunny (2:34)
- Man's World (5:28)
- Walter Westinghouse (8:15)
- Commercial Suite (11:46)
- Easter Woman (2:37)
- Amber (1:17)
- Red Rider (1:28)
- Die In Terror (1:19)
- Eva's Warning / Coming of the Crow (5:03)
- The Big Bubble Salute (11:47)
- The Big Bubble (2:18)
- Hop A Little (3:12)
- Cry For The Fire (6:17)
2023 extended version[]
- Intro / Semolina (4:43) (Unabridged version)
- Hello Skinny (3:39)
- Constantinople (4:02)
- Jailhouse Rock (2:50)
- Where Is She? / Earth Vs The Flying Saucers (3:32)
- Picnic In The Jungle (5:50)
- Smelly Tongues (1:53)
- Eloise (1:06)
- Ship's A Going Down / Success (unlisted) (3:59)
- Tourniquet Of Roses (2:47)
- I Got Rhythm (1:08)
- I Got Rhythm (unlisted) / Passing The Bottle (3:56)
- Monkey & Bunny (3:01)
- This Is A Man's Man's Man's World (5:07)
- Walter Westinghouse (8:17)
- Commercial Album Suite (6:48)
- Easter Woman
- Amber
- Red Rider
- Die in Terror
- The Coming of the Crow (0:59)
- The Big Bubble Salute (11:51)
- Festival of Death (5:03) (Previously unreleased)
Liner Notes[]
This is from January 16th, 1986. It was originally recorded on a cassette directly from the front of house mixing board. It is not the entire show. However... it is about 74 minutes of the show - some of the show was not recorded or was technically inferior. The cassette quality is surprisingly good, you probably wouldn't have known if I had not said it was a cassette. Snakefinger is on-fire. First of two sold-out nights at the Ritz in New York. In the audience are Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono. After seeing this performance Mr. Warhol proclaims The Residents as his favorite band. You might need this.
1986 Review[]
ROCK'S best-known nobodies, the Residents, played their first New York show Thursday night at the Ritz. For 13 years, the members of the San Francisco-based group have stayed anonymous, releasing records regularly and touring occasionally, gaining a following among self-described ''weird music'' devotees.
With dancers, technicians and all but one musician wearing masks (the exception was the guest guitarist, Snakefinger Lithman), the group's identities remained hidden. The two hours of live music, plus Residents tapes between sets, touched on much of the group's output since 1974, although the bulk of the material came from such recent albums as ''Residue.'' In addition to their own songs, the band played severely revamped versions of ''Jailhouse Rock'' and James Brown's ''It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World.''
It was an obscure, dreamlike show. The black-clad musicians occasionally stepped forward, masked, for a recitative vocal; silent dancers (at one point manipulating life-size skeletal puppets) did routines geared to the lyrics. Illumination was provided, in part, by a troupe member waving a pair of electric lanterns. For the finale, the band members strutted out wearing white formal attire with their heads covered by spherical-eyeball masks and top hats, like a surreal chorus line.
Through the years, the Residents' orchestrations have shifted from tape collages to synthesizer tones. Structurally, their songwriting has barely budged. Their style is based on negatives. They use no vocal melodies, no danceable rhythms, no beguiling sounds. Lyrics, which are often strings of non sequiturs in nursery-rhyme meter, are delivered in growls and squawks and hoots and whimpers. The tunes are usually singsong, repetitive synthesizer riffs, joined or disputed by electric-guitar lines.
It is, in other words, simple music with portentous overlays. What makes it instantly recognizable is the Residents' harmonies (dissonant chromatic clashes), rhythms (singsong marches) and, especially, timbres. Swampy, ominous sounds are the Residents' specialty; they have refined and extended haunted-house noises beyond all expectations.
The Residents distrust pop music's easy pleasures and mass audience. They tend to equate commerciality with brainwashing. But for all their rebelliousness, the Residents' own music isn't much of an alternative; its tone is too constricted and puritanical. In the finale, Mr. Lithman started playing some zippy be-bop guitar. And the band members chased him offstage, as if to say: No Fun Allowed.
Legacy[]
Ratings[]
- Discogs: 4.57 / 5
- Prog Archives: 3.75 / 5
See Also[]
- The 13th Anniversary Show - Live In Japan
- Live In The USA! 13th Anniversary Tour
- The 13th Anniversary Show - Cleveland
