Residential Musings on My Big Four Oh...

Eyeballs on T-Shirts, coffee mugs, beer steins... Pretty much anything I own has got a bizarre eyeball with a top hat icon on it. What is up with this?

On this, my big 40, I figured it was high time take a break from the code related stuff and talk a little about one of my longest favorite groups. Not that they have always been "the" favorite, but they have certainly been "a" favorite for as many birthdays as I care to remember.

The Residents are the world's most famous unknown, anonymous band. 4 or 5 guys or gals teamed up in the late 60's to set the musical world on its proverbial ear. With no talent or musical ability to speak of, these crazies started making odd cacophonous sounds and demo tapes primarily to suite their own interest in recording. For the better part of 5 years, none of the material they produced was released to the public. To this day, 33 years later, most of this early material has never been officially released. The Residents themselves claim this is because the material was awful. This hasn't stopped digging around, and some true die hards (myself included) have managed to come up with two of the four tapes / albumns allegedly recorded but never released. More information about thes e prehistoric recordings can be found at the excellent Residents informational website at this location.

Some say that turning 40 is supposed to be depressing. But after being a Residents fan for nearly 25 years, today, the day I turned the big 40, I finally landed a copy of the fourth and final unrelease tapes. What a gift!! More later...