ToolBox Records

Residents Maximum Power ! Repress from one of their 70's classics !

After Eskimo was released The Residents responded to the furor of fuss and praise it generated by taking various bits out of the album and re-working them to a disco parody of the original. The band then took over San Francisco's largest disco hall and held a release party featuring "weird" and "new" music. Diskomo didn't really catch on with the regular disco types until New Wave disco hit the scene, but after that the single did very well for a couple of years.

The lighting design for the Demons Dance Alone tour was extreme. The stage was kept very dark.This made shooting video almost impossible. A solution was to flood the stage with IR (infared) light and shoot using night mode. The problem with IR light was that it made everything green. Also, it was grainy and lacked contrast. Perhaps worst of all, it revealed the set in a way that did not reflect the lighting design of the show. The IR lights saw into darkness and shadow, places where the audience was not intended to see. All of these problems became the basis for the design of the DVD since it was inpossible to show the stage as it appeared in normal stage light. All of the footage, approximately 10 shows worth, was reprocessed by the computer to create color and contrast. Also, effects are used to bring definition to the images and to stylize the individual songs. The multitrack recording for the surround mix was captured on three consecutive nights. However, only the last night’s recording was used as it was considered the best. Unfortunately, there was no video shot when the audio was recorded, and no audio when any of the video was recorded. The result was an illusion of picture and sound together that never existed. The “style” of the DVD allowed for black outs. These were necessary to bring the ever shifting sound and picture closer for the illusion of sync. The Demon lights were powered by rechargable batteries. Each produced a light of 1,000,000 candlepower. The batteries drained rather quickly so about a dozen identical lights were used in one show. Many things in the show were not part of the original script. For example the script did not call for the Demon to play trumpet, but when dancer, Paul Benney, was hired for the show, he confessed to having played trumpet in his high school band. When The Residents heard this they responded by saying that he must play trumpet in the show. Paul said, “I don’t play very well.” The Residents said, “terrific!”

Probably the Residents album. Shall I say my favourite. Anyway a very good record.

Very shy jazzy beats & keyboards.

Good Pumpin hardtechno from the Pathetik crew (Humungus).