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Refused is a outtakes and rarities compilation by The Residents, featuring all iterations of the track "Fire" (or "Santa Dog") released up to that point, as well as several unreleased versions.
In May 2022, a limited edition vinyl compilation titled Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection was released by Secret Records, featuring almost the entirety of Refused with an updated track listing.
History[]
Background[]
Santa Dog[]
In late 1972, Residents Uninc, a newly formed artistic collective, moved into a new building at 20 Sycamore Street in San Francisco. The building was previously house to a dog magazine, where the company had abandoned a large printing press. In front of the press was a polaroid of a weenie dog in a Santa suit, signed Santa Dog. The group grew fascinated with the photo, and it became something of an inside joke, heightened more so when they realized it was an anagram of Satan God.[1]
Santa Dog tickled the group so much that they began recording a suite of tracks inspired by the pup, titled Santa Dog. Residents Uninc pressed this recording onto 2x7" vinyl and sent it out as their 1972 Christmas card. They sent copies to close friends, radio stations, and celebrities they wanted to connect with, including Richard Nixon. Nixon, of course, returned his copy, which is photographed for the cover of this compilation.
Santa Dog '78[]
Six years later, Residents Uninc dissolved into two organizations, The Residents and The Cryptic Corporation. For Christmas of 1978, The Cryptics bought The Residents a new studio. The musicians, excited to try out the new studio on some old material, got to work on Santa Dog 78.[2] Remembering the Satan-God connection and noting that it had been six years since the original, the group decided that it would be fun to make a tradition of this, re-recording Santa Dog every six years to see how they'd changed musically.
Santa Dog 84[]
So in 1984, the group set out to record Santa Dog a third time. During these sessions, The Residents recorded two versions but eventually called it off, not sure it was different enough from their '78 version to be worth releasing. Instead, they decided to re-record it when they felt a significant shift in their style.
Refused[]
By 1999 The Residents had recorded enough versions of "Santa Dog" to fill a whole album and figured they should put them all into one. The album also contained the newly recorded tracks, "Flood." "Famine," "Plague." "Pestilence," and "Fire '99 / Santa Dog 2nd Millennium". As with the original EP, The Residents named each track after insurable disasters.
Release[]
Ralph America released the album on December 15th, 1999, in a limited edition of 1,333 hand-numbered copies.
For the album's 20th Anniversary in 2019, Klanggalerie released an expanded edition with another 21 minutes of content. This updated edition presented the tracks pseudo-chronologically, adding eight new adaptations while removing three of the four songs found on the original EP. This version also included two other tracks left out of the track listing of the original version of the album, "Santa Cow" (an unreleased demo from 1988) and the original "Santa Dog '84" demo as heard on the Santa Dog 88 EP.
As part of The Residents' 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2022, Secret Records announced the release of a double LP compilation titled Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection; containing all of the original Santa Dog tracks as well as every other related track recorded in the years since (except "Santa Cow"), effectively acting as a vinyl reissue of the Refused album.
Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection[]
Red and green variant of Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection
On February 25th 2022, Secret Records announced two Residents releases for pre-sale: a reissue of the compilation Loss of the Lizard Lady and a double LP compilation, the Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection, featuring the four tracks from the original Santa Dog EP as well as every successive version of "Fire" recorded by the group since - similar in concept to Refused.
The 50th Anniversary Collection was available in an edition of 350 hand-numbered copies on red and green splattered vinyl, and another 150 copies on white and red "peppermint" splattered vinyl. The cover art featured a 12" gatefold reproduction of the original 7" EP picture sleeve. The album was also made available for streaming and digital download from the Secret Records Bandcamp page on the day of its announcement.
The vinyl album shipped in May 2022. The collection was originally intended to include a newly recorded version of "Fire" titled "Santa Dog 2022", however the album had to be pressed and released early to avoid an anticipated eight month delay in vinyl production, and the song could not be included. It was instead issued on a stand-alone mail order only single in December 2022.[3]
Track listing[]
Original release (1999)[]
- Santa Dog '84 (Unfinished) (A Work In Progress) (3:05)
- Fire (1:45)
- Lightning (3:19)
- Explosion (2:17)
- Aircraft Damage (3:51)
- Flood (2:43)
- Santa Dog '78 (Fire) (1:53)
- Famine (0:45)
- Santa Dog '88 (5:15)
- Plague (1:36)
- Santa Dog NYE (Live) (3:44)
- Pestilence (4:09)
- Where Are Your Dogs? Show Us Your Ugly! (12:55)
- Fire '99 / Santa Dog 2nd Millennium (9:52)
Klanggalerie reissue (2019)[]
- Fire (1:45)
- Santa Dog '78 (1:53)
- Santa Dog '84 (2:56)
- Santa Dog '84 (Unfinished - A Work In Progress) (2:59)
- Santa Dog '88 (5:14)
- Santa Dog N.Y.E. (Live) (3:39)
- Santa Dog '92 (12:52)
- Famine (0:46)
- Pestilence (4:07)
- Flood (2:44)
- Plague (1:37)
- Fire '99 / Santa Dog 2nd Millennium (9:54)
- Santa Dog 2006 (2:46)
- Santa Dog 2012 (6:05)
- Santa Dog 2017 (4:36)
- Santa Dog For Gamelan Orchestra (5:13)
- Santa Cow (5:08)
- Santa Dog (Live 2013) (4:00)
Santa Dog 50th Anniversary Collection[]
Disc One (36:46)[]
Side One (16:00)[]
- Fire (1:44)
- Explosion (2:18)
- Lightning (3:20)
- Aircraft Damage (3:50)
- Santa Dog '78 (1:53)
- Santa Dog '84 (2:55)
Side Two (20:46)[]
- Santa Dog '88 (5:13)
- Where Are Your Dogs? Show Us Your Ugly! (12:51)
- Flood (2:42)
Disc Two (37:58)[]
Side Three (19:20)[]
- Famine (0:44)
- Santa Dog '84-'99 A Work In Progress (2:58)
- Plague (1:38)
- Pestilence (4:08)
- Fire '99 / Santa Dog 2nd Millennium (9:52)
Side Four (18:38)[]
- Santa Dog For Gamelan Orchestra (5:12)
- Santa Dog 2006 (2:46)
- Santa Dog 2012 (6:04)
- Santa Dog 2017 (4:36)
Liner notes[]
Original "Santa Dog" photo from 20 Sycamore Street
Original release (1999)[]
The Pilgrimage of Santa Dog through the Second Millennium[]
The Residents have always been sentimentalists. They were big on family and friends, religious holidays and the American flag. No one should have been surprised that their very first recording was dedicated to Santa and dogs, two mainstays of modern American culture.
Many folks thought Santa Dog was just a big joke when they received their shiny copy in the mail way back in 1972. Some tore them up trying to open them because their shiny copy was still wet with varnish and permanently stuck together. Others greeted them with seasonal cheer and then tossed them out with the other cards and wrapping paper on December 26th. One was even refused.
Santa Dog doesn't care. He comes without presents again and again: 1978, almost in 1984, 1988, 1992, and now, 1999. When will he be back, we all ask, wide-eyed, expectant with sugar plum visions? Only the future nose, my children, and it is wet and cold.
Credits[]
Original release[]
- Produced By: The Cryptic Corporation
- Written/Recorded By The Residents
- Cover Art: Pore Know Graphics
- Package Design: Dren McDonald
- CD produced by Dren McDonald for Ralph America 1999
- Mastered By: Dan Rathbun, Polymorph Recording, Oakland, CA
See also[]
External links and references[]
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJrGZp5uUn4&t=34s
- ↑ Santa Dog '78 liner notes
- ↑ "This was originally proposed to be on the Santa Dog 2xLP that we released but vinyl pressing was claiming 8 months production time so we decided to have separate releases. That's also why the 2xLP ended up getting released early. I didn't want to risk it not being done in time." Secret Records, comment in The Residents unofficial Facebook group, October 27th 2022
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Santa Dog (1972) Side A: "Fire" by Ivory and the Brain Eaters · Side B: "Explosion" by The Delta Nudes |