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The first known performance by Residents, Uninc. was held at The Boarding House nightclub in San Francisco on October 18th 1971, at the club's regular open mic night (known as "Audition Night").

For this show, the group were accompanied by violinist Philip Lithman, Margaret Smyk as the fabulous Peggy Honeydew, and their mentor, the mysterious Bavarian avant-garde composer N. Senada on saxophone.

The performance was recorded on tape by the group, and filmed for posterity by their friend John Kennedy; selections were featured on the second side of the 1971 demo tape B.S.. The complete audio has been released on various compilation albums, however only short excerpts of the heavily degraded videotape have been seen by the public to date.

The show[]

Residents, Uninc. took the stage at the San Francisco club The Boarding House's regular "Audition Night" (an open mic night available to poets and performers) on October 18th 1971. The performance lasted around thirty minutes and consisted mostly of loosely composed avant-garde musical pieces and poetry.

The group (who were mostly dressed as high school cheerleaders) were introduced to the stage by a recorded tape featuring the voice of their mentor, the Bavarian avant-garde music theorist N. Senada, who also accompanied the group on saxophone.

British multi-instrumentalist Philip Lithman, performed alongside the group on violin, and the fabulous Miss Peggy Honeydew took to the stage near the end of the show to perform "D For Doorknob". The show closed with a recitation of the chant "The Letter 'C'" (also known as "The Three Most Important Things In The Whole Wide World").

Set list[]

  • Intro
  • Somethin' Devilish
  • N. Senada Tribute
  • The Fourth Crucifixion
  • James Dean’s Death
  • D For Doorknob
  • The Letter 'C'

Releases[]

Parts of this show are featured on the second half of the group's 1971 demo tape B.S.. The original recording was eventually issued on the Stranger Than Supper and Daydream B-Liver collections from UWEB, and then again on one of the bonus discs in the special edition of the Our Poor, Our Tired, Our Huddled Masses compilation.

Some excerpts (including the original performance of "D For Doorknob", re-recorded by the group for B.S.) were remastered by The Cryptic Corporation in 2012 for reissue on the ERA B474 and The Delta Nudes' Greatest Hiss compilations. The complete recording was remastered by Scott Colburn in 2019 for the pREServed compilation album A Nickle If Your Dick's This Big.

This performance was videotaped by the group's friend John Kennedy on a (then groundbreaking) portable videotape camera, however the tape has degraded over time, considerably affecting the video quality of the footage. Excerpts from this video can be seen in the 2015 documentary film Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents; the tape was likely digitized in its entirety for the documentary.[1]

List[]

See also[]

Buy Or Die![]

Listen online[]

External links and references[]

Wbrmx-sml-transparent The Delta Nudes / Residents, Uninc.
(1967 - 1974)
Nsenada-mintgreen-transparent The Mysterious N. Senada
(1907 - 1993)
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