The Uncle Sam Mole Show was a performance by The Residents for the opening night of the fifth annual New Music America Festival at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. on October 7th 1983.
The last concert of the group's debut tour The Mole Show, the show proved to be a logistical nightmare, however it also saved The Residents from bankruptcy following the financially disastrous tour.
Only excerpts from the performance had been made public until the 2019 release of the pREServed box set Mole Box; the fifth disc in the set featured a complete recording of the show.
History[]
The Residents on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, October 7th 1983
At the conclusion of the European leg of their debut tour The Mole Show, The Residents vowed never to tour again. While the tour had been well received by both fans and critics, it was also a financial disaster (even if ticket sales were great), and an all-around extremely stressful experience for them as well. The future of their epic Mole Trilogy, as well as the future of The Residents as a group, was uncertain.[1]
However, they received an offer from the New Music America Festival to headline the opening night of the fifth annual festival at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. on October 7th, with one final presentation of The Mole Show.[2] The Residents had doubts at first, but needed money urgently to cover several expenses, the most important of which was the recovery of their musical equipment, which was still in Europe.
The group's tour manager Bill Gerber hadn't paid the shipping agency that handled their baggage (instruments, costumes, sets, etc.) on time. So while The Residents were in the United States, all their equipment was still in a shipping warehouse in London, where they had played the last show of the European leg of the tour.[2][1] The agency was asking for $16,000 USD to ship all the equipment back to America.[3]
Both sides finally came to an agreement that The Residents would pay $10,000 upfront, and after the festival, the remaining $6,000. But even after the initial payment was made, the shipping agency still kept all the gear in Europe until the balance was paid.[4][2]
A Resident sings the closing lyrics to "Migration"; the Mole cut-outs from the Mole Show tour were unavailable, so the group had to quickly create replacements for the show
Gerber eventually threatened legal action, and the equipment was sent; however, it was very unlikely that it would make it back to America in time for the show. This meant that The Residents had to improvise, and try to recreate all the backdrops, sets and costumes from scratch in just two weeks.[5] Because their Emulators were still in England, they had to ask EM-U for a new one. The shipment containing their equipment ultimately arrived mere hours before the show, too late to be of use.
The show's usual narrator Penn Jillette was not available, so Gerber had to take his place. Instead of the dancing crew that had accompanied the group through Europe, dancers from a local ballet school were hired.[5] And finally, regular "Voices of the Air"/"Happy Home" vocalist Nessie Lessons was sick with laryngitis, so she was replaced onstage by J. Raoul Brody dressed as Uncle Sam (hence the name of the show).[6]
The group promoted their Washington appearance with a makeshift press conference held at the Lincoln Memorial earlier in the day, where they appeared with Ralph Records' publicist Mara Mikialian.
With all of these problems, and with the dress rehearsal for the show going so badly that it could not be finished, the show seemed like it was going to be a complete disaster. Fortunately, the performance was well liked by the public, with The Residents performing with a "precision and anger" unlike anything seen from them previously.[5] It closed with The Residents waving a United States flag while their rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" played.
With the concert being a success and their payment being enough to pay their debt to the European shipping agency, The Residents were back on track.
Live footage and recording[]
Disc sleeve art for the Uncle Sam Mole Show, Mole Box, 2019
The show, as well as the Lincoln Memorial press conference, were filmed at least in part, but to this day it is unknown if the full concert was caught on film. Excerpts of the Uncle Sam Mole Show footage were used in the Mole Show / Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? VHS in 1984, with another excerpt being included as an Easter egg on the Icky Flix DVD in 2001.
The show was recorded in full; The Residents' version of "The Star Spangled Banner" was released on the UWEB compilation Liver Music in 1990, but other than that the show remained unreleased for more than three decades, until the release of the pREServed six disc box set Mole Box in 2019, which included the complete show on the fifth disc (with the audio of the press conference included as an unlisted bonus track).
Set list[]
"Uncle Sam" performing"Happy Home"
- Voices of the Air (4:26)
- The Secret Seed (2:50)
- "Good Evening..." (0:43)
- The Ultimate Disaster (4:37)
- "Those Were Four Songs..." (0:48)
- God of Darkness (3:08)
- "More Religion..." (0:46)
- Migration (8:07)
- Shorty's Lament (1:38)
- Smack Your Lips (3:19)
- "We're In Chub Land..." (0:38)
- Another Land (4:49)
- "Things Are Going Fairly Well..." (1:00)
- The New Machine (6:43)
- "A Giorgio Moroder Scene..." (0:28)
- Song of the Wild (3:23)
- Final Confrontation (7:31)
- The Singing Resident Needs Something (1:58)
- Satisfaction (3:06)
- Happy Home (4:12)
- The Star Spangled Banner (1:19)
See also[]
- The Mole Show
- Mole Show / Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats VHS
- Liver Music
- "The Star Spangled Banner"
- Lincoln Memorial press conference, October 7th 1983
- Bill Gerber
- Uncle Sam
- Mole Box
External links and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Following 'The Uncle Sam Mole Show', a final, one-off performance in Washington, D.C., The Residents returned home to San Francisco more than a year after they first left. They were bruised, broke, and even more angry after they first left. They were been when the whole 'Mole' project got underway. There were some serious question as to whether or not the group would continue, not only with the project, but as an entity. Nerves were frayed, and there was a good deal of internal strife following a tour designed to bring them back together. Plus, undertaking a tour of that size turned out to be far more expensive that anyone had realized, and they were just about out of money. They'd only done the 'Uncle Sam' show, in fact, to raise enough money to get their equipment out of a storage facility in London, where it had been held hostage since the final European show. The idea of pushing ahead with a project that had brought them to the breaking point was the last thing on anyone's mind." Jim Knipfel, "Kula Bocca Says: A Reasonably Brief History Of The Mole Trilogy", Mole Box: The Complete Mole Trilogy pREServed liner notes, 2019
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "...in 1983, finally The Residents were playing in my neck of the woods: headlining at the New Music America Festival in Washington, D.C. My chance, at last, to see them live! What an incredible event. With all of the Mole Show touring equipment in disputed lock up in a shipping warehouse, a cast of thousands put together the entire show from scratch in two weeks. Performed in a museum in our nation's capitol, I went to The Uncle Sam Mole Show a boy and came away a man. Well, almost. It sure scared me a lot. Yeah, sure, I saw a once-in-a-lifetime experience but I still couldn't share my enthusiasm with any of my friends across the country. To nine tenths of the country, the Residents remained as elusive as ever." Rich Shupe, Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents, 1993
- ↑ "Their tour manager had failed to pay the English shipping agent, who was holding all of their sets and instruments in England until they could pay $16,000 for their return." - Tzoq, "The Mole Show", RZWeb, 2004
- ↑ "The band convinced the shipper to take $10,000 up front and the balance after the Festival, but even when they paid that cash to the shipper, he kept holding out for the balance without sending the gear." — Tzoq, "The Mole Show", RZWeb, 2004
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Narrated by Bill Gerber (The Residents' then manager), this performance was part of the fifth New Music America Festival, a week-long showcase for new directions and experiments in music which took place in Washington during October of 1983. As showtime approached, The Residents' equipment and sets were stranded in Europe following a lengthy tour, and the group was forced to secure new instruments, build new sets in hotel rooms and employ dancers from a local ballet school upon arrival in Washington. They also performed without their usual narrator, Penn Jillette, or backing vocalist Nessie Lessons. The show was, however, a success, The Residents performing their masterpiece one final time with a precision and anger not seen from them before." Mole Box: The Complete Mole Trilogy pREServed liner notes, 2019
- ↑ Ian Shirley, Never Known Questions: Five Decades of The Residents, 2015
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The Mole Show (1982-1983) Set list |
