Uncle Willie is a noted friend and fan of The Residents,[1] best known for founding and operating UWEB, the group's second official fan club, from 1988 to 1992. In 1993 he compiled the retrospective book and compilation CD Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents.
Willie continued to write columns for Ralph America's Buy Or Die! mail order catalog, as well as press releases and liner notes for Residents releases, throughout the 1990s.
Biography[]
The man who would become known as Uncle Willie was initially dismissive of The Residents, after his nephew introduced him to the group's 1981 album Mark of the Mole. However, he grew to love the group after his nephew insisted on taking him along to the group's performance tour The Mole Show.
Six years later, in 1988, he founded UWEB, the group's official fan club. He took the nom de plume Uncle Willie, derived both from the singing Resident's similarly named uncle[2] and a character of the same name from the group's unfinished film project Vileness Fats.
The Harry & David drawing which inspired the UWEB logo.
The face which appeared on every UWEB release quickly became another recognisable image in The Residents' iconography. The face is not that of Uncle Willie: it was taken by designer Rex Ray from a 1959 drawing of Harry and David Holmes, the founders of the Fruit of the Month Club. Ray (who was a gay man) used the image as a joking reference to the derogatory slang term for gay men.[3]
Unlike the earlier Residents fan club W.E.I.R.D., UWEB worked closely with The Residents and The Cryptic Corporation, releasing material exclusively to club members that had never been heard of previously, with tracks recorded by the group specifically for UWEB releases.
In 1991 The Residents began working on an album with the working title Monkey On My Back. Uncle Willie learned of these recording sessions and shared the news with UWEB members. This exposure of the album's existence prior to its announcement or release caused the group to shelve it entirely; as a result, Uncle Willie began to worry that the club was doing more harm than good.
The group's 1992 album Our Finest Flowers namechecked UWEB in the title of its closing track, indicating the end of the tensions between the group and their fan club, but by this point Willie had already decided to close UWEB for good.
Following the closure of UWEB, Willie compiled the book and companion CD Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents in 1993, and published a regular column, "Willie Watches", in issues of Ralph America's Buy Or Die! catalog.[1]
Willie continued to write press releases for The Residents until at least 1999, when he also compiled the album Land of Mystery from the earlier UWEB releases. In 2000 he was thanked in the liner notes of the compilation album dot com for "pointing out hidden gems".
Credits on Residents releases[]
- The Residents - Stranger Than Supper (1990, Liner Notes)
- Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents (1993, Collected & Edited By)
- The Residents - Wormwood (Curious Stories From The Bible) (1998, Liner Notes)
- The Residents - Land Of Mystery (1999, Liner Notes)
- The Residents - Wormwood Box (2022, Liner Notes)
See also[]
- UWEB
- Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents
- Our Finest Flowers
- Be Kind To U-WEB Footed Friends
- Land of Mystery
External links and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 tzoq, "RzFAQ: The Residents' Friends", RZWeb, 1995-1997 (archived via archive.org)
- ↑ RandyLand, Episode 23, January 9th 2017
- ↑ Post by Kim Andrews, The Residents unofficial Facebook group, December 25th 2021