ESKIMO
UNCLE WILLIE'S HIGHLY OPINIONATED GUIDE TO THE RESIDENTS
In 1979 the big musical battle line was being drawn between
the punkoids and the disco divas. There had never been such
cultural tension since the wars between the surfers and the
greasers way back in the early ’60’s. The Residents had
passed their own punk stage in 1976 with the release of
“Satisfaction” and were feeling that disco, while using the
studio in new ways, did not actually offer much in the way
of depth.
So they decided it was a good time to make the jump into
world music, since by their own calculations it was not to
become popular for several more years. They scanned the map
for a proper culture to exploit and, not finding one,
became discouraged until seeing a large Coke sign featuring
Santa Claus. Immediately they realized they had overlooked
the North Pole because it is made of ice and therefore not
on their world map.
One can only imagine the glee with which they rushed out to
the library to gather all they could find on Eskimos. What
they found was a government-issued book on Eskimo
sanitation, a book of Eskimo legends, and one scratchy
record of someone hitting a drum and chanting. Not exactly
the rich cultural vein they had hoped to mine.
But I guess it was enough, for it set the Eyeballs spinning
off into their own imaginary world of six-month nights,
frozen fish building blocks, and Eskimo sex lives. For
almost four years the ideas tumbled around. Sometimes they
would feel elated at some new breakthrough, but usually
they moaned that the album would not only be dreary to
listen to, but pretentious beyond belief.
Just as it was nearing completion, a late night listening
suggested that it was going to need more work and they took
the tapes and disappeared to England where they met up with
friends for whom they played the tapes in hopes of
gathering some unbiased opinions.
Respected musician and writer, Chris Cutler, who had played
percussion on some parts of the album, took the masters to
a bank vault and calmed the band down enough for them to
remember that the album resulted from their decisions and a
belief in the self is imperative, not the concerns of what
others will think. Chris arranged for the masters to be
returned and the album eventually came out.
Instantly it became a hit, both in sales and in reviews,
Andy Gill of New Music Express in London said, “I’m not
sure quite how to convey the magnitude of The Residents’
achievement with Eskimo. What I am sure of is that it’s
without doubt one of the most important albums ever made,
if not the most important, and that its implications are of
such an unprecedentedly revolutionary nature that the
weak-minded polemical posturing of purportedly 'political'
bands are positively bourgeois by comparison.“
He says this because the album tells the story, without
relying upon words, about the assimilation of a ritualistic
society into consumer society . This story unfolds as
Eskimo fables, a lived experience, set to the grinding of
sound effects and music. It is a mind movie rich with
detail. Eskimo is, quite literally, a unique experience.
- Uncle Willie