UNCLE WILLIE'S HIGHLY OPINIONATED GUIDE TO THE RESIDENTS
FREAK SHOW For one hundred years, from the 1850’s to the 1950’s, there were many traveling “freak shows” constantly touring America. These “freak shows” glorified and romanticized human deformity by exhibiting certain individuals afflicted by disease, accident or birth defect as “freaks”. These traveling “freak shows” may not have been the perfect solution to an imperfect situation, but at least they offered those unfortunates a good income and the commeraderie of their own kind.In these more “enlightened” times, modern medical science has eliminated most of these human oddities either through abortion or corrective surgery. When these curiosities do manage to be born or created through disease or accident, society has decided that it is wrong to exploit these people and, perhaps, that is a noble attitude. But perhaps, too, it is a denial of the ugliness and deformity that we “normal” people feel within.In an increasingly homogenized and conformist culture, we have become afraid of the distorted reflection we see in “freaks”; and at the same time we deny them the ability to exploit what may be seen as their only “gift”. We may no longer condone the exhibition of human oddities, but the “freaks” still attract stares. The difference is that they no longer get paid for it.-from the press release for Freak Show
The Residents returned from a lengthy tour of CUBE E feeling confused. Their self-exhibition as a dark and strange deformity of American culture had cast a shadow over their identity. They were a freak show.
Few should have been surprised that this became their obsession, for The Residents tune into their fears for direction. The album became a series of “short stories” told against a backdrop of unpredictable riffs. With the exception of the catchy, “Harry the Head,” none of the tracks can quite be considered “pop” songs. They dwell in the land of the subconscious, like fragments of thoughts that are replaced by new thoughts before ever being completed.
These stories grew into a graphic novel, with ten terrific visual artists adding their own visions to that of The Residents. The artists include Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Dave McKean, Savage Pencil, Kyle Baker, Charles Burns, Matt Howarth, Richard Sala, Rex Ray and Pore No Graphics.
The graphic novel opened the door for the realization of Freak Show as a CD-ROM. Working closely with computer animator, Jim Ludtke (who did the “Harry the Head” video), The Residents are constructing a whole interactive world for the inhabitants of the Freak Show that will allow the curious voyeur the opportunity to delve deeper into the lives behind the deformities.
While, at this writing, the ROM has not been released, a sneak presentation as a work-in-progress was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in October of 1992.
- Uncle Willie