4 ms·

Hardy Fox, of the avant-garde band The Residents (maybe) (2018)

53 points by effect 3y ago

porcoda 3y ago
A good movie about the Residents is “Theory of Obscurity” : https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2833768/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2833768/
- effect 3y ago
  This is fun too - Residents clips hosted by Penn and Teller in 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4CzFRFp5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4CzFRFp5U
jtode 3y ago
I missed this article when it came out, but this is more or less exactly what I expected to find out if the truth ever came out. Particularly that last sentence. I'm even more in love with the band now, if that was even possible...
- porcoda 3y ago
  You might like this article from 2022 too then: “The Man in the Eyeball Mask”. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/hardy-fox-the-residents/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/hardy-fox-th...
harel 3y ago
I have fond memories of their CD-Rom, back when that was a thing. At the time I was managing a CD-Rom shop and this was one of the "things to have". Later in life, in San Francisco, I met someone who worked on that CD-Rom. He liked to insinuate that he knew who they were but I didn't buy it.
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  there were probably more people who knew who they were... or at least thought they really knew who they were. i mean... there's only so many people who hang out with well-known pop-stars and ask random passers-by to help them move their gamelan. i remember being amazed and disappointed by the Freak Show CD-ROM. amazed because around 1990 there wasn't TOO much like it. disappointed because i KNEW that in a few years the tools would be much better and the production could have been just that much better.
  - dhosek 3y ago
    I remember in 1999, seeing someone speculating that Robert Fripp was, if not a member of the residents, at least a guest artist at some point (the most compelling evidence, as I recall, being that a guitarist in an eye-ball bask played seated and towards the back of the stage).
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
I came late to The Residents, and haven't done their discography, although I've seen and love the "Theory of Obscurity" doco that porcoda mentioned. What I know of The Residents and their genius is probably best summed up by their Gingerbread Man song / film clip. It's unbelivably haunting if you let it in: https://youtu.be/hr-I6-gxecg https://youtu.be/hr-I6-gxecg "everybody feeds the fat boy" Indeed. Let the rabbit hole take you.
retrocryptid 3y ago
I'm not sure why we're digging Hardy Fox up and dressing him in a suit of lights after four and a half years, but if anyone deserves another round of applause, it's the Residents. The cool thing about being old is I knew of cool bands before they were well known. And the cool thing about the residents is they remain obscure yet popular. The story I heard was they headed out on the highway in the late 60s, headed for San Francisco. But they only had enough gas money to make it to San Mateo. Or at least that's the story people told in Redwood City. Every now and again if the wind was just right, you could hear a few bars from "God in Three Persons" on the wind at the corner of El Camino and Roosevelt. Maybe you could hear it better from San Carlos. I'm fairly certain I met some of them when I schlepped my gamelan up to Alameda to get it tuned. In the next room someone was testing out a gamelan they were going to buy by playing Diskimo. But I was lucky enough to attend their Valentine's Day concert in Dallas as part of their 13th anniversary tour. Dallas sucked considerably less that evening.
retrocryptid 3y ago
Also... anyone remember very early Quicktime (maybe around '91) when the standard demo was to show people the video for Moisture? https://youtu.be/dDDVXlEG-_I https://youtu.be/dDDVXlEG-_I
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  And I would be remiss if I didn't call out "Loss of Innocence" as the thematic anthem of the latter half of the 20th century. https://youtu.be/VC3W7o7_ho4 https://youtu.be/VC3W7o7_ho4
intellectronica 3y ago
He was really and truly one of the most original and brilliant musicians of his era. Came out of nowhere, created some amazing music, always renewing and reinventing ... and died too young. The residents go on, as a non-personified brand there is no significant change on the surface, and there's still a lot to love about them, but the absence of Hardy is very noticeable.
effect 3y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20221125122033/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/obituaries/hardy-fox-dead.html http://web.archive.org/web/20221125122033/https://www.nytime... https://archive.ph/w2dTQ https://archive.ph/w2dTQ

53 points by effect 3y ago

A good movie about the Residents is “Theory of Obscurity” : https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2833768/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2833768/

effect 3y ago
This is fun too - Residents clips hosted by Penn and Teller in 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4CzFRFp5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4CzFRFp5U

jtode 3y ago

I missed this article when it came out, but this is more or less exactly what I expected to find out if the truth ever came out. Particularly that last sentence. I'm even more in love with the band now, if that was even possible...

porcoda 3y ago
You might like this article from 2022 too then: “The Man in the Eyeball Mask”. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/hardy-fox-the-residents/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/hardy-fox-th...

harel 3y ago

I have fond memories of their CD-Rom, back when that was a thing. At the time I was managing a CD-Rom shop and this was one of the "things to have". Later in life, in San Francisco, I met someone who worked on that CD-Rom. He liked to insinuate that he knew who they were but I didn't buy it.

retrocryptid 3y ago
there were probably more people who knew who they were... or at least thought they really knew who they were. i mean... there's only so many people who hang out with well-known pop-stars and ask random passers-by to help them move their gamelan. i remember being amazed and disappointed by the Freak Show CD-ROM. amazed because around 1990 there wasn't TOO much like it. disappointed because i KNEW that in a few years the tools would be much better and the production could have been just that much better.
- dhosek 3y ago
  I remember in 1999, seeing someone speculating that Robert Fripp was, if not a member of the residents, at least a guest artist at some point (the most compelling evidence, as I recall, being that a guitarist in an eye-ball bask played seated and towards the back of the stage).

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

I came late to The Residents, and haven't done their discography, although I've seen and love the "Theory of Obscurity" doco that porcoda mentioned. What I know of The Residents and their genius is probably best summed up by their Gingerbread Man song / film clip. It's unbelivably haunting if you let it in: https://youtu.be/hr-I6-gxecg https://youtu.be/hr-I6-gxecg "everybody feeds the fat boy" Indeed. Let the rabbit hole take you.

retrocryptid 3y ago

I'm not sure why we're digging Hardy Fox up and dressing him in a suit of lights after four and a half years, but if anyone deserves another round of applause, it's the Residents. The cool thing about being old is I knew of cool bands before they were well known. And the cool thing about the residents is they remain obscure yet popular. The story I heard was they headed out on the highway in the late 60s, headed for San Francisco. But they only had enough gas money to make it to San Mateo. Or at least that's the story people told in Redwood City. Every now and again if the wind was just right, you could hear a few bars from "God in Three Persons" on the wind at the corner of El Camino and Roosevelt. Maybe you could hear it better from San Carlos. I'm fairly certain I met some of them when I schlepped my gamelan up to Alameda to get it tuned. In the next room someone was testing out a gamelan they were going to buy by playing Diskimo. But I was lucky enough to attend their Valentine's Day concert in Dallas as part of their 13th anniversary tour. Dallas sucked considerably less that evening.

retrocryptid 3y ago

Also... anyone remember very early Quicktime (maybe around '91) when the standard demo was to show people the video for Moisture? https://youtu.be/dDDVXlEG-_I https://youtu.be/dDDVXlEG-_I

retrocryptid 3y ago
And I would be remiss if I didn't call out "Loss of Innocence" as the thematic anthem of the latter half of the 20th century. https://youtu.be/VC3W7o7_ho4 https://youtu.be/VC3W7o7_ho4

intellectronica 3y ago

He was really and truly one of the most original and brilliant musicians of his era. Came out of nowhere, created some amazing music, always renewing and reinventing ... and died too young. The residents go on, as a non-personified brand there is no significant change on the surface, and there's still a lot to love about them, but the absence of Hardy is very noticeable.

effect 3y ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20221125122033/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/obituaries/hardy-fox-dead.html http://web.archive.org/web/20221125122033/https://www.nytime... https://archive.ph/w2dTQ https://archive.ph/w2dTQ