This is just funny...and brilliant.

I've been a fan of the "shreds" series this guy does on YouTube, but this has taken that idea to it's fullest. I can't get thru it without crying.

enjoy your holidays Residents fans, we're out of the office until after xmas.

Where's Harvey?

Certainly, where is Harvey?

Below is the latest episode of The Bunny Boy, if you haven't seen it. Seems like things are getting a little weird for ol' Bunny.

Carson, will you help Bunny?

We hear the London show last night was a real good one, leave a comment if you were there.

Also, new over at http://ralphamerica.com are WHERE'S HARVEY bumper stickers and shirts. A little holiday package for you. Not to mention, we found some older limited editions in the secret vault, and thought we'd let some of them out for the holiday season. Stop by and check out what we found!

EuroBunny

The Euro Tour is starting!
Who is going?

Did you go?
What's the report?

Is the show different?

Is bunny evolving?

Any new information?

Let us know what you yer seeing at the shows!

Friday Bunny Breakdown

Here's the latest Bunny vid, if you haven't watched yet. 

Did you ever want to be a butcher?

How will this help Bunny find Harvey?

Is he just having a flashback?

Did Bunny make the model? Harvey? Someone else?

Is the butcher business even really related at all, or is it something Bunny found at a swap meet?

Feel free to post your correspondence with Bunny, if you've heard from him recently.

YAAAAYYYYAYAYYYYYAYY!!!!

ROCK!

Fresh Tour Goods!

Yes indeedy folks...fresh off of the truck, we have POSTCARDS FROM PATMOS, Residents tour Zip Hoodies, Bunny Boy tour tees, special tour classic eyeball Bunny Boy tees, limited Residents for Presidents white tees and  there's not a whole lot of it.

Stop by ralphamerica.com to git the goods, bub!

Some fun tour pics...

Sent to me from my better half, who many of you have met at the merchandise stand in the last 2 weeks...

Being on the rock and roll road is truly the glamorous life...just revel in the rock and roll bedspread!

Hopping from Santa Cruz

So we had a great turnout in Santa Cruz last night. The theater told us that it was the longest line for merchandise they'd ever seen. Also, Lorrie said all the customers were super nice, offering to bring water, change, etc...just all around good folk. So thanks for being patient and lovely people!

I was there watching rehearsals earlier, and I think you will all enjoy the show quite a bit. I wish I could've seen it with an audience, as I'm sure it was tons better with an enthused crowd.

Just before doors opened I walked my kids up and down the line to look at the funny costumes etc. They knew mom and dad had shirts with eyeballs, but had no idea that there were a bunch of other people who also had these shirts and wore them out in public. They got to see a bit of the show (in rehearsals), and my 3 year old has expressed in interest in going on stage in a bunny outfit (but only to sing Hank Hooper songs.)

Anyhow, so far it looks as if Postcards will be in DC in time for the beginning of the east coast tour. Whew! Enjoy the shows, and bring 5 friends with you...and encourage them to buy something!

PS - mystery boxes have been created for each night. Each night's box is different. Each box consists of 6-9 different items (not for sale as one item, but meant to be browsed thru). They are largely made up of things that we had in small supply, just sitting around the office, that we couldn't put on the site, as there weren't enough of them. Or they are experiments. Or we had a lot of them, and we're trying to be sure everyone knows about them. The Santa Cruz mystery box was sold out before the show started.

Tour Merchandise update

TOUR MERCHANDISE UPDATE:

As many of you are aware, The Residents are soon embarking on The Bunny Boy Tour and your friendly Ralph representative will be on hand at all shows with lovely Residents items, for sale in the lobby (or in some cases, right there in the theater...NYC that's just weird). Anyhow, here's a list of what we will have (or plan to have, at least).

IN the USA: 3 different shirt designs, and one embroidered zip hoodie. We will have the Bunny Boy CD (MVD/SDR, the same one we sell online), Postcards from Patmos (instrumental music from The Bunny Boy internet series on 1 CD, packaged in a double digipak, with pocket, so you can house your BB cd and booklet all in this lovely package - not available in Santa Cruz as the covers won't be finished by then). A metal 'dog tag' with Residents art printed on one side, and a URL/download code for the intermission music that is played druing the shows. The Bunny Boy NOSE! Yes, you too can have a Bunny Boy plastic nose and whiskers for Halloween this year. The very same model worn in the internet series! There's talk of a mystery box...we'll see if it happens. Concept being that if we have time, we'll rummage thru the Ralph vaults, and create a small box of collectible stuff (a different one for each night of the US tour) that folks can browse thru to patch up their collection if they have any missing pieces, etc.

In Europe: 2 shirts and one embroidered zip hoodie. Mute's version of The Bunny Boy CD, Postcards from Patmos, the dog tag (see above), maybe the plastic nose (might be a difficult customs operation), and an embroidered skull cap. Possibly some other items, but nothing has been confirmed. No mystery boxes in europe though.

ABOUT POSTCARDS FROM PATMOS: Many of you are writing to see if you can get a copy online. The answer is MAYBE. PERHAPS. We are making 2000 copies, 1000 for sale on the US tour, and 1000 for sale in Europe. Whatever is leftover will be sold online. We anticipate that there will be some leftover. Considering that the US tour is much shorter and in smaller venues than europe, we think that there will be some left over.

Residents for Presidents, and MORE TOYS

Hey all -
new shirts in - Gary Panter's original RESIDENTS FOR PRESIDENTS design is available on a heather grey tee!

Also, we have got more of the Residents/Cerio designed toys back in stock, so stop by and git some whilst you can!!!

And, question of the day:

What is the most mysterious thing about the Bunny Boy videos so far?

[For those who don't know what I'm referring to, there is an internet event going on at residents.com, every M, W and Fri a new video is posted revealing the mysteries of The Bunny Boy.]

another stupefying video

you asked for it (at least one of you did) so here it is. I spent a lot of time on this, so please don't be critical. my fragile little ego can't take the abuse. your requested video of the bunny boy tee and wallet show!



oh, for those of you opposed to pink, please notice this is far more red than pink. you know who you are...

The Bunny Boy is hopping our way...

sorry for that. But yes, The Bunny Boy will shortly be on our doorstep (before Sept. 2). You can now preorder this at http://www.ralphamerica.com - as a disc by itself, or in a fabulous package deal that includes a new Bunny Boy shirt (with Santa Dog Records logo on the back, and this shirt design is only available in the deal) and a Bunny Boy wallet. Hey, we haven't made one of those before (before you email us, EuroRalph made those other wallets, not us.) BTW, some of you (i look in yer direction paulie) have expressed distaste for velcro wallets...this one is NOT velcro. Just wanted to make that clear.


And don't forget, there will be a fabulous internet video event associated with The Bunny Boy. Several (and I mean, SEVERAL) video episodes will begin on Sept. 1st that are all intertwined to the Bunny Boy release and mystery.

Anyhow, dig it all friends...a good time to be a Residents fan is now.

New Residents Figures

Well, check these out! New Residents 7" toy figures. They come in 4 different Skull flavors and 4 different Eyeball flavors. We have a limited amount right now, and hope to get more soon. So don't be too disappointed if we run out of the first batch quickly. We should be getting more eventually.
Check out this monumentally retarded video I just made.

Some shirts have to go!

One or more of our Residents shirt designs will have to be removed from the RalphAmerica store this week. If you've had yer EYE (not a hint, but a bad pun) on any of the designs currently available, this would be the week to act on that impulse!

We have some new stuff coming soon, and we just can't keep up with all of these designs. So don't take them for granted, pick up one that you've been thinking about before it's too late!

Sad State of Cd distribution

Hi Ralph pals -
For a while RalphAmerica will not be carrying the Mute titles (the nice ones in the hardbound book) as the world of CD distribution and one stops (an excuse of a business that collects a bunch of releases from the major distributors, marks up the items, and sells them to smaller accounts), is a seedy, dirty little troll world (I just saw Hellboy 2 last night, it's kinda like that.)

We were dealing with a one stop (I'll leave them nameless right now, but unlike their namesake, they aren't very super), that gave us tons of trouble. We would order thru their ordering system, sometimes we'd get what we ordered, sometimes not. Then we'd order something else, and might get something we'd ordered the previous month with no warning. We never got invoices with our orders, the invoices we did get never made any sense. When we dealt with EMI directly, huge company, they were easier to deal with and a LOT more friendly than this MickeyMouse outfit. (When EMI got bought they changed their policies about selling to small accounts like us, even though we'd sell more Mute Residents titles than anyone in N. America.) Gripe gripe gripe.

When we started getting shipped double the stock we ordered, and then couldn't return it for various Cheney-like reasons, we decided we had better end the relationship. If you are at all like us, you are careful about which businesses you support, and we just didn't feel good about supporting this particular business anymore. The music business is too competitive for this sort of crap, and life is too short to deal with it. So hopefully we'll get something worked out soon, as MuteUK is being helpful in helping us find a solution.

We thought that you, our thoughtful customer, might want to know what was up. In the long run (and as you probably already know), these distributors won't be around much longer anyhow. In fact I find it hard to understand how they're even keeping the lights on these days, but it has something to do with the parasitic relationship they have with major labels and major label distribution. Pretty soon WalMart and Target will stop carrying CDs and DVDs and they'll all come crumbling down. I'll take some solace in that.

Do you have any ideas/predictions about how this industry will change in the next few years?

Coming soon...actually here...

available at ralphamerica.com NOW!

Nibbling our fingers...

to the sticky tape, adhesive enveloped bone...werking on getting out yer Package deals!

A lot of folks just ordered Smell My Picture, and a lot of those are going out today and tomorrow. We only got 57 copies of both Eskimo and Duck Stab shipped to us so far (the joys of buying from a one stop instead of a direct distributor), and the rest of the copies should be here soon. They said they put in a rush order, so we'll let you know in this thread when the rest of them show up. Hopefully this week.

You see, the "one stop" just buys enough copies from the distributor (who has become big enough that small shops like ours can't buy direct from them anymore) that they anticipate will fill their orders. Even when when we give them a sizable order. Which we did, and now they are scrambling to get us enough copies.

The copies of Eskimo look like they got a severe shrink wrap treatment somewhere along the line. So hopefully once you open them up there is no damage, but the shrink wrap sort of pulled the spine around a bit, hard to explain and I don't have the digital camera here. Anyhow, they look like they'll be fine, but what a strange thing to do.

Okay, back to the stacks of orders....all that and I have a terrible cold. But don't worry, if I drip snot on yer package, it'll dry up by the time it reaches you. Taataa.

UPDATE: news today that the remainder of the Eskimo/DuckStab are shipping today (wed 28th) from SoCal, so should be to us by Friday.

UPDATE 2: By about 3:30 today we got the rest of our Eskimo/Duck Stab discs, and started packing like mad. But only a few got out the door with postage in time before the post office closed at 5. So Monday is looking like the day that the rest of the packages will ship out.

UPDATE 3: ALL THE ORDERS ARE OUT THE DOOR!

Did you steal our door sign?

Last week someone stole our "Astropitch" sign from our front door. Who would do such a thing and why? The big ugly unpainted blotch on the door is the spot where our sign once hung. It was a well hung sign. Is that why someone took it? sorry. Did you do it? Did you see who did it? The guy who made the sign is making a new one, for no charge, but really, why would you want our sign? Why didn't they take the West Alameda Business Assoc sign? Their sign was prettier.

BTW, the link for the package deal (including towel) will be coming down today after I count the weekend orders.)

Smell My Package

I'm experimenting to see if a lot of people are reading this before they get the email blast I'll do in the morning tomorrow. So all the orders we get tonight, I'll know were due to this blog post. Just me geekin' out about it. 

Anyhow, SMELL MY PICTURE! The presale hath begunith. And you can buy it in a package deal with the re-issues of ESKIMO and DUCK STAB, and this will be limited to 150 packages that will also get the bonus ESKIMO FISH TOWEL. Really. A towel. About 11"x18", with the retro Eskimo logo on it. Pretty cool, actually. Use it as a bar towel, golf towel, finger towel if you play violin or classical guitar, or maybe yer a surgeon and it'll come in handy. Anyhow, Residents friend, faithful and fickle, head on over to www.ralphamerica.com for the good poop.

Your Milestone Recordings

As we all know, we are awaiting the re-release of the classic Residents' recordings, Duck Stab and Eskimo. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, regarding Duck Stab and Eskimo, I had ranked them very high in my list of "very important recordings." For me, this list is created from those very rare recordings that put fissures in my brain, and caused me to listen to music from new angles altogether. 

My personal list contains items like: Tom Waits "Rain Dogs", Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band "Trout Mask Replica", Devo "Duty Now For the Future", Public Enemy "It Takes a Nation of Millions", The Residents "Duck Stab" and "Fingerprince", Elvis Costello "Imperial Bedroom", and possibly Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "The Good Son", Meshuggah "Chaosphere", The Beatles "Revolver". 

It's easy for my head to start veering off in directions that take me to an artist who had one song that inspired my curiosity to an entire genre, or other records by these same artists that really stick in my head as important and incredibly enjoyable recordings, but I have to stop myself. I'm really just trying to nail down a few records, that turned my listening world (and composing, music writing world) upside down. Records that are so ingrained in my head, that I remember exactly where I was when I sat down to listen to one of them, or heard a song from one before I went out and found the record (back when you actually had to drive around and find a store that carried records, hopefully they had one you wanted.)

So, my question to you: Give me your list of 5 records that turned your musical world inside out. These aren't necessarily your favorite top 5 records, or the ones you think are the most important in the grand scheme of "rock". Just the recordings that picked you up, flipped you upside down, and shook you around while the change fell out of your pockets. After you listened to them a few times, you viewed everything differently. 

Maybe you only listened to traditional mariachi music, or only baroque music, and one day someone played you "Eruption" by Van Halen, and yer life changed. It could happen. What's yer story....

holy cow! the royal mail royally goofed!

A customer sent me a photo of his order today...here it is:

I think that's the most graphic and violent demise of a package's contents I've ever seen. Sure items get smashed, bent, shattered. But I've never seen one get so completely wet and left alone for so long that it accumulated mold like this and then someone decided, at that point, to go ahead and deliver it. 

This was a package sent to the UK, and the Royal Mail seems responsible, but aren't doing much about it. I just had to laugh when I saw this. Pretty extreme. If I'm the Royal Mail, I don't deliver this package. I just send a note to let them know that it's lost/damaged, something. It's just too embarrassing to show up at someone's door and leave this there, isn't it? Almost as bad as the flaming dog poop in the paperbag. 

We know the mail is getting bad in some countries (Italy, man, get it together with the mail already!), but this is definitely the worse I've seen. By a long shot. By the way, there were some CDs in there too, digipaks, that got pretty soggy.

Silent Auction...

Hi Folks - 

thanks for all of the posts and comments so far. It is helpful.

There's a new silent auction up right now. Not a ton of items, but a few things of interest. Head on to ralphamerica.com for more info.

Exciting news from THE BOG today about a new release. Are you stoked for this material? Might be coming fairly soon too...hopefully.

Okay - Ralph Mouth it is...and comment on this problem...

Though there were a ton of great ones - as paulie points out, everyone will just call it "The Ralph Blog" anyhow...so maybe I'll rotate thru banners with alternate names.

First, I have no idea why some users have to keep signing in/registering. I've been logged in since I started this thing a couple of days ago, so I haven't experienced it. Though it sounds frustrating. Maybe be sure that "cookies" are turned on in your browser prefs...that is one guess. I hope that doesn't keep you away - 

SO, yer thoughts, please:

As most of you know, we at Ralph like to put together package deals for various new releases. Besides the new CD release, the package often includes a bonus CD, a tshirt, something of that ilk. As you also know, there are some fancy MUTE reissues coming out for both CLASSIC Residents releases, ESKIMO and DUCK STAB. 

Okay, these are really important releases, right? Not to be taken lightly. One could argue that these 2 releases helped most all of the modern music world form their opinion about The Residents. On the one hand, you have the short, catchy, humorous (but a little frightening) pop songs from Duck Stab and the longer, conceptual, experimental, serious work of Eskimo. 

Both of these have become iconic releases, pointed to again and again by modern music's most innovative artists (along side releases like Trout Mask Replica, Rain Dogs, Pet Sounds etc). Okay, you know all this shit. Now to the point.

Here at RalphAmerica, we'd like to do something to celebrate these reissues, as they're sure to be fab packages (Mute's lovely hard book covers are becoming legendary with the Rez Fan.) Here are some of the issues I'm thinking about, however:

1) UK/Europe release for these releases is end of April, and the N.America release is end of May. How f-up'd is that? This happened with Voice of Midnight, and it caused us ulcers, headaches and binge drinking.  You see, if we do a "presale" for you to get one or both of these releases, in a package with some other exclusive RalphGoodie, and you live in the UK/Europe, we'll be getting emails from you (probably not you, who is reading this, but you who are not), saying "I can buy this CD right down the street...but i Preordered it from you, why isn't it here yet?" Then we start feeling a bit, uh, like we're doing a lousy job. If it happens once, no big deal, but usually it's several emails a day.

2) As important as these releases are, I'd bet dollars to donuts, that ALL OF YOU have both of these in yer collection already. In fact, you probably have several versions of both. Does the release date matter to you? If it is on sale down the street from you, do you care if it's still a month away from arriving in yer mail box, (with an added goodie?) In other words, will there be the same anticipation to receive an Eskimo/Duck Stab package, as there was for Voice of Midnight? I'm guessing, no. But lemme know.

3) How many of you are going to buy these again? Like I say, the package will be tops, and they're definitely worth getting, but will you be more likely to pick these up if we have some sort of deal for you? If so, what kind of deal would be attractive to you? A new shirt? I wish there could be a bonus CD, but I don't think that'll happen. Other ideas? A special box to house these two releases? I'm just yappin' out my ass...ideas?

4) Carbon footprint: This has definitely crossed my mind, and I wonder if you think about it. I know some of you in Europe have written to me about this. When a disc is manufactured in the Netherlands (as all the Mute releases seem to be - or somewhere in Europe), then a bunch of them get shipped to the Caroline/EMI warehouse in the US (eventually...chugchug), then a bunch go to our one stop in California. Then we order from the one stop, and they come up in a UPS truck to us in a couple of days. Then we package a bunch of them into small envelopes, many of which head back to Europe again. Some end up just miles away from where it was manufactured. I've considered finding an outlet in Europe to handle the Europe orders, but for several complicated reasons, this turns out to be WAY more expensive for us.  Yes, it's more expensive for us to not import them here, and ship them out. No wonder everyone is downloading everything. Anyhow, do you have a creative solution to this? Maybe some way to send you the missing parts of the "ralph package" if you've shown you've purchased the 2 reissues elsewhere? Again...I'm yappin' out my ass.

It's a brave new music world, and all of us are struggling to keep up with these changes. So any ideas you may have are certainly listened to. Let us know what yer thinkin'. Yabberyabber.

The First Ralph Chron post

Okay, it's a really lame name for the blog. But it's 10:25 at night, and I'm still in the office and I'm not feeling so creative. Give me another name and if it's good, I'll use that instead. I'll have some questions coming up here for YOU, The Residents FAN. I figure there will be at least 13 of you that will stop by to look at this on a semi-regular basis (thanks Paulie, Goatboy, and the guy who set up the Residents forum). 

Anyhow, give me some better names for this site! Thanks. I have an important question related to the Mute re-issues coming out soon of Eskimo and Duck Stab. So stay tuned -