Residents
Video Anthology
Two new releases–by legendary prog-rock weirdos the Residents and Gen-X flag bearers the Beastie Boys–take a stab at confronting the new format on its own highly interactive terms, and the results are both fascinating and a bit daunting. Icky Flix collects 16 of the Residents’ beautiful and disturbing animations, dating back to “The Third Reich ‘n’ Roll” (1976), which is enshrined in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection as one of the first music videos. Such compilations already have a long history on VHS, but the DVD includes production notes for each video, and the band has rerecorded all the music so that the viewer can choose between the original version and its 2000 counterpart–even switching back and forth in the middle of the song. (They’ll perform all the new versions in their show tonight at the Congress Theater.) The Beastie Boys’ Video Anthology, which spreads 18 videos over two discs, is even more fanatical in its menu of options: in addition to notes, photos, storyboards, and separate audio commentary from both the band and the directors, it offers alternate camera angles culled from the vaults and various remixes of the songs. On “Alive” (1999), for instance, the viewer can choose the original video and sound track or mix and match any of eight video angles and six remixes–for a total of 63 different combinations.
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The new tracks on Icky Flix are often dramatically different from the originals, reflecting the Residents’ recent interest in drums and electric guitar after more than a decade immersing themselves in sampling technology. As a result they tend to be sharper, more abrasive, and less murky than the old ones–which, given the character of the visuals, isn’t necessarily an improvement. “The Third Reich ‘n’ Roll,” for instance, is a crude black-and-white film featuring four figures dancing around in Klansman robes made from newspapers. A cellophane-wrapped alien bursts through the newspaper backdrop and zaps them with a ray gun whose beam is created by scratching the celluloid. The original track features equally primitive tribal drums beneath a chanted hook from “Land of 1,000 Dances”; later a sequence evoking Hitler at Nuremberg gets quotes from “Wipe Out.” The new track drops the spooky drums for a synthesized rock beat and discards the Surfaris tune, blunting the satiric thrust of the original. “This Is a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is dominated by a close-up of a man’s blue-tinted face mugging while computer-generated worms bore out of his head; the original track features a bleating vocal by one of the Residents, which is replaced on the new track by an ethereal and much more musical rendition by singer Molly Harvey.
