ザ・レジデンツ

The Residents in Japan

The Residents are practically Japanese, but no one knows.

Beginning in October 2016 on the Talk of Creatures forum, I started a thread titled The Residents in Japan. While I'd only post intermittently, the idea behind this thread was to highlight a part of The Residents' world that was mysterious to us english speakers: their popularity and presence in Japan. Here's the intro post:

I see plenty of information out there about various aspects of Residents history, but one thing that I see almost nothing about at all is The Residents' brief period of popularity in Japan. It is kind of understandable, seeing how The Residents have never been defined by their popularity overseas... or their popularity at all. They are and really should only be defined by their actual art. That being said, a bit of history about the group can't hurt, especially since their success in Japan was the whole reason behind them doing the 13th Anniversary Tour after previously swearing never to tour again! Looking at this stuff can teach us about both The Residents, Japanese culture, and ourselves! Or something, I don't know.

This look into Residents history ended up becoming more relevant than expected, as The Residents ended up premiering their In Between Dreams tour in Tokyo, Japan. I went from covering mysteries of the past to breaking news about the show and teasers for new albums The Residents would mention in Japanese exclusive interviews.

My research eventually evolved into the Home Age Conversations podcast episode on the 13th Anniversary Tour, which also covered a primer on The Residents' history in Japan leading up to the Eyeball Show that happened in Tokyo and Kyoto back in the 1980's.

And here we are today. The latest evolution of this concept is this very page! While this is mostly an archive of those old posts, I do want to eventually post more stuff, as I have done more research since that HAC episode and I'm excited to write about it!

Archived Posts

(These are archived posts from 2016~2017... they're old and hopefully will be replaced with better written articles one day)

Forum Archive 1: Intro

A brief history on The Residents and their relationship with Japan

Forum Archive 2: Translations

How were some album names and track names translated for JP audiences?

Forum Archive 3: The Blue Note

The Residents came back to Japan in 2017 and here's my coverage from back then.