A new video from the Residents has been making the rounds in the past couple of days. "Die! Die! Die!" is a cover of a song by Dyin' Dog. Black Francis (ex-Pixies front man) handles the vocals, and the video ties it in with Covid and Trump imagery via basic animation, but the song itself gets the point across. Dark sounding, even for the Residents, and worth hearing. After listening to it and seeing the blurb at Rolling Stone, which really doesn't tell you much, I was still skeptical.
The big question is who's Dyin' Dog anyway? As with anything to do with the Residents, the bullshit detector was on standby. The story goes that the Residents have a friend in Louisiana that knew Dyin' Dog back in the day and recorded with him for Stan Lewis's Jewel Records. Supposedly nothing was ever officially released, only promo copies existed. This is where it gets interesting. Doing a search for anything about Dyin' Dog or Alvin Snow, his real name, I came across a long post by someone who had a Dyin' Dog acetate and had been looking for information on him. He came across another acetate of a different song on ebay. It's a long post but it fills in a lot of blanks as does the promo the Residents have up on YouTube for some Dyin' Dog related releases. Of the releases, one is a compilation of demos by Dyin' Dog and another is an album by the Residents themselves with covers of the demos and songs inspired by them.
All of this is neither here nor there. Not even whether any of it is the straight story. None of that matters after you hear whoever it is singing. It's Howlin' Wolf meets Reverend Beat Man with added gravel. You'll be wanting it to be the real thing. The Residents can wait.
All of this is neither here nor there. Not even whether any of it is the straight story. None of that matters after you hear whoever it is singing. It's Howlin' Wolf meets Reverend Beat Man with added gravel. You'll be wanting it to be the real thing. The Residents can wait.
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Listen:The Residents - Die! Die! Die! (video) at YouTube
Dyin' Dog - Bury My Bone (streaming) at YouTube
Older covers:
The Residents - Hit the Road Jack mp3 at Aquabotic Ray Charles cover
The Residents - I'm So Lonesome I could Cry mp3 at Beware of the Blog Hank Williams cover
Video:
The Residents Present Dyin' Dog - Promo video at YouTube
Visit:
Lost in the Blues: The Search for Dyin’ Dog at Chisler This is great.
The Residents and Black Francis Drop Searing Indictment of Trump’s Handling of COVID-19 at Rolling Stone
2 comments:
The demos may be real but I call bullshit on the photo. That's photoshopped James Dean. I also question the black and white polaroid photos. Not sure if there was such a thing in the mid 70's. Most film was color.
That James Dean you speak of is undoubtedly the basis of the photo. Though I couldn't find the exact photo, I found one that was definitely in the same sequence (you'll have to cut an paste the address):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/James_Dean_in_Rebel_Without_a_Cause.jpg
I got the photo I posted from a screen grab of the "The Residents Present Dyin' Dog" video.
I looked at the chronology of all the different sources. All of it, from the video, to the Dyin' Dog 45, to the cited auction on ebay, to the "Lost in the Blues" article all appeared within the past year. The German release of the demo compilation was dated 2019. This could be one elaborate hoax but the fact remains that the guys voice, whoever it is, is total gravel.
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