Residents anonymous but unmistakable
The Residents have lost their drummer, and for now, have packed away the iconic top-hatted eyeball-heads that have long hidden their identities. Yet such changes have done nothing to blunt the remaining trio’s reality-warping abilities.
The Residents brought their Talking Light show to the Somerville Theatre Wednesday, where they intertwined creepy, Chuck Palahniuk-esque ghost stories with musical pieces ranging from the freshly conceived to “classics’’ from their vast catalog of avant-garde offerings.
After guitarist Bob and keyboards-and-computers operator Chuck — both wearing sparkling red tuxedo coats and black masks festooned with wiry braids of hair and large goggle lenses over the eye holes — took their places opposite each other on the stage, singer Randy emerged. Randy, disguised with a thin, beakish nose and a bald head ringed by a mane of gray hair that had him looking a bit like Peter Boyle’s deranged brother, wore a long tie, boxer shorts, bathrobe, and clown shoes, and held forth center stage, which receded into a living room set of fireplace, easy chair, and TV.
Welcome to Residents-ville. And for 90 minutes, the band commanded the spot, with a performance that was alternately dark and humorous, finding ways to be sardonic without being cruel. It was almost like a grown-up equivalent of campfire ghost stories, but instead of having a counselor strum an acoustic guitar after scaring the kids, the Residents conjured all manner of skronking and howling art rock that stirred the anxiety instead of soothing it.
Death and madness formed the overarching themes to the songs and stories. Randy spoke of his personal demons, the Mirror People, in segments throughout the show. He then relied on video narrations displayed in discs hanging above the players on stage for three other stories in which protagonists were haunted by experiences that shattered their sanity.
Richly textured tunes such as “Death in Barstow,’’ “The Old Woman,’’ and “Six More Miles (to the Graveyard)’’ that could work just fine without the visual accompaniment underscored the Residents’ musical chops, and made clear why the group is still ostensibly a band with great performance value rather than a crazed musical-theater group.
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. 
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