Last weekend, I went to see one of my all-time favorite musical groups, The Residents, perform the very first concert of their world tour, in Santa Cruz.
I am a member of their online community. Several of us met at this event.
The Residents are employing the web in a new way to help them showcase their latest presentation, “The Bunny Boy.”
Whether one can enjoy the project fully depends on either being an Internet ‘have’ or a ‘have not’. The ‘have-nots’ will be missing fully half of it.
The Residents are the strangest and most mysterious musical group in the history of music. They are four men who have made over 60 albums since 1974. They have never revealed their identities and always appear on stage, or in photos, wearing matching outfits of the most outrageous sort. Their most popular look is formal coat-and-tails, with a giant eyeball covering each of their heads, over which sits a top hat.
Their music is extremely weird and tells strange stories. It is unreachable to most people.
“Bunny Boy” is a multi-media project that uses the Internet, their new CD, and their current world tour to make a 3-pronged presentation.
It is a cliff-hanger mystery story being played out in short episodes on YouTube as we speak. It’s a tale of a mentally disturbed, shut-in man, nicknamed “Bunny”, who is trying to find his missing brother Harvey. He pleads for the audience to help him by sending him email suggestions. Strangely enough, as The Residents’ elaborate community site shows, “Bunny” has been answering most of the emails the public has sent him. He’s answered all four emails that I have sent him.
New, two-minute segments with clues are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (18 so far).
I was lucky enough to see The Residents perform their spooky tale on stage, and find out the surprise ending.
But even without that, experiencing this interactive who-dunnit on YouTube and through email is something that would never have been possible using only traditional media.
fascinater
