SAN FRANCISCO (CelebrityAccess) Hardy Fox, 73, co-founder and composer of the influential art collective The Residents – aka, the-eyeballs-wearing-tuxedos guys, died after battling brain cancer.
“Hardy no longer records anything at all,” a statement says on his website. “That era ended. Perhaps even death was not the reason. He was thinking more and more that he had completed his personal expectations.”
The Residents formed in 1969, recording more than 60 records and performed in costume to hide their identities. It was only in 2015 that Fox revealed himself to be the chief composer after retiring.
The band met in high school in Shreveport, La., in the early 1960s and began making homemade tapes. They traveled by bus to San Francisco in 1966 but their bus broke down in San Mateo, Calif., and decided to stay there. They eventually recorded the album Vileness Fats at their studio in San Francisco in 1972, which led to decades of recordings and historic live shows, with their first touring performance in 1983 hosted by Penn Jillette.
From Wikipedia: The performance featured The Residents performing behind a burlap screen, occasionally wearing disguises (such as their iconic eyeball masks), while dancers and actors appeared in front of painted backdrops used to help illustrate the story. Jillette would come out between songs telling long and intentionally pointless stories. The show was designed to appear to fall apart as it progressed; Jillette pretended to grow angrier with the crowd, and lighting effects and music would become increasingly chaotic, all building up to the point where Jillette was dragged off stage and returned, handcuffed to a wheelchair, to deliver his last monologue. During one performance, an audience member assaulted Jillette while he was handcuffed to the wheelchair.
He recorded as a solo artist under names like Charles Bobuck, Combo de Mechanico and Sonido de la Noche. He is survived by his husband, Steven Kloman, and his book, THIS, is available for free here.
The post Hardy Fox, Composer/Founder Of The Residents, Dies appeared first on CelebrityAccess.
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