(avant-garde, experimental rock) Renaldo & The Loaf (with Residents) - 1979-87 (5 albums), MP3, 128 / 320 kbps

#7771.) Lime Jelly Grass
2.) A Medical Man
3.) Bali Whine
4.) Kimbolton Gnome Song
5.) Frass
6.) N2O (Going Under)
7.) B.P.M.
8.) Spratt's Medium
9.) Honest Joe's Indian Gets the Goat on the Way to the Cowboys' Conga
10.) Ow! Stew the Red Shoe
11.) Bustle the Burgoo
12.) Is Guava a Donut?
13.) A Sob Story
14.) Hats Off, Gentlemen!
15.) Renaldo's Trip to Venice
16.) Ted's Reverie
(Original LP) Side 1: tracks 1-9; Side 2: tracks 10-16

#7771 Green Candle
2 Night
3 Bearded Cats
4 The Blowflies' Dilemma
5 Dichotomy Rag
6 A Critical Dance
7 Wilf in Builth
8 Leery Looks (From Father's Books)
9 None After Rain
10 Clean Gender
11 Vitamin Song
12 Lonely Rosa
13 J.P.W.B.C.
14 Like Some Kous-Kous Western
15 Nelda Danced at Daybreak
16 There's a Cap on the Lawn
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Total playing time: 42:20

#7771.) Intro: Version
2.) The Shoe Salesman
3.) Crashing
4.) Monkey & Bunny
5.) Mahogany Wood
6.) Sitting on the Sand
7.) Africa Tree
8.) Woman's Weapon
9.) Horizontal Logic
10.) The Sailor Song
11.) Extra: Version
(Original LP) Side 1: tracks 1-5; Side 2: tracks 6-11

#7771.) Meaning of W.E.I.R.D.
2.) 16 Going on 17
3.) Absence
4.) 120 Before Zero
5.) Of Bad Teeth
6.) My Favorite Things
7.) Metro Stomp
8.) Scottish Shuffle
9.) Fluorescent Showboat to Tangier
10.) Brittle People
11.) Dying Inside
12.) Kimbolton Gnome Song
13.) The Bathroom Song
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Total playing time: 40:37

#7771.) A Street Called Straight
2.) Boule!
3.) The Elbow is Taboo
4.) Hambu Hodo
5.) Dance for Somnambulists
6.) Here's To The Oblong Boys
7.) The Bread Song
8.) Critical Dance
9.) Extracting the Re-Re
(Original LP) Side 1: tracks 1-4; Side 2: tracks 5-9

Brian Poole: The idea of a duo appealed and so from that time onwards we never thought of forming a conventional band or anything like that. Neither of us could play any instruments, but aspired to play so we both bought guitars at the same time and made rubbish noises. We learnt the basic chords at school and from the early 70's recorded our efforts on cassette. (Believe me no one will ever hear those!!!) Truly embarrassing. Very Bolanesque but from day 1 we always 'wrote' our own stuff, mainly because we couldn't play other people's material anyway. Throughout the following years we developed our own 'style', playing acoustic guitars, bongo drums and various percussives. We were also into bands like King Crimson, electric folk (Steeleye Span etc.) and I think even Yes. We collaborated loosely with a flautist and a cello player, didn't really work out though.
Dave: I suppose the thing that really sticks out is that right from the word go we recorded everything – I don’t know, was that obsessive? Whatever, it certainly shaped the way things would go – part of our history is the improvement in recording technology and the things that would enable us to do. Three other things stand out; Firstly we tried to imitate Tyrannosaurus Rex. They were our biggest influence at the time. We wanted to sound like them but not to actually play their songs. It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we were certainly sincere and we were certainly trying to imitate Tyrannosaurus Rex. Perhaps imitation is another common theme? Secondly, we were awful, at least in the very beginning before we are even competent on guitars. And thirdly, it soon became apparent that I wouldn’t be the singer! I remember we played a very early recording to a school friend who said, “if you close your eyes it sounds like a real group”! That became a tongue in cheek quote on the insert to the 1979 Struve & Sneff cassette.
We got a bit better at playing guitar and actually played a few gigs, still in our Tyrannosaurus Rex phase. Actually we played three gigs, all at our local youth club. I remember we got slightly more experimental with each one, we were discovering other music – the Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd, for example. The more experimental we got the less popular we became! There was a bit more improvisation – we did a piece called ‘Raga’ where we used open tunings on the guitars and improvised this vaguely Indian sounding piece, there were definite sections to it but the actual playing was a fairly free. Around this time, about 1972, we recorded a tape, which we sent to John Peel for his ‘Rockitunity Knocks’ competition. Lovers of trivia may be interested to know that the competition was won by Henry Cow. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get a mention. By the third gig I had a ring modulator and an electric guitar and we even used a backing tape on one piece called ‘Island’ – King Crimson and Can were influences at the time – we had this backward recording of Brian intoning ‘island’ over and over again. Most people, as you can imagine, didn’t get it!
Probably around that time, for me at least, the peak of musical competence was reached and any desire to progress further down that particular path was lost. I knew lots of people who could play well known pieces very well, impressive enough but so what? Writing our own material was important from the very beginning, our imitation was just rather more subtle, sounding like Tyrannosaurus Rex rather than learning to play their songs, the same thing later when we discovered the Residents really.
Brian: Well we didn't set out to be anonymous at all. Unlike the Residents, our real names have always been known, but I guess the personas we associated with our music were our alter-egos. However, the idea of us having alter-egos started before RatL was born….a story.
Back in 1977, we used to go out to the pub with a bunch of friends who were, like us, into The Diceman by Luke Rheinhardt…we used to decide on our actions and do odd, but harmless, things by throwing a dice…like how we'd dress, where we'd go, what we'd do, etc. There were usually about ten of us and, depending how the dice fell, we could all enter a pub in a line walking backwards waving to everybody, sit with our left ears against the wall saying, 'there are sheep on the moors said Lambert' (Ivor Cutler was our hero), randomly stop still and pose like a male fashion model or have a heated and lengthy argument about a ficticious scientific concept called Wipperwill's Principle…it was even funnier if we managed to involve a member of the public in this. These are just a couple of examples - new ideas and lists were drawn up each week to try out.
Anyway, each person in the group who did this had what we called a 'dice name' and they would always be called that. Usually you were given your name by another member of the group and Dave was called Ted (the Loaf) and I was called Renaldo Malpractice…..later we devised our own extra names Josef Sneff (Dave) and Hooper Struve (me) who became our alter-alter-egos for our first cassette album.