Page "The Residents" Paragraph 12

Santa Dog is considered by The Residents themselves and their fans to be the " official " start of the band's recorded output.

This is so because it was the first to be released to the public.

Shortly after this release, the band left San Mateo and relocated to San Francisco.

They sent copies of Santa Dog to west coast radio stations with no response until Bill Reinhardt, program director of KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon received a copy.

Santa Dog had the strange kind of sonic weirdness he was looking for and it was played heavily on his popular ( Radio Lab ) show.

Bill met The Residents at their Sycamore St. studio in the summer of 1973 with the news of his broadcasts.

They were overjoyed that they had finally got media acceptance and he was celebrated with the news that KBOO was the first station to play a Residents record on the air.

Inviting him in and treating him like family, The Residents gave Reinhardt exclusive access to all their eclectic recordings, including copies of the original masters of Stuffed Trigger, Baby Sex and the Warner Bros.

Album.

He promoted these along with Meet the Residents regularly on his radio program.

There was considerable resistance to the commercial viability of Residents material.

To aid in their promotion, Bill was given 50 of the first 1, 000 copies of Meet the Residents.

Some were sent to friends, listeners and critics and two dozen were left for sale on consignment at Music Millennium Records where they sat unsold for months.

KBOO DJ, Barry Schwam ( Schwump, who also recorded with The Residents ) promoted them on his program as well.

Eventually KBOO airplay attracted many loyal fans and Portland became the epicenter of a worldwide cult phenomenon.