After nearly 30 years, we feel as if we know the Residents. We may not know their names, and we may not have ever seen their faces, but their tuxedos and eyeball heads (now with one Mr. Skull) have become as recognizable as any cult icon. Their fans' relationship with them doesn't revolve as much around the question of whom they are, but more simply, what they'll do next. But that doesn't mean that any Residents fan wouldn't jump at the chance to discover their true identities, if only to be able to say that they had.

At a Los Angeles release party for Icky Flix, the Residents' new DVD collection spanning three decades' worth of music videos, attendees supposedly had the opportunity to "Meet a Resident." A tuxedoed man, sans eyeball head, stood amongst the crowd, chatting and signing photos. Fans participated as if he were the real deal. Those fans probably came home and bragged to their friends about the incredible occasion. But the event can't be seen without some skepticism. There's a 50% chance that the man either was or was not a Resident. But if you're a fan, does it even matter?

For those uninitiated to the Residents' body of work, skip Icky Flix for now and listen to their inscrutable and inconceivable 1974 debut, Meet the Residents. For those fans out there, however, approach Icky Flix as a golden opportunity. It has parts that represent the weakest points of their career, like any career retrospective. But at those times when you're otherwise immersed in their sheer brilliance, why should that matter?

The collection's best material clearly comes from the Residents' first 12 years of work, best representing their conceptual and creative excellence both visually and aurally. "The Third Reich 'N' Roll" distills the distorted and disfigured covers of '50s and '60s pop standards from their 1976 album of the same name into four minutes, and sets it to imagery of men in primitive newspaper suits banging on drums. "One Minute Movies" takes four songs from 1980's Commercial Album, which contained forty songs, each exactly one minute long, and sets them to surreal one minute videos (as if it could be any other way). Both of these films remain in New York's Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection as two of the first music videos.

The videos on Icky Flix come with two separate soundtrack options that can be switched at any moment. You can start with the original song or musical backing that served as the basis for each video, which could be anywhere from two to 25 years old, in a simple stereo mix. Or, you can choose a new version recorded simply for this occasion mixed in Dolby Surround Sound 5.1. For those without a surround sound system, the five channels of sound are combined into your two stereo channels, and you are advised in the technical info to "enjoy the mutated experience!"

As expected, the original music is sometimes far superior, and the new soundtracks only occasionally equal their predecessors. Guest singer Molly Harvey trades off vocal duties with the gruff-voiced Singing Resident, at times taking over parts he sang in the original versions. Sometimes the whole affair succeeds, like in their new version of their original cover of James Brown's "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World," with Harvey adding a new female perspective to the song's POV. At other times, it fails, like when they attempt to recreate the brilliant "Moisture" from "One Minute Movies" with the gloss of the new soundtrack, Harvey on lead vocals, and a brutal distorted guitar solo to replace the ingenious original.

Either way, the new interpretations are worth hearing, if only just to see what they're up to right now. But in the case of most of their '90s work, when the Residents were making a majority of their music based in cheesy MIDI sounds, the new soundtrack doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Along with much of this work comes dated CD-ROM animation from the mid-'90s, since three of their works in this decade-- Freak Show, The Gingerbread Man, and Bad Day on the Midway-- came with corresponding computer games. The videos and music spawned from these three projects represent the weakest points of the DVD, and most of them are probably only worth watching once, preferably with the old soundtrack.

One of the best moments of Icky Flix isn't even by the Residents. In the late '70s, the band discovered Renaldo and the Loaf, a British duo with a sound similar to theirs. Consequently, the Residents decided to include the pair's five-minute 1980 film, titled Songs for Swinging Larvae, featuring portions of songs from their album of the same name. Director Graeme Whifler, who was also at the helm for "The Third Reich 'N' Roll" and "One Minute Movies," crafts a stylistic and grotesque story of the kidnapping of a child based on the pair's gorgeously twisted music. Sadly, the Residents' 2000 adaptation of the music ruins its charm.

The centerpiece of the collection is a brand new edit of "Vileness Fats," a 17-minute experimental musical comedy tour de force, also with a new soundtrack, as well as a restored version of the original. Its creation spanning the 30 year timeframe that the rest of the videos represent, "Vileness Fats" supposedly tells the story-- if you can call it that-- of a midget with split personalities named St. Steve and Lonesome Jack. The film launches into tangent upon tangent, obscuring most, if any plot until it reaches its confounding climax with silent dialogue. But it speaks for itself, and it should satisfy the die-hards.

There's a lot more worth checking out, like the inclusion of the beautifully ethereal "Burn Baby Burn" from 2000's Roadworms live LP, or the ten mostly excellent hidden clips, all culled from sufficiently random and perhaps surprising sources, strewn about some of the info menus. Mr. Skull sees the project as something to give their fans "absolutely nothing to complain about." And he's right. Why complain? Pleasing the fans seems to be the primary objective of Icky Flix, and if you've got a problem with that, go back and listen to Meet the Residents again to remind yourself of why you started liking them to begin with.

-Spencer Owen