My eleventh collection of short stories, "Commercial Book", has just been announced for pre-sale over at Psychofon Records. This is my second book to be written in association with the legendary San Francisco anonymous avant-garde art collective known as The Residents, following my book on the Mysterious N Senada, O For Obscurity, Or, The Story Of N. Those familiar with the band will be fully aware that in 1980 The Residents released “Commercial Album”, a collection of 40 songs each of exactly one minute in duration. I always thought these were similar to story prompts, and I wondered whether the band might be interested in furthering that idea. Contacting the Cryptic Corporation - and after consultation with their representative, Homer Flynn - I was given the go-ahead to write this book. The idea was to apply a similar restriction to the fiction as it had been to the songs. I felt that forty short stories each of exactly one thousand words in length would be an appropriate method, with those stories named after the corresponding song title and using the lyrics – where there were some – as inspiration. Homer confirmed that The Residents had considered telling me their own interpretations of the songs, however they had then decided it was better to give me free reign. The resulting stories are therefore a product of my imagination, distilled through Commercial Album, but do not directly represent the band members’ views of the source material. I imagine many of these stories differ quite considerably from the inspiration behind the songs, although I have invoked several motifs that those who are familiar with the band will be able to identify.
After catching a couple of shows with the band early last year I began to write the stories. I did this in order of appearance on the album, without thinking too much about them beforehand. Whilst writing each song I played it on a loop - meaning that I heard the tracks on average about one hundred and fifty times before I'd finish the story. I always finished each story in one writing session. Whilst it's fun to see how the stories sprang from the songs, I want to stress that you don't have to be a Residents fan to appreciate the stories. These are genre tales which wholly stand alone in their own right.
Once written, I sent the manuscript over to The Residents who approved. They were able to provide me with the original artwork for the album together with permission to include the song lyrics. As O For Obscurity had done well being published by Psychofon Records it was agreed we would continue that relationship. The pre-sale included a limited edition of the book where the first hundred are hand-numbered and come in special Psychofon packaging with the complete Commercial Album Radio Ads CD that was intended for Ralph Records promotion in 1980 as a bonus. At the time of writing, those limited edition copies have already sold out, however the standard paperback remains available.
A dissonance of the near sinister thrums inside each beautiful tale- Eugen Bacon, twice World Fantasy Award finalist and British Fantasy Award winner
