Snakefinger
Greener Postures

Snakefinger died on July 1, 1987, from a heart attack. He didn't pay much attention to his diet and was a heavy smoker, which caused him various heart problems. Snakefinger was the best friend of the Residents, born in 1949 and lived in London until 1969, he decided to move to California after hearing about a strange group in San Francisco experimenting with tapes. Before leaving Europe, however, he went to Germany, in the Black Forest, where he took the obscure "philosopher" Nicolas Senada with him (the elusive creator of the bizarre theories of the Residents, including one where the human brain works better in the cold since it's an electrical circuit). As soon as they arrived in San Francisco and met the Residents, they were immediately accepted and welcomed.

Philip Charles Lithman was nicknamed "Snakefinger" by the Residents themselves, who, upon seeing a photo of him playing the violin, noticed that his fingers had become like snakes. Lithman collaborated as a guitarist on various works by the Residents: his is the guitar on the 1977 single Satisfaction, then he played on some tracks of Fingerprince, Duck Stab / Buster & Glen, and also contributed to Eskimo and Diskomo. In return, the Residents often helped him release his solo records (which also feature musicians from Beefheart's entourage) where he proves to be an excellent musician. Inspired and inspiring, his guitar work characterizes the sound of the Residents, whose musical anthropophagy can also be found in Snakefinger's records and particularly in "Greener Postures" from 1980.

In this grotesque, skewed, and non-sense sonic amalgam, almost pataphysical ("the head is round so thoughts can change direction"), Snakefinger manages to clearly see from above what lies far below (thus with irony), in the undergrowth of modern society, just like the Residents themselves. The playful approach to composition combined with the dark and sinister atmosphere leaves one disoriented and disturbed.

And it is precisely this ability to express the absurd in music that makes this record special, a form of protest (or an exceptional creative act) against a society where learning is derived from repetition, where focus is on the particular, losing sight of everything around, the universal. Snakefinger's philosophy is not to accept all this, not to let oneself be hypnotized by habit or anything else that prevents one from looking beyond, to tread already beaten and safe paths. He was an artist able to think the absurd, as a rule that governs the world.