The Mole Show, Santa Monica, April 10th 1982

On April 10th 1982, The Residents previewed their upcoming live tour The Mole Show with a performance at The House in Santa Monica, California. This was The Residents' first public performance of The Mole Show, and their first live show since their June 1976 appearance at Rather Ripped Records' fifth anniversary party in Berkeley. 
Effectively a rehearsal of the songs from their 1981 album Mark of the Mole, the House show featured none of the narration, dancers or sets and props that would become well known in the later version of the show; The Residents performed behind a white sheet, in front of a limited audience of around sixty people.Ian Shirley, Never Known Questions: Five Decades of The Residents, Cherry Red Books, 2016 Mark Mothersbaugh can be heard quipping before the start of the show on the complete recording. 
The show is said to have gone well, "with no real problems". After another six months of preparation, The Mole Show's official debut followed on October 26th 1982, with the first of two sold out shows at the Kabuki Theatre in San Francisco.
In 1984, a recording of the show was released on the limited edition cassette Assorted Secrets. A slightly longer version of the recording was released in 2019, as a bonus track on the Klanggalerie CD reissue of the 1985 compilation PAL TV LP.
== Live recording ==
A slightly edited recording of the performance (33 minutes in length) was later featured as the first half of the limited edition cassette Assorted Secrets in 1984. Along with the other proto-Mole Show recordings featured on Assorted Secrets, is said that "The Residents were not proud of the recording and would rather [it] be forgotten".
Assorted Secrets was reissued on CD in 2000 by Ralph America, with the House performance split into three tracks, and sequenced at the end of the disc. The full, 35 minute recording was later released on the 2019 Klanggalerie reissue of the 1985 compilation PAL TV LP. 
== Set list ==
* Voices of the Air
* The Ultimate Disaster
* Migration
* Another Land
* The New Machine
* Final Confrontation
== See also ==
* The Mole Show
* Assorted Secrets
* PAL TV LP
== External links and references ==
*The Mole Show at The Residents Historical
*Assorted Secrets at The Residents Historical
*The Mole Show at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
Category:The Mole Show
Category:Assorted Secrets
Category:Rehearsal shows
Category:Live shows