Roland Sheehan

Roland Sheehan (born ca. 1951)Somethin' Devilish 'It was June, 1970. Roland Sheehan, then 19' is an American organist and guitarist based in Ruston, Louisiana, who has worked with groups such as The Alliance and Dyin' Dog and the Mongrels.
Sheehan was one of the earliest collaborators of the group who would later become The Residents, and appears on their earliest recordings. His 1975 demos with the band Dyin' Dog and the Mongrels would later inspire The Residents' 2020 album Metal, Meat & Bone.
== Association with The Residents==
=== Early collaborations ===
Roland Sheehan met the group who would become The Residents while living in Ruston, Louisiana, in the late 1960s. While still a teenager he joined a group called The Alliance, managed by Hardy Fox. The Alliance released only one single, "Somewhere They Can't Find Me," in 1967 but performed locally for many years. 
After leaving Louisiana in June 1970, a nineteen-year-old Sheehan appeared at Fox's San Mateo apartment with a U-Haul trailer full of musical instruments, quickly moving in with Fox and his roommates, who were also from Louisiana. Together, the roommates began spontaneously composing and recording songs. Some reel to reel items featuring Sheehan (including the demo tapes Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger) are known to survive from this period, but have never been officially released.Something Devlish (Knipfel) 
Sheehan stayed with The Pre-Residents until October 1971, when he returned to Louisiana and rejoined The Alliance. His last noted work with the group is the song "D For Doorknob", featured on their 1971 demo tape B.S..Aaron Tanner, The Residents: A Sight For Sore Eyes, Vol. 1, Melodic Virtue, 2022
=== Post-Pre-Residents===
Sheehan remained with The Alliance until 1974. In 1975, he formed a blues group called Dyin' Dog and the Mongrels after meeting its lead singer and songwriter, Alvin "Dyin' Dog" Snow, in a park in Ruston, Louisiana and bonding with him over the subject of blues music."The Residents Present Dyin' Dog" on YouTube Dyin' Dog and the Mongrels recorded a series of demos with local label owner Stan Lewis, but the group ultimately disbanded in January 1976 when Snow suddenly disappeared following a series of personal setbacks.
Sheehan occasionally visited The Residents in San Francisco throughout the 1970s. On one visit in the mid-1970s, he was shown "part of the early cut" of The Residents' unfinished feature film Vileness Fats;Ian Shirley, Never Known Questions: Five Decades of The Residents, Cherry Red Books, 2015 on another visit in 1977, Sheehan and the group saw the David Lynch film Eraserhead.
Sheehan remained in occasional contact with the group over the following decades; members of The Residents would occasionally meet up with him when visiting their families in Louisiana.Homer Flynn, "Homer Flynn (Spokesperson for The Residents) on WZRD Chicago 88.3FM" on Mixcloud, August 5th 2021
==== Metal, Meat & Bone ====
In 2015, Sheehan was interviewed by filmmaker Don Hardy for the documentary film Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents. Around this time, a member of The Residents had a lunch meeting with Sheehan and told him of an idea for a blues album that the group had wanted to record for a number of years.
Sheehan happened to own the abandoned Gem Theatre in Dubach, Louisiana, a former rehearsal space for The Alliance and Dyin' Dog and The Mongrels, but which was by this time in "complete and total chaos". In 2016 he rediscovered the long lost Dyin' Dog demo tapes inside the theatre, and, remembering his conversation with The Residents, brought the tapes to the group's attention. 
The Residents initially shrugged the discovery off, but after listening to the demos were "completely blown away", deciding to record an album featuring their own versions of the songs, and even going so far as to compose an additional six original songs inspired by the Dyin' Dog tapes. 
The original Dyin' Dog demos were released for the first time in September 2019 on Psychofon Records, as a limited edition box set of five 7" singles entitled The Residents Present Alvin Snow, aka Dyin' Dog. They were issued again (with one additional demo not featured in the box set) alongside the resulting Residents album, Metal, Meat & Bone, which was released in July 2020. 
==Legacy==
Due to his early role in composing music for the group who would become The Residents and his presence on their earliest known demo recordings, Roland Sheehan has occasionally been referred to as "The Fifth Resident", however this designation has not been without controversy."Nowhere near the 5th Resident. An early inconsequential brush with what would later be." - Nolan Cook, The Residents Facebook group, October 26th 2018
== Appears on==
*The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger (1970, unreleased)
*Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor (1970, unreleased)
*B.S. (1971, released 2019) - writing credit
*ERA B474 (2012)
*The Delta Nudes' Greatest Hiss (2013)
*The Residents Present The Delta Nudes (2016)
*The Residents Present Alvin Snow, aka Dyin' Dog (2019)
*Metal, Meat & Bone - The Songs of Dyin' Dog (2020)
==See also==
*The Delta Nudes
*The Alliance
*Dyin' Dog
==External links and references==
*Roland Sheehan at Discogs
*The Alliance at Discogs
*"Lost In The Blues: The Search For Dyin' Dog" by Paul Lyllyde at The Chiseler
Category:The Alliance
Category:The Delta Nudes
Category:Collaborators
Category:American Composers
Category:Guitarists
Category:Alvin "Dyin' Dog" Snow