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Post by cory's beard on May 30, 2014 0:50:37 GMT -5
Hello everybody, thanks for coming back with us. You know, folks, there is a different breed of rock band out there in Oklahoma City as you are about to see here tonight performing “She Don't Use Jelly” from the album “Transmissions from the Satellite Heart”, The Flaming Lips Official | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
MEMBERS Wayne Coyne - lyrics, vocals and guitar Steven Drozd - songwriter, drummer, guitars, keys, back-up vocals, whatever Michael Ivins - bass guitar Kliph Scurlock - drummer Derek Brown - back-up vocals, keyboards, guitar Jake Ingalls - keyboards, guitar
Biography: (it's super long, sorry) Thirty-one years. For a band to still be touring and playing music for thirty-one years, it's the norm for a band going on that long to have fallen into a rut—no longer doing anything different, innovating or being on the cutting edge of creativity. It's the norm to be a “nostalgia act” or a “reunion act” going on at that age. But with The Flaming Lips, they still hold onto being contemporary, having transformed their sound and their live show many times over (though to be fair, they were hanging onto that hamster ball and half-circle LED screen for quite a long time).
Formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, the original line-up actually didn't include Wayne Coyne as the frontman, rather his brother Mark reigning in vocals. That line-up would only record one self-titled EP before Mark left, and then older brother Wayne would take over front man duties to present day. Along with long-time member Michael Ivins on bass, they would record a string of records (from "Hear it Is" to "Telepathic Surgery") that would gain the attention of Warner Bros.
While I'm not really all that familiar with their works before Clouds Taste Metallic, psychedelic-rock has always remained at the core of the band. Though in their earlier releases, the sound and arrangement of the music was less grandiose and more raw and energetic—bringing in influences from alternative, grunge, krautrock and post-punk (at least from the little I've heard and what I understand from what I haven't).
This arrangement style would carry on into their major label debut “Transmissions from the Satellite Heart” and on the subsequent release “Clouds Taste Metallic.” With the single “She Don't Use Jelly”, they were the buzz all over, landing late night TV show performances. It's also during this time that the band really started enduring the typical hardships of long stretches of touring. Longtime member Steven Drozd (joined in 1991) was fighting drug addiction during this time—which got so bad that it drove Ronald Jones, one of their guitarists at the time, to quit the band. His heroin addiction in particular was so bad that he almost had to amputate the arm he shot up in due to infections. The Michiel got into a car accident and almost died. Wayne would later write about this turbulent time of the band in “The Spiderbite Song.”
But sometimes, the stresses and the mundanity of touring in a rock band can drive a band to become more creative. Instead of working on another traditional album, Wayne decided to embark on some sound experiments. In what were called “parking lot experiments”, Wayne would organize a group of 30 or 40 people and hand out different cassette tapes that they would put in their car or inside of a boombox. He would then conduct the people in the cars or the people with the boomboxes—change the volume here, mess with the EQ there, change the speed of the tape here. Instead of sound in uniform stereo, it was sound all over—all enveloping. Wayne took that idea and released a 4-disc album called “Zaireeka.” The four discs in this album are meant to be synced up and played together in the same room on different systems. It's common for people to have “Zaireeka parties”, where people get together and listen to the album in public places with boomboxes, in homes, or wherever. The band would later revisit the approach of syncing multiple albums together when they would release a companion album to The Dark Side of the Moon in 2014 that's meant to be played in sync with the original Pink Floyd album as well as The Wizard of Oz.
While Zaireeka may not have been very successful commercially, a lot of the arrangement and production style (sans being spread across four disks) was carried over to their next album “The Soft Bulletin.” And seriously, The Soft Bulletin is a goddamn masterpiece. IF YOU NEED TO START WITH ANY FLAMING LIPS ALBUM, START WITH THIS ONE. Whereas before they were raw and energetic, this album (and subsequent releases) demonstrates a shift from that to a more refined sound—focusing that energy into lush arrangements and production, with synthesizers and samplers seeing heavier use. The rawness is kept intact, however, in the production, particularly in the drum sound. And it's the balance of the lush and the raw that lends masterpiece to this release. In the very beginning seconds of the album, you can hear this balance like yin and yang—the right channel has drums fucking exploding out of your speaker, whereas out of the left channel delicate pianos and mellotron strings nestle that explosion and gently lift it into the air so that we don't burn up from the heat it generates. And as the verse starts, they all gently converge on one another and settle down in the center channel.
If we're talking about the distinctive sound of The Flaming Lips, it starts here—and it carries onto their next release, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” This is their first release where they gain heaps of both critical and commercial success. This is also around the time that they started developing their epic live-show. People in furry animal costumes, UFOs descending on the stage, giant hands shooting lasers out into the crowd, Wayne Coyne himself being born out of a psychedelic-colored LED vagina and then climbing into a human-sized hamster ball and surfing into the crowd. These things were pretty standard in their live show in the 2000's.
They would also start embarking on more special projects, such as producing a movie—Christmas on Mars. This would be the first step of their next sonic change heading into albums like “Embryonic” and “The Terror” which hold a darker, noisier and harsher tone. Christmas on Mars is about humans colonizing Mars and as such celebrating their first Christmas on it. They meet a Martian and make him Santa or some shit, I don't know I didn't watch it.
But the soundtrack is very ethereal and reminds me a lot of the direction they went on their most recent release “The Terror.”
After the release of “Embryonic” in 2009, this notes a perception shift by fans in the behavior of front man Wayne Coyne, whose experiments and collaborations seem to be growing “weirder.” At his home, he constructs a room in which the entrance is a giant vagina, and invites people over and posts pictures of them naked on his Instagram account. Kinda weird, I guess, but I'm not here to judge.
The experimental side of the band really comes out around this time with a series of releases in 2010 and 2011. Among these releases is a six-hour song called “I Found a Star on the Ground.” It is in every sense horrible, jarring and repetitive and probably only exists just to say “hey, we recorded a six hour song, isn't that cool and edgy?” It is released on a USB album called “StroboTrip”, which comes with a strobe light and some psychedelic reflectors or something.
They would then release a 24-hour song called “7 Skies H3.” You would think the 24-hour song would be a lot worse and a lot more repetitive than the 6-hour song, but it is not the case here. The arrangement is a lot more spaced out and lush and much easier to get lost in. They would later release an 53 minute abridged version of this song as an album broken up into different parts in 2014. They released it on a hard-drive incased inside of actual human skulls. No shit. Actual. Human. Skulls.
They also collaborated with everybody under the sun during this time—everyone from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, to Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, to Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus. The latter collaborations would be more fuel to that perception shift I mentioned earlier as a lot of fans were kind of sour on those collaborations. Nevertheless, they released a majority of these collaborations on the 2012 release “The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends.” They would later re-release this album on a vinyl record which contained inside of it, no shit, blood samples of most of the musicians on the album. They almost couldn't release the album due to the bio-hazard issue it presented, so they had to actually seal the record inside of a glass container and the owners of the albums were instructed to keep it refrigerated so the blood wouldn't congeal. But, sure enough, they released a vinyl full of their own blood and Sean Lennon's blood and Ke$ha's blood and... goddamn that's weird. Another noteworthy collaboration would be with Wayne's cousin, Dennis Coyne, whose band Stardeath and White Dwarfs would help them record and perform their 2010 cover album of “The Dark Side of the Moon.”
In 2014, long-time live drummer Kliph Scurlock (joined in 1999) was fired from the band by Wayne for some reason—something about feathers and teenage girls or some shit, I can't remember. Also, Erykah Badu is pissed at Wayne about something. Not sure what, but it's not very important to why we're here.
SO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FLAMING LIPS LIVE
Cool, they just so happen to be playing this year's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival! They're regulars on the festival circuit, but in particular they are Bonnaroo regulars—having played in 2003, 2007 and 2010. Each time they've played, it's been a show of legend. Their 2003 show saw them perform late night in one of the tents. They didn't have UFOs or anything like that, but at that point they had a huge LED screen and they had all the people come on stage in those cool costumes. There, they treated us to some special covers, including Somewhere Over the Rainbow as well as “Breathe” and “Us and Them” from Dark Side of the Moon—which, as I mentioned, they would later record on their Dark Side of the Moon cover album in 2010.
In 2007, they brought their UFO rig from their 2006 “UFO's at the Zoo” DVD. In true Flaming Lips fashion, the UFO descended from The Which Stage and all the band members crawled out of it. When they were done, they climbed back into the UFO and left from whence they came—back to Mars to chill with Martian Santa or something. This show was also noteworthy for them treating the massive crowd to an early soundcheck where they covered “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. They also busted out a song rarely-ever played live, ”Mountain Slide” from their 1990 album “In a Priest Driven Ambulance.” They closed their set with a beautiful cover of The Rolling Stone's “Moonlight Mile.” Being there live for that moment changed my life.
In 2010, they played “two sets” late night on The Which Stage. Their first set was a short set of Flaming Lips material. Their second set was Pink Floyd's “The Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety. They were joined on stage by Stardeath and White Dwarfs.
REASONS TO SEE THE FLAMING LIPS LIVE
If you've never seen them live, immediately report to the Which Stage pit-line. You will thank me later for the religious experience. While The Flaming Lips live show has built its reputation off of a pretty formulaic presentation—giant semi-circle LED screens showering us in technicolor, fans brought on stage dawned in crazy costumes, Wayne Coyne jumping into the crowd inside of a giant hamster ball—they have recently changed their live presentation drastically. So even if you HAVE seen them live, you may want to catch them again.
Now they're more stripped down, they're more ambient, but they're still weird, and their presentation is still a spectacle.
Look at that shit! It's like Wayne's grotesque nerves are jutting out of his torso and he's conducting his orchestra biochemically. How fucking awesome is that?
Another reason to see them live is that they've recently been covering Beatles songs at their live sets—and are working on a cover album of Sgt. Peppers in the similar vein as their Pink Floyd album and in a similar vein as their “Heady Fwends” album in that there will be a lot of collaborations on this album. I'd say it's safe to say we'll get some Beatles tunes at this show—probably Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or A Day in the Life. Maybe it's best not to spoil yourself but you can check setlist.fm if you want the dirty on it.
REASONS NOT TO SEE THE FLAMING LIPS LIVE
Conflicts sure fucking suck, don't they?
Anyway, here's the tl;dr. The Flaming Lips have a long, 30-year career of being weird with psychedelic rock. They've put out some noisy records, they've put out some lush records, they've put out some really, really, pointlessly long records, and they've put out other people's records. They've put out records with other people, and they've put out records to be played with people in parking lots. At Bonnaroo, they're going to play songs from their records to you people. And, with or without Kliph, the bar has been set high by The Flaming Lips when it comes to Bonnaroo late-nights, and this set shouldn't be passed up lightly--even in light of current events.
Post by thebrianman on May 31, 2014 22:18:14 GMT -5
I'm on the fence about this one. I've never seen them, and they seem like a show I'd be into. But I really want to see Nick Cave as well. I haven't really gotten into FLips studio material too much at the moment.
I'm on the fence about this one. I've never seen them, and they seem like a show I'd be into. But I really want to see Nick Cave as well. I haven't really gotten into FLips studio material too much at the moment.
The Flaming Lips are a great live band.. but I can agree with ya.. their newer albums have not been all that great (IMO). And you can tell by their live set lists..like 75% or more of it is songs from albums they put out 10 years ago, which are timeless - but yea, their newer stuff is so-so and I think they even know that. If you're more into Nick Cave, go with that - but that's not to say the Flaming Lips don't know how to put on an incredible live show.
Post by cory's beard on Jun 1, 2014 3:37:17 GMT -5
Can't believe I spaced out when writing this and forgot to mention that 7 Skies H3 was released on a hard-drive encased in an actual fucking human skull, and that they released "Heady Fwends" on a vinyl containing blood samples of the band and most of its collaborators.
