Tag: The Flaming Lips
Florence and the Machine
[Photo by Ivan Jones]
Sorry to break it to you, blogosphere, but we just don’t believe in lists anymore. They’re just so arbitrary, and a couple mouse clicks away from being obsolete, you know?
That’s why we decided to give you a completely random rundown of our favorite ‘09 releases—because it’s not as predictable or pointless as an argument over “who’s No. 1 this year, Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective?” Be sure to watch out for a second set of s/t-endorsed records before the clock strikes 12 on Thursday night.
[Photo by Laura M. Gray]
While it remains to be seen if Embryonic will become self-titled’s Album of the Year, the Flaming Lips‘ latest mind-fuck opus has managed to do one thing already: make us care about its claustrophobic, psychedelic sprawl enough to justify spending $25 on the double LP version. It’s an exhausting listen, otherwise, something you have to spread over four sides and consume in doses (a little “Worm Mountain” here, a little “See the Leaves” there).
In tribute to the band’s (inter)stellar “Watching the Planets” performance on Conan earlier this week—which was quickly yanked from YouTube—we collected live clips from the past decade and a half, including a parking lot performance from the “She Don’t Use Jelly” days and lots of bizarre cover songs and collaborations.
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Wayne Coyne at this year's P4K Festival
[Photo by Laura M. Gray; more here]
At the risk of sounding cheesy, the new Flaming Lips album gave us chills when we first heard it streaming on Stephen Colbert’s site. That’s because it drops the trio’s tired confetti & costumes shtick for the dark but delightful fare they excel at, something they haven’t explored since 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. (We honestly only listened to their last LP once because its opener, “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,” immediately sent us into diabetic shock. The new one, on the other hand, starts with two Kraut-y descents into absolute darkness.)
The following video features the preschool wails of Karen O, who can do a mean lion impression. Aside from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs connection, we’re not quite sure why the band ran with this song as a lead-off single of sorts. Unlike the album’s true standouts, it’s short and a bit too simple. With that said, it still reflects the record’s slightly sinister bent; as innocent as the lyrics are, there’s a dewy-eyed sense of nostalgia that makes it feel like a faded photo.
Consider us actually excited about an album for once. Hell, we even just pre-ordered the limited double LP pressing here.
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We sift the ‘net for today’s top stories so you don’t have to…
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Don't worry; the rest of our shots are way more psychedelic looking.
[Photos by Laura M. Gray]
By Lizz Kannenberg
The Artist: Oklahoman masters of the never-say-die rock spectacle.
Their Latest Release: At War With the Mystics (Warner Bros., 2006)
The Set in a Few Sentences:
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[Photo by Steve Gullick]
self-titled has avoided boring the shit out of artists since the second we started this daily site/digital magazine. Like the plague, really. One of the earliest ‘brilliant ideas’ we stumbled upon in our search for non-profile pieces was a simple but scintillating return to the Mad Libs pads of our stunted adolescence.
Meant as a way to not worry about anything but mindless queries like “lucky number” or an “adjective starting with C,” self-titled’s recurring Mad Libs page first ensnared No Age at this year’s South by Southwest festival. Our current issue caught two major artists in the act of filling out our “Chris Martin Licks the Wrapper” manifesto: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, who’s in our actual issue, and Bloc Party, who offer an alternate take in the sheet below …
Wayne Coyne ponders life, liberty and a big fucking gas tank
[Photos courtesy of Cinema Purgatorio]
Interview by Andrew Parks
While self-titled already told you what we thought of Christmas on Mars—Wayne Coyne’s mind-fuck version of It’s a Wonderful Life—the thing didn’t quite hit us until a few days after we experienced its mix of marching vaginas and spot-on Adam Goldberg appearances. That’s why we got a hold of the Flaming Lips frontman soon after the film’s initial screenings—to ask him, “Why, Wayne, why?”
What we didn’t expect was for the poor guy to say he’s been dealing with house renovators at 6:30 a.m. for the past week due to the fact that he filmed most of Mars in his backyard and goddamn living room.
“I have this weird little art compound here,” says Coyne, “where my Flaming Lips roadies are always working on some project. It just never ends here.”
Indeed …
Wayne Coyne as ‘The Martian’
[Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Records/Cinema Purgatorio]
By Andrew Parks
To answer your immediate assumptions, yes the acting’s atrocious and the dialogue is pure B-movie drivel. With a couple exceptions, of course—namely the uncomfortably numb delivery of Steven Drozd, the Flaming Lips multi-instrumentalist who also happens to star in Wayne Coyne’s long-delayed film debut. (Adam Goldberg is also brilliant as a wry ‘physiciatrist’. Mr. Goldberg, you are now forgiven for The Hebrew Hammer.)
Yes, you read the preceding paragraph correctly: Christmas On Mars has finally sparked a string of limited release engagements, several months after screenings at Sasquatch! and Oklahoma’s deadCENTER Film Festival. While Christmas On Mars was originally promised in time for December 25, 2003, it’s just now receiving a special run at the 99-seat Kraine Theatre in New York’s East Village. And, well, self-titled couldn’t have been happier to catch a Saturday matinee featuring the Lips’ custom-fit “Zeta Bootis Mega Supersonic Super-Sound Surround System”.
Knee-jerk reactions to Christmas On Mars, the Flaming Lips‘ long-promised feature film—2003 was its original release date—have started trickling in after premieres at Sasquatch! and Oklahoma City’s deadCENTER Film Festival. The most revealing review we’ve found so far comes from a blogger named Adam Bard, who wrote the following along with a “mild spoiler alert” warning …
The movie was not at all what I expected. I had not watched any previews that existed, although the friend I went with had. I was expecting some sort of rock opera … or something more whimsical, and while there was arguably a great deal of whimsy, the end result is a far more jarring film than I had anticipated.
The film started with an announcement from [frontman/director] Wayne [Coyne] about the film, specifically about how loud it would be. It was explained that this loudness was to increase the intensity of the film, and I must say it worked—I was in a constant state of sensory overload throughout the film, and sitting through it was actually a fairly uncomfortable experience … The film featured many disturbing hallucinations suffered by the protagonist, accompanied by loud, dissonant synth chords, and by the end of it I was feeling rather lightheaded. It was certainly an experience I would encourage to anyone, once, but not something I’m eager to repeat, at least not at full volume. Intense is the word.
