THE FLAMING LIPS

 

There are several bands squirming around in my head these days, all old ones. The nineteens, if not earlier. Out of laziness I was tempted by the idea of merging them all into a single post. But then I thought, what an asshole.

One of these bands is The Flaming Lips. Huge history there, I'm not even gonna touch it, mainly because I don't know most of it. What I knew about them until very recently was "She Don't Use Jelly", from the Batman Forever soundtrack, I think. Cute song, but nothing gasp-worthy, yes? They've done much, much better.

So anyway, I bumped into them again, after all these years. Long story short, they're fucking amazing. I've watched "U.F.O.s at the Zoo", the concert, and my god. Ok, there's this one point in the show where Wayne says that the Flaming Lips audience is the best audience in the world ever and he gives a couple of reasons. First reason was that the Lips fans, no matter how crazy they get during the concert, they never get harmful, you're safe with them. And second reason being that, if there ever happen to be sad people in the audience, people who have come to the show to forget some misfortune, some crisis in their lives, they can rest assured that the Lips fans create the sort of vibe that keeps you going and give you a reason to fall in love with Life all over again. Cool. And true. But I frowned: what about the Ween audience? And that's when it struck me: it's a fair comparison. I'm a die-hard Ween fan, but the Lips are as good as when it comes to live shows. Forget the balloons, the confetti, the spaceships and all that; although they do help, the real juice is the music itself and the relationship this band has with its fans. The attitude. It's fucking amazing. This is what music should do.

You are not allowed to miss this one. I repeat: U.F.O.s at the Zoo, The Flaming Lips.

And another thing. These people had the balls to cover Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety. Not only that, they also brought Henry Rollins and Peaches to help with the vocals. If you had to pick two singers you would NOT EVER think of when Pink Floyd is mentioned, these two would be a fair choice, I think. And yet it works. It's a whole different album, and Floyd hardcore fans probably cringed and bled at the very idea, but it's a veiny one this one. It's like Sex Pistols doing a Portishead cover, you must be at least curious.

So here's three songs that I carefully picked at random:

The Flaming Lips - Free Radicals


The Flaming Lips - The sparrow looks up at the machine


...and with incredible shrieks by Peaches which would make Blixa quit drinking:

The Flaming Lips feat Peaches & Henry Rollins -The Great Gig In the Sky (Pink Floyd Cover)