Jim DeRogatis - Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahomas Fabulous Flaming Lips

Table of Contents

For Carml:
Usted es mi verdadera amor.

THE UNITED STATES HAS A HABIT OF MAKING HEROES OUT OF ANYTHING AND ANYBODY. YOU COULD DO ANYTHING HERE. OR DO NOTHING. BUT I ALWAYS THINK YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING. FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT, FIGHT.

ANDY WARHOL

IF YOU WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL, KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING,
LOVE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, AND BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

WILL ROGERS

(OKLAHOMA PHILOSOPHER)

TIME BEGINS AGAIN. THE FLAMING LIPS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YEARS EVE, 20042005. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MICHAEL IVINS, WAYNE COYNE, AND STEVEN DROZD.

PREFACE

WHEN Led Zeppelin performed at New York Citys legendary Madison Square Garden in July 1973, the band members arrived in stretch limos moments before walking onstage as conquering heroes and self-proclaimed golden gods, as seen in their famous concert film The Song Remains the Same. More than thirty years later, as the Flaming Lips prepared to play the same venue on the last day of 2004, they arrived seven hours before showtime, helping to haul their own gear, carrying boxes full of balloons, confetti, and furry animal costumes, and armed with rolls of duct tape.

Wayne Coyne and Michael Ivins had logged hundreds of thousands of miles performing around the world since the Flaming Lips first played in public at a black cowboy bar in their hometown of Oklahoma City two decades earlier. For the last twelve years of that long, strange trip, Steven Drozd had been at their side, and together they were about to cap the most successful period of their career to date, which started in July 2002 with the release of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and ended here on the stage where so many of their heroes had made history.

Along the way, if the Flaming Lips hadnt quite reached the level of fame and fortune achieved by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or the Who, they had at least secured their position as one of the best-selling bands in the rock underground, and as one of the most imaginative, groundbreaking, and wonderfully weird groups in the pop mainstream. They hardly took this for granted, though. Backstage in their dressing room before the show, someone had scrawled the evenings agenda on a dry-erase bulletin board.

Rule #1: Try not to suck.
Rule #2: I told you not to suck, assface!
Rule #3: Fuck you.

An hour and a half before midnight, after an opening set by Sleater-Kinney, the indie-rock darlings who had just recorded with the Flaming Lips longtime producer, Dave Fridmann, the Lips took the stage to the taped strains of a lush orchestral fanfareWayne in a three-piece gray pinstriped Dolce & Gabbana suit, Steven in a pink elephant costume, and Michael in a black-and-white zebra outfitaccompanied by three dozen fans dressed as plushy pandas, baboons, lions, tigers, and bears waving powerful handheld spotlights; six gyrating strippers in pasties and G-strings; a giant inflatable sun; clouds of smoke; a barrage of lights and video; and a nonstop rain of confetti.

Standing backstage as the groups roadies bounced dozens of colorful, oversized balloons from a holding bin out into the crowd, one of the Gardens veteran stagehands shook his head in amazement. I aint seen nothin like this, he saidimpressive testimony from a Teamster whod worked countless concerts and pro sporting events, the Westminster Kennel Clubs 128th Annual Dog Show, the 2004 Republican National Convention, and the yearly visit from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Hello, everybody! It is truly an honor to be here with you guys tonight welcoming in 2005 at Madison Square Garden, Wayne announced as the introductory music, an instrumental that Steven called Plinkee, ended. The bands leader took his place behind the vocal mike at center stage, flanked by Steven on keyboards and guitar at his right, Michael on bass and keyboards seated at his left, and touring drummer Kliph Scurlock at the rear behind a transparent pink plastic drum set. Were gonna make this the best fuckin show you could have ever gone to, Wayne promised.

With that, the group launched into a triumphant version of Race for the Prize, a song that Wayne describes as his ideal combination of Frank Sinatra and Led Zeppelin, and which neatly encompasses several of his recurring themes: Seize the moment; dare to live life to the fullest; believe in yourself, work hard, and you can accomplish anything. These maxims sound less like Dale Carnegie aphorisms and more profound in his fanciful lyrics about two scientists trying to save the world. During the bridge, many in the audience of eleven thousand augmented his hoarse, off-key, but endearing voice by adding their own: Theirs is to win, if it kills them/Theyre just humans with wives and children.

Thats the way a fuckin rock show should begin, huh? Wayne asked after the song had thundered to a close, and the crowd roared its approval.

Wayne is the first to admit that he isnt much of a singer, and that he relies on his charisma to carry the show. During the years the group has spent developing the uplifting multimedia circus of its current concerts, he has honed the philosophical edge of his lyrics, and he has acquired along the way a near-messianic appeal, with fans cheering every time he raises his arms onstage, or even when he strolls out before the performance to duct-tape the guitar cords to the floor. A dedicated fan of what he calls the weird religiosity of the Who, hes aware of the downside of gurudom, as described in Pete Townshends epic rock opera Tommy, and Wayne will brook no mythologizing of his role as the groups leader. He insists that people just want to come together to celebrate, and he is simply their designated cheerleader, employing an analogy thats more convincing when you know he spent eleven years as a fry cook at a fast-food restaurant before becoming his own thrift-store, do-it-yourself golden god.

Anybody with as much luck and determination as me could do this, Wayne maintains. Im making chicken, and you like chicken. You think Im making chicken because you like it, Jim, but Im just making chicken because I like to make chicken.

Even if you dislike the Flaming Lips particular brand of poultry, its hard to deny that they are the ideal band to lead a round of Auld Lang Syne. The group thought it had ended the touring cycle supporting Yoshimi Battlesthe Pink Robots with a show opening for their admirers the White Stripes at Chicagos Aragon Ballroom on New Years Eve, 20032004, but the album continued to grow in popularity, and the band had spent another year on the road. Now it was ushering in 2005or, as Wayne noted on the poster he designed for the show (hes always done almost all of the bands artwork), celebrating the night when Time Begins Againas co-headliners with Wilco. Like many acts that have shared a stage with the Flaming Lips, the Chicago-based alternative country/art-rock group felt a twinge of regret in deciding to follow the Oklahoma band. I dont know how