Metro Pulse/Music/The Flaming Lips

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Who:
The Flaming Lips with Enon

When:
Thursday, Sept. 28

Where:
Moose's

The mind-bending musical adventures of the Flaming Lips

by John Sewell

Profound weirdness (or weird profundity) never comes easy. Disproving the notion that rock 'n' roll is always best when played by and for adolescents, Oklahoma's Flaming Lips have grown and gained strength through more than 15 years of evolution and mutation. From its inception in 1984, Flaming Lips has morphed from a psychedelicized Sonic Youth with classic rock tendencies into a truly unique and monolithic presence in its own right. The Lips' most recent album, The Soft Bulletin, topped literally hundreds of top 10 lists in 1999. At present, the Lips are bona fide rock stars in Europe and firmly established as revered underdogs in the States. And what a long, strange trip it's been.

Wayne Coyne, the Lips' singer, guitarist, auteur and chief sonic architect, says that the band's sound and audience has mutated to such an extent that few of the initial elements remain. "We're always changing from one year to the next," says Coyne. "I know if you were to follow us along, I could see where some people who liked us back then would despise us now. Or perhaps they've changed with us. It's quite strange.

"I really think that bands wrongly assume that—if you've been a band as long as we have—you have this big accumulation of people that have been listening to us from 1984, and there really isn't. It seems to go in, like, five-year stints. If someone started listening to us five years ago, perhaps they're still listening. But probably they're about done. It seems like people have a five-year period where they're intensely involved in music culture. And when that period is over, their life gets more serious. They may have records that they listen to or bands that they remember, but they're not actively involved in what is going on currently. So we're always in and out of being a current band and being an old band. We're always gaining new people, but losing old people at the same time. I never thought it would be as refreshing as it is going around every five years and seeing an entirely new audience."

Growth, change and renewal has proven a winning strategy for the band, even if by accident. The Lips' first recordings used the standard blueprint of preparing the songs, playing them live, and then recording the nearest-to-perfect rendition of the live version. The circa 2000 version of the band is most focused on an expansive, intricate recording process. Early Lips recordings were kind of like Meet The Beatles or Never Mind The Bollocks, while the latest material is more like Sgt. Pepper or Dark side of the Moon.

The Lips' evolved songwriting/recording paradigm has resulted in sounds that sometimes surprise even the band itself. But there's a method to the madness. The transformation and incidental eccentricities that result from expanded studio workouts are all a part of the process—a process that can conclude in a day or stretch into months of recording.

"In a sense, all creations are made in the same way," says Coyne. "The way a person would put together a novel, a film or a painting—it's all kind of done in the same process. I think that this is where the word visionary comes in. I'm not sure what people usually mean by that, but when I say it I mean something very practical—where you always see this kind of thing that you're trying to create. Or in the case of music, you can hear what you want it to be. And as you go along, if what you're doing seems to go too far out of this model that seems to be hovering in front of you, you throw it out.

"Sometimes it takes an afternoon and it's all there. Other times it takes, gosh—it takes forever. And we have to abandon it and accept that it just didn't work out. Then there are other times where we'll intend to do something, and we'll come up with something within the process that is superior to what we intended in the first place. And we go, 'Gosh, isn't that wonderful.' And we don't actually feel like we're always wholly responsible for the music that we make. If we're lucky we can get the process happening. And if we're alert and objective enough, if something good happens we can say let's do that, knowing that we had no intention of doing it—just accepting things that are better than our own ideas."

The Flaming Lips' off-kilter approach is not limited to studio environs. Live, the trio uses taped drums and a video presentation of their drummer, Steven Drozd. Meanwhile, Drozd will also be seen performing live as a guitarist and keyboardist. While the band is playing, the music will be pumped through the PA system and also broadcast on short wave from the stage. Interested audience members can hear a live, stereo remix via miniature receivers with headphones provided at the door. And don't forget the band's use of visuals, which include a seizure-inducing light show, fog machines, copious amounts of confetti and even a dab of stage blood. This may all seem a bit overwhelming, and it is. You just have to experience it.

The Flaming Lips' sensory overload has won them a legion of fans, elevating them to a plateau where the band's impact would continue to be felt if they never played another note. Coyne is aware of the respect that the band has gained, but is wary of the hype. Instead, he prefers to journey on in uncharted artistic waters.

"I think when someone is attempting to set themselves up as being revered—I really don't think that's possible," says Coyne. "Respect is just something that's bestowed on you and it can be really crippling. I just hope that I at least represent how you could start out being an ambitious but untalented punk rock mess—which is somewhere close to what we were doing in the '80s—and just sort of progressing on and trying different ways of expressing ourselves. I hope that we have at least invented or at least presented music that seemed new within its own time."