Lips-Locked
I've warbled at length about my 20-odd-year love for Oklahoma's own Flaming Lips. My, oh my, but the boys have come a long way since I saw them around '87 playing at the OU Student Union, where they rumbled through "Everything's Explodin'" while an an overhead projector displayed psychedelic blotches against the wall behind them.
Tonight the Lips return to their hometown after a four-year absence (woo hoo!), bringing with them their own special brand of hallucinogenic childlike whimsy.
"Do You Realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do You Realize
We're floating in space?
Do You Realize
That happiness makes you cry?
Do You Realize
That everyone you know someday will die
"And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
Let them know you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round"
Oh, and thanks to the Oklahoman's entertainment editor George Lang for the shout-out in today's paper (although a link would've been icing on the cake).
posted by Chase McInerney @ 10:47 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The first time I saw them was around 1988. they were the opening act for Eugene Chadbourne, who I was there to see because of his recent involvement with my beloved Camper Van Beethoven. Rumor spread like wildfire that the opening band (the name escapes me now) was actually the Flaming Lips under a pseudonym. Big deal. I had heard of them, but I hadn't heard them. Anyway I was there to see the electric rake in action, baby!
I would never forget, however, the scraggly bunch of dudes who took the stage that night at the Blue Note. Using a mounted motorcycle engine with attatched handlebars as a musical instrument, they proceeded to blast into a cacophonous barage of feedback accentuated by the grinding and sawing of the cycle engine Wayne would rev at key moments for optimum effect.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to open a door or a window. The stage was soon consumed in a thick fog of exhaust and within minutes of their opening song, the audience was being fumigated by toxic smoke. In a scene as surreal as that home video of the Great White fire of February '03, people rushed for the exit choking and gagging as Wayne and Co. rocked on undeterred.
I don't remember much else (except that Eugene did indeed eventually start scraping that garden rake, electified with pick-up, across the stage cieling) as I was doing some serious underage drinking that night. However, I would never forget my first encounter with the Flaming Lips.
It would be another year-and-a-half before I would hear and dig Oh My Gawd!!! and a few more before the release of Hit To Death In the Future Head (the album I considered their masterpiece) causing me to completely fall in love. Oh, what a long, strange romance it has been.
Hey, weren't you with me at the Blue Note concert ?
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