The Flaming Lips are Go Manifesto

In most regards...after the Stones and Beatles...everyone else is trying not to embarrass themselves...however..some artists are better at this than the others...if you are fortunate enough to have a good, full range system...Photek,Massive Attack,Grooverider,and the Chemical Bros. are great for "futuristic" music with imaging and bass galore...not for every moment...but a nice change of pace...

I started getting into these guys right when their 2nd LP, 'Hear It Is' came out around 1986 or so. Some intangible & subtle-yet-pervasive quality of their music really struck a chord with me that lingers to this day. The records were good fun, but seeing them live was a WHOLE 'nother thing to reckon with! I saw them perform live as the original three-piece power trio many times (anytime they were in Michigan)and will stand by my assessment of these shows as some of THE most powerful and genuine rock & roll experiences I have had the priviledge of experiencing. They did things with sound and evoked strange, mysterious energies that really transcended what three dudes bashing on stringed instruments and drums should be able to manage. One of the few bands that had the ability to, when they were really 'on', shake my jaded sensibilities and cause me to stand aghast wondering just what the &*#% was really going on up on that stage. Their shows at The Foolery in Mt. Pleasant are the stuff of legends and they once played a basement in E. Lansing that was booking shows under the guise of a club called 'Ed's Lounge' simply because there were no venues in town to bring such acts to. The basement was filled to the brim with their visual onslaught of smoke, strobes and colored lights while the dancing shadows and primal fuzztone grind turned that humble little space into some other alternate reality. Anyone who was there will, to this day, recognize themselves as a witness to one of the cornerstones of East Lansing mythology. It has been fascinating to watch them evolve over the years, and though I was not totally enamoured of the 'Soft Bulletin' and it's accompanying live show (perhaps cuz I simply yearn for the good ol' days), I do respect the fact that they continue to reach out into other sonic regions. (I did catch their gig with Beck BTW and it was most excellent..they made a rather fine backing ensemble for that tour). That aside, I do love a good deal of the rather brilliant recordings from their more recent pop phases; 'Transmission Heart' and 'Clouds Taste Metallic' could even be considered the Sgt. Pepper of this era. The four piece band / dual guitar line-up that aligned itself with these records continued right where the original three-piece left off with consistently mind-blowing displays of sonic prowess at their live shows. These are, of course, times now long-gone and I'll just have to tip my hat and thank 'em for giving me some sounds to hold onto as very, very fond memories. A truly special band...those who were there will know what I mean.

Lips Fans...there is an older EP(not LP) with a simple,sparkling,silver type of cover...that i have been trying to find on wax or CD for years...it is the most feedback and noizy the Lips ever got...what is the TITLE...and is it still available...if you can help me...I will send you a cool CDR of some groovy tunes...thanks...

My favorite power pop of the 80s? The Jesus and Mary Chain..."Psychocandy" is a flat out masterpiece....Beach Boy melodies...Velvet Underground fuzz guitar...and Ramones level energy(Ramones being the best power pop band of the 70s...they were more "bubblegum" than punk)...talk to me audiogoners!

Centurymantra: Glad you could pop into the thread to share those great stories. I wish I could say I was down with The Lips back when, but they actually came out right about the time I had begun to tire of what was left from the indie movement's beginning and peak eras, and had started to pay less attention to upcoming artists. In my hometown of DC, the harDCore scene had thoroughly played itself out by then, I wasn't at all convinced by its 'emo-core' extension (e.g. Fugazi), most bands that had really made a go of coming up with something new based on the spirit of 60's garage and psychedelia had already had their heyday - as had most of the quality post-punk and post-new-wave bands that weren't hardcore, and my favorite rock'n'roll band in the world, The Replacements, was in decline. What new stuff I checked out generally sounded rather second- or third-hand to me (it seems funny to say that now, after what we've seen and heard in the 90's), and I basically concluded that the bands most worth continuing with were the ones whose roots extended back to the movement's golden days. Besides a lot of my favorite bands having broken up, I wasn't in school anymore, had to work a lot, and just didn't get exposed to as much new material or go to as many shows as I used to. I remember hearing positve things about this band called The Flaming Lips, but somehow managed never to actually hear them in the 80's that I can remember. So my first real exposure came when most people's did, with the left-field radio success of "She Don't Use Jelly". 'Modern Rock' or 'Alternative' hadn't really been codified into a restricted radio format at that point, so stations that played post-punk music still would spin some older stuff as well and I still listened in the car, and I remember thinking at the time that "Jelly" sounded much more to my liking than most of the then-current Nirvana-era crop. I intended to try and follow up on The Lips, but never actually got around to it until they released the "Clouds Taste Metallic" LP, and even then I didn't actually buy the CD until around the time of "The Soft Bulletin", despite my having made mental notes for years about being sure to check them out - don't ask me why. Since then, of course, I've been making up for lost time, but have only seen them live twice, both with the current line-up and show - once on the TSB tour, once this past fall.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, had her own unique live Lips experience. Before we ever met, she was living in Portland, Maine, and sort of accidentally caught a show in about '86 by the original 3-piece band, just because she and her then-boyfriend had thought the band name sounded cool and decided to check 'em out sound-unheard. It turned out that they were the only two patrons in the bar/club where The Lips played who had come down to see the band - the only others were a few drunk fishermen at the bar. As it happened, their style of music at that time was not the kind that was (or is) to her liking, but nevertherless she and her boyfriend were so impressed by the band's attitude and energy - especially considering that just two people had shown up for a gig so far from home - and felt that they were simply so good at what they did, that she really wound up liking it in spite of herself. The two of them also chatted with the guys in the band, and found them to be exceptionally pleasant and down-to-earth people, good in mood even though they had to be losing money on the evening. Years later, when I began playing The Lips a lot around the house, she never seemed to cotton to them much, although she guessed some of it was okay. Finally, when I went to see them this past September (up in Philly at a large outdoor amphitheater/arts park facility on the Unlimited Sunshine multi-band tour), I insisted that I buy her a ticket and bring her along, ignoring her feeble protestations. Although the band was in fine form (or whatever constitutes playing a good show for a band whose current material is so complex as to require that at least half of what you hear be played back from hard-disk drives which accompany the performers, all synchronized with a video film show), I wasn't as involved as I had been the first time I saw them (though I enjoyed seeing the new YBTPR songs), probably just due to my having seen them before in an intimate small-club gig in Baltimore squeezed in among the sweaty throng, rather than with assigned seats in a huge outdoor theater. She however experienced an epiphany at that concert, as I looked next to me to see her singing along, mouthing words she had apparently picked up from my playing the records, and afterwards she just kept telling me how much better she liked seeing them live, and how "touched" she had found herself witnessing The Lips' performance of those songs and their lyrics. When we got into the car at the end of the night, she wanted to hear Lips CD's on the stereo, and when we were back home, promptly stole those CD's from out of my case and to this day is still playing them in her car everywhere she drives.