The Flaming Lips are Go Manifesto

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.

Phasecorrect, I have been a J&MC fan since the mid 80s as well. I got hooked when I heard Happy When It Rains on 120 minutes sometime around the release of Darklands. I still get mad when I hear that damn ripoff by Garbage, I cant remember the actual title right now.

After some time, I prefer the smoothed out sounds of Honey's Dead to the raw power of Psychocandy, although I do enjoy both.

Zaikesman, It is too bad that you don't care for most of the music being done these days as there is some rather good stuff ebing put out. I will again reference Wilco, and offer to either burn you a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and if you like it you can go get it, or burn you a compilation of some of their better songs.

Did you ever get into the British indie scene of the 80's and 90's? Some bands that excelled during that time were Joy Division/New Order, Echo and the bunnymen, The Boo Radleys, amongst others. And each of these groups are still making music today, although not on par with what they did during their primes, with the exception of maybe Brave Captain, who wsa the guitarist/songwriter from The Boo radleys.

The Super Furry Animals are making fantastic music these days. They have progressed very nicely as a band and are continuing to get better with each release.

And thats just a few off the top of my head...

Justin

I was never very into the groups you mention. Most of them have their appealing aspects to me on their best material though, and I even own a couple of things here and there. The British group which came out in the early 80's that I was most into (as opposed to the British groups which came out in the 70's, many of which I was and am very into) was Manchester's The Chameleons. More recently, I quite like Supergrass (way too many bands in this world with the "super" moniker somewhere in the name). But overall, I've been disappointed with the output from the UK for some time. I'll email you about your kind offer.

Received my new TAS today, had to smile when I got to page 147, and even more on 163...