musicleech » The Flaming Lips

Bonnaroo 2010 Lineup Announced

Mark Jackson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:02:10 +0000

As promised, the listing of musicians performing at this year's Bonnaroo is up:

Dave Matthews Band • Kings of Leon • Stevie Wonder • Jay-Z • Tenacious D • Weezer • The Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs perform "Dark Side of the Moon" • The Dead Weather • Damian Marley & Nas • Phoenix • Norah Jones • Michael Franti & Spearhead • John Fogerty • Regina Spektor • Jimmy Cliff • LCD Soundsystem • The Avett Brothers • Thievery Corporation • Rise Against • Tori Amos • The National • Zac Brown Band • Les Claypool • John Prine • The Black Keys • Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers • Jeff Beck • Dropkick Murphys • She & Him • Against Me! • The Disco Biscuits • Daryl Hall & Chromeo • Jamey Johnson • Clutch • Bassnectar • Kid Cudi • Baaba Maal • Kris Kristofferson • Medeski Martin & Wood • The xx • GWAR • Dan Deacon Ensemble • Tinariwen • Wale • Deadmau5 • The Melvins • Gaslight Anthem • Miike Snow • The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band • Dr. Dog • They Might Be Giants • Punch Brothers • Isis • Blitzen Trapper • Blues Traveler • Miranda Lambert • Calexico • OK Go • Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue • Martin Sexton • Lotus • Baroness • Dave Rawlings Machine • Mayer Hawthorne and the County • Japandroids • Jay Electronica • Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros • Ingrid Michaelson • The Dodos • Manchester Orchestra • The Temper Trap • Cross Canadian Ragweed • Big Sam's Funky Nation • Carolina Chocolate Drops • Needtobreathe • Tokyo Police Club • The Entrance Band • Local Natives • Brandi Carlile • Mumford & Sons • Rebelution • Diane Birch • Monte Montgomery • Julia Nunes • The Postelles • Lucero • Here We Go Magic • Hot Rize • Neon Indian • B.O.B

Head over to the redesigned Bonnaroo website to choose your redirection for tickets, information, and more.

To put my two cents in, here are my must-see shows (granted I don't know some of them and I tried to keep the list as short as I could):

Jay-Z
The Flaming Lips
The Dead Weather
Damian Marley & Nas
LCD Soundsystem
The Melvins
Isis (day or night set?)
Dan Deacon Ensemble
The Dodos
Neon Indian

Bonus! Bands that don't deserve to be at Bonnaroo:

Kings of Leon
OK Go
Rise Against
They Might Be Giants (just take my word for it, or listen to this terrible song if you don't believe me)

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The Flaming Lips to perform Dark Side of the Moon at Bonnaroo

Mark Jackson — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:14:00 +0000

The Bonnaroo lineup is still a week away from being announced, but you just read the early surprise. The Flaming Lips will play a 'regular' set at the midnight slot on Thursday, then at 2:30 a.m. will play DSOTM. If the words 'Flaming Lips' and 'Dark Side of the Moon' surprised you in the same sentence, you must not know that they released it as an album back in December with Stardeath and White Dwarfs.

The last time the Flaming Lips played Bonnaroo was 2007, THE YEAR BEFORE I STARTED GOING. Well, here's for redemption. Hopefully I'll go back this year, but I'm highly considering hitting up some other weekend festivals like the free Siren festival in N.Y.

As always though, the lineup will make or break the decision, but Bonnaroo is pre-tty darn consistent so I don't think I'll be disappointed...

[via Tiny Mix Tapes]

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My Top Albums 2009

Rad Parker — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:40:41 +0000

I realize I am putting this out really late. I always put this off until winter break, thinking I'll have tons of time to listen to the albums, but always underestimate how much I actually need to listen to. But honestly, that isn't a bad thing. I think we are living in a time where there is a lot more new and interesting stuff coming out than ever before. Last year, I probably listened to about 75 albums for my top albums article. Some of them only half way through (because I could tell they wouldn't make the cut) and some in excess of 20 times. I don't feel like doing the math on that, but it takes an incredible amount of time. This year I stepped my game up and literally wrote down every album that made it on at least a few top lists from around the music blog, newspaper, magazine community, including the big wigs: pitchfork, sterogum, prefix, spin, etc.

I think most top lists aren't really substantial if they don't talk about what makes albums 'top albums'. I want to let you know what helped me decide. Basically, I listened to albums all the way through and gave each song a rating (1-5). A 3 being a song that is good, but nothing special. A 4 being a song that is something special, but you can get tired of it. 5s are songs that never get old and never get skipped. I once heard someone say that if you could only keep 1000 songs from your library, they would be all of the 4s and 5s. Then I check out what each album averages, giving extra points for originality, interesting overall themes, track cohesion, genre mixing, or basically anything that makes it more of an album than a bunch of songs.

Now, once I have a list of albums that are generally agreed upon to be good by the blog community, I go through and weed out bands with sounds that I know I won't find appealing. Albums that are automatically omitted include basically anyone who doesn't make their own music or write their own lyrics, anything considered pop punk, alternative metal, or anything termed just rock or pop, because frankly, I'm not interested. Does that make me seem like a music snob? Kinda. Do I try to be unbiased when the headphones are on? You bet.

This year I at least tried out about 100 albums. If you have any comments, questions, or albums you think should have been considered, drop me a line below.

1. Phoenix -

Wolfgang

Amadeus

Phoenix

Phoenix - "1901"

2. Grizzly

Bear -

Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"

3. The

xx -

xx

The xx - "Crystalised"

4. Animal Collective -

Merriweather

Post

Pavilion

Animal Collective - "Summertime Clothes"

5. Real

Estate -

Real

Estate

Real Estate - "Beach Comber"

6. The

Flaming

Lips -

Embryonic

The Flaming Lips - "Watching the Planets"

7. Girls -

Album

Girls - "Laura"

8. The Smith Westerns -

The

Smith

Westerns

The Smith Westerns - "Tonight"

9. Neon

Indian -

Psychic

Chasms

Neon Indian - "Deadbeat Summer"

10. Cymbals Eat Guitars -

Why There

Are

Mountains

Cymbals Eat Guitars - "And the Hazy Sea"

2009 Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Passion Pit – Manners
Drummer - Feel Good Together
Atlas Sound – Logos
The Antlers – Hospice
Blakroc – Blakroc
Woods - Songs of Shame
10 ft. Ganja Plant - Bushrock
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
The Strange Boys – The Strange Boys and Girls Club
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II
Miike Snow - Miike Snow
Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon: The End of Day
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

EP, Mixtape, Compilation, and other non-album Mentions:
Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
Kid Cudi - Dat Kid From Cleveland Mixtape
Drake - So Far Gone Mixtape
Wale - Back to the Feature Mixtape
Toro Y Moi - My Touch EP
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches - The Dark Side of the Moon (Cover Album)
Various Artists - Dark Was the Night Compilation
Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
Modest Mouse - No Ones First and Your Next EP
Washed Out – Life of Leisure EP
Deerhunter - Rainwater Casette Exchange EP
Various Artists – Underwater Peoples Summertime Showcase 2009

For comparison's sake, here is my list from 2008:

deerhunter - microcastle
little joy - little joy
plants and animals - parc avenue
mgmt - oracular spectacular
los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster
vampire weekend - vampire weekend
the dodos - visiter
bon iver - for emma, forever ago
the sea and cake - car alarm
starfucker - starfucker

2008 honorable mentions (in no particular order):

lil' wayne - tha carter III
white denim - white denim
atlas sound - let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel
the ruby suns - sea lion
women - women
beach house - devotion
q-tip - renaissance
albert hammond, jr. - ¿como te llama?
dr dog - fate
girl talk - feed the animals
hot chip - made in the dark
french kicks - swimming
passion pit - chunk of change ep
cut copy - in ghost colours
black keys - attack & release

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Download New Flaming Lips from Upcoming Embryonic

Rad Parker — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:47:34 +0000

Thanks to Covert Curiosity, we have some tracks from the upcoming September release, Embryonic, which The Flaming Lips are giving away to their fans at their concert stops along this summer's schedule:

The Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands

The Flaming Lips - Convinced of the Hex

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New Flaming Lips from Shrooms Movie

Rad Parker — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:09:29 +0000

From award-wining documentarian Ron Mann comes another film that delves into the backwaters of popular culture. This time, Mann joins forces with two of most well known people in the shrooming business, Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans, for Know Your Mushrooms. Together, they attempt to "lead us on a hunt for the wild mushroom and the deeper cultural experiences attached to the mysterious fungi".

In almost too-perfect-to-be-true match-up, Mann decided to have a neo-psychedelic soundtrack by none other than The Flaming Lips. One of the songs from the movie is available for your listening pleasure on the band's myspace.

The combination of Mann and Lips for Know Your Mushrooms supposedly "opens the doors to perception, takes the audience on a longer, stranger trip and delivers them to a brave new world where the fungi might well guide humanity to a saner, safer place with extra cheese".

Here is a very non-informative trailer (although it does include some Lips action):

Know Your Mushrooms upcoming screenings:
Cinematheque, Winnepeg, Canada March 13-15
SXSW, Austin, TX March 14
The Vancity, Vancouver, Canada April 3-6

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Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Others Top ATP 2009

Rad Parker — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:39:18 +0000

All Tomorrow's Parties, the festival named after the Velvet Underground song, has released its first set of acts for the September 2009 three day event in New York. From only the small set of bands that have been released, we can tell that ATP seems like it is planning to out-do its own mega success from last year, when My Bloody Valentine were the guest curators and headliner.

This year, The Flaming Lips, fresh off of their release of their feature length movie, Christmas on Mars, are set as the guest curators and headliners for the festival. The Lips don't have any shows lined up between their annual New Year's bash in Oklahoma City and the ATP festival in September. I wonder what frontman Wayne Coyne will be up to in the downtime? Hopefully we can get the guys back into the studio for a follow up to their 2006 album, At War With The Mystics. Or maybe Wayne will start working on a new stage design, not that I am saying the UFO theme doesn't rock the party everytime I see them live, but they have been sporting the same equipment since the Legendary Concert at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Other acts from the initial announcement include Deerhunter side-project Atlas Sound, Black Dice, Autolux, Anti-Pop Consortium, and comedian David Cross. You can get your $235 three day passes over at the ATP site.

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Wayne Coyne as Willy Wonka

Rad Parker — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:33:23 +0000

Despite the obvious similarity between the magical wonderland that Willy Wonka calls his factory and the average Flaming Lips show, Wayne and Wonka now also have something else in common.

No, Wayne hasn't hired little orange people as his stage crew. Instead, according to The Flaming Lip's homepage, Wayne and the boys are hard at work putting together "mega deluxe Christmas on Mars packages" for you to order on their website.

The mega deluxe package is not the only way to get the Christmas on Mars DVD and score, but it does also contain a wide variety of Flaming Lips memorabilia like a Christmas on Mars t-shirt, band member trading cards, an "Eat Your Own Spaceship" bumper sticker, a replica ticket from the early screenings of Christmas on Mars, and a popcorn box with "Flaming Lips Popcorn".

The first 1,000 mega deluxe packages sold will have the popcorn box signed by the members of the band, but the most essential part of the deal is that 10 Flaming Lips Golden Tickets will be distributed randomly in the first 1,000 packages. These Golden Tickets are VIP invites to The Flaming Lips New Year's Eve gig in Oklahoma City. I definitely want one of those more than I want a tour of a chocolate factory.

Heres a look at Wayne's special sales pitch:

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Lips and Others Remix NBC Chimes

Rad Parker — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:04:54 +0000

NBC has decided to give a few bands the opportunity to play their own version of the famous chimes that play while showing the rainbow peacock during some commercial breaks.

A handful of these music-themed promos were shot in Los Angeles over the last couple of weeks. Some notable artists that received their own eight second spot to free jam and then play the famous chimes at the end were B.B. King, T.I., and The Flaming Lips.

The Flaming Lips got to record their spot on a rooftop with a small collection of some classic Lip's gear. Wayne got to show-off his modified double-necked guitar that pokes fun at the kids who think playing a Guitar Hero guitar is anything like playing a real guitar. The cool thing is the noise modulation pad that is hooked-in to the guitar hero axe that allows Wayne to play the trippy alien noises that are so prominent in The Flaming Lips style. Could this be the best eight second ad of all time? Well...probably.

Wayne said that he is expecting the promo spot to air starting around Thanksgiving during shows like The Office or 30 Rock.

Here is a Hollywood Insider behind-the-scenes interview with Wayne Coyne:

via Hollywood Insider

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Lips Prep for Halloween, Leak Christmas Song

Rad Parker — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:25:39 +0000

The Flaming Lips are getting ready for their annual March of 1000 Skeletons. As usual, the plans include gathering some of their craziest fans for one of the most surreal parades you can imagine. Its like a Thanksgiving parade that takes place in the distant future, when the planet has become ruled by skeletal zombies that want nothing more than to play with fire and roam in wild packs of about a thousand. Okay, maybe that is a stretch, but you definitely have never seen on of these parades in your hometown before. Only in Oklahoma, where "Do you Realize??" is currently in the running for the state's official rock song, can a parade like this occur:

The skeleton wear is the same costume that Michael Ivins, The Lip's bassist, has been seen wearing at some of their concerts. Just like last year, Ivins will lead the two hour parade and every single skeleton will also be equipped with a flaming torch. The parade is open to any fan, 18 or older, willing to pay the thirty-five dollars for the sweet costume set-up. If you want any extra information about the parade, it can be found at the Lip's website.

Have a listen to one of the new songs off of the Christmas on Mars Soundtrack, but don't be expecting your album/concert Flaming Lips, the music is more of a score than a soundtrack. Do be expecting plenty of the psychedelic alien noise trip-outs, but less of the classic Steven Drozd beats:

via Pitchfork

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The Flaming Lips Can Act?

Rad Parker — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:31:08 +0000

'Orgasmic Sensory Overload' is an effective way to describe The Flaming Lips' fanatical, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping live shows. Hopefully, the Lips ability to euphorically overwhelm your senses will transfer over to their new science fiction feature film, Christmas on Mars.

The brain child of lead singer Wayne Coyne, Christmas on Mars has been in development since 2001. Coyne is not only given credit for acting, writing and directing the film, but he has also worked in his backyard/laboratory to develop many of the movie's different sets and props.

The main character, Major Syrtis (played by Steven Drozd, the band's multi-instrumentalist and arranger/composer), is trying to organise a Christmas pageant to provide hope amongst the colonists, and the film tells the story of his struggle.

Coyne, in an attempt to describe Christmas on Mars, recently commented to Rolling Stone: "It's sometime in the future, Mars has been sort of conquered and there's a space station on it but the space program has gone into decline and these people are kind of stuck up there. They're in the process of converting the spaceships that took them there into a place to live in and that process doesn't go too smoothly. The whole thing ends up very dilapidated, very un-futuristic, un-'2001'. There's an element of confidence among the scientists, but the overall view is that things seem kind of doomed."

The film utilizes a variety of the band's friends and associates as actors. The initial report gives acting credit to Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live, Elijah Wood of The Lord of the Rings, Adam Goldberg of Entourage, and singer-songwriter Steve Burns, the old host of Blue's Clues.

Surely overloaded with some of the Lips' ever-present themes like the future, the fate of society, and the relationship between humans and technology, Christmas on Mars promises to be nothing short of a psychological mind-trip.

The Lips have arranged special screenings of the movie in New York City during the month of September, but most of us will have to wait until the DVD is released from Warner Bros. in October.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the Christmas on Mars trailer:

via Pitchfork

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