The wand the flaming lips lyrics full#

While touring in support of the Butthole Surfers, they played Buffalo, New York, where they were befriended by concert promoter Jonathan Donahue after a jam session with Donahue's nascent band Mercury Rev, he and Coyne became close friends, and Donahue eventually signed on as the group's sound technician.nnAfter recording 1988's difficult Telepathic Surgery, English exited, reducing the Lips to the core duo of Coyne and Ivins after adding drummer Nathan Roberts, Donahue adopted the name Dingus and became a full-time member in time to cut 1990's stellar In a Priest Driven Ambulance while simultaneously recording the brilliant Mercury Rev debut Yerself Is Steam. Continuing as a trio, the Lips released 1986's Hear It Is, followed a year later by Oh My Gawd!!!.The Flaming Lips.

The wand the flaming lips lyrics full#

After progressing through an endless string of drummers, they recruited percussionist Richard English and recorded their self-titled debut, issued on green vinyl on their own Lovely Sorts of Death label in 1985.nnWhen Mark Coyne departed to get married, Wayne assumed full control of the group, becoming the primary singer and songwriter as well as lead guitarist. Giving themselves the nonsensical name the Flaming Lips (its origin variously attributed to a porn film, an obscure drug reference, or a dream in which a fiery Virgin Mary plants a kiss on Wayne in the back seat of his car), the band made their live debut at a local transvestite club. Throughout it all, their off-kilter sound, uncommon emotional depth, and bizarre history firmly established them as true originals.nnThe Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983, when founder and guitarist Wayne Coyne enlisted his vocalist brother Mark and bassist Michael Ivins to start a band. Later, they took their experimental and pop impulses in wildly different directions as they collaborated with Miley Cyrus and Kesha and issued an expression of existential dread with 2013's The Terror. After years in the underground, a major-label deal scored during the early-'90s alt-rock craze gave them a bigger platform for their mix of psych, noise-rock, and bubblegum melodies, and their 1993 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart spawned the unlikely Top 40 hit 'She Don't Use Jelly.' At the turn of the century, they delivered a pair of lush and heartfelt masterpieces with 1999's Soft Bulletin and 2003's Grammy-winning Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. From their beginnings as Oklahoma outsiders to their mid-'90s pop-culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 21st century, the Lips rode one of the more surreal and haphazard career trajectories in pop music. (The only downside to this album is that it doesn't feature a reworking of 'On the Run' - how would those space fights have sounded in a Lips version? But musically speaking, this all makes sense.Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands were so brave, so frequently brilliant, and so deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips.

If you're a thrill-seeker, the Flaming Lips version is made for you. If you're a conservative Floyd fan, better stay at home (and attend the Australian Pink Floyd Show or the like). If you get on this trip, I'm sure you'll rediscover a groundbreaking work that many thought was just perfect and timeless. Away with the geeky 1970s dribble and mixing-board doodle! Here comes rock 'n' roll laced with acid and raw power! This is perhaps more like Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd: true to the essence of the band and taking it into the 21st century.

The Flaming Lips, in their version, have dissected the Pink Floyd tunes and rearranged them drastically, creating a soundbed like none before: shrill, shrieking, claustrophobic, but always accessible and strangely melodic, it should be stressed. The latter arguably is beset with problems and sounds dated in some passages, and is a bit of drywank in some parts (oh, save me from Pink Floyd's grandstanding!), but taken on its own turf is a masterful aural experience. It does pay tribute to Pink Floyd's epic work, but is an independent interpretation, or reimagination, of a classic album. Would it be one of those all too reverent covers like from a tribute band? Or, given the sometimes quirky discography of the Lips with quite a few highs and lows, an attempt at pointless, unlistenable pseudo-originality? Luckily, this album is none of these. Should you buy cover versions of classic albums you like, or shouldn't you? This is what I asked myself a couple of years ago when I came across The Flaming Lips et al.'s Dark Side of the Moon.