Flaming Awesomeness

Most of us should remember decades old Oklahoma City freak psych-rockers The Flaming Lips.  The ones who begin concerts by surfing the crowd in a giant inflatable balloon and blow their confetti all over the place?  The ones with exorbitantly long and ridiculous song titles such as 'Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles?'  the band who were one hit wonders in the mainstream and used it to leverage a performance on Beverly Hills 90210?  Anyone?  Anyway, they are inundating the indie music scene with indescribably awesome news lately.  Well, okay, I'll describe it.

First, back in March, Wayne Coyne, lead singer of The Lips trashed The Arcade Fire in an interview with the Rolling Stone.  A few choice quotes (Stereogum):  "Whenever I've been around them, I've found that they not only treated their crew like shit, they treated the audience like shit.  They treated everybody in their vicinity like shit."  Followed by "I don't care if it's Arcade Fire or Brian Eno.  If either of them walked into a room and treated people like shit I'd be like, 'Fuck you, get outta here."

Arcade Fire's Win Butler responded: "I hope I was less of a "prick" then telling Rollingstone that a bunch of people I don't know at all are really assholes."

So this was obviously going to escalate to something awesome, right?  Possibly an onstage battle of the bands triggering a minor apocalypse?  No.  Wayne told entertainment weekly that he wished the incident had never happened and took it back.  Somewhat of a letdown, but Wayne comes off as a super nice guy.

In slightly more absurd news, The Lips had their song 'Do You Realize?' nominated for the state song of Oklahoma, which was voted in by Oklahomans.  All that had to happen was a majority by both the state senate and house, but the uptight power hungry representatives voted it down because bassist Michael Ivins wore a shirt with a hammer and sickle and because of the bands foul language.  "Their lips should be on fire" quoth one douchey representative.  Well, governor Brad Henry put his foot down for the lips and signed an executive order.  Good for Oklahoma.

Now for the clincher, an update on the new album!  It was recorded in Steven Drozd's empty, for sale house and may be called 'Embryonic.'  According to Wayne, "It's free rock.  Free freakout rock.  It doesn't really have a song underneath it, it's justfreaking out."  Lets hope the Lips return to their early glory days.  Well, not the really early days, but the ones more like 'Transmissions from the Satellite Heart.'

To top this all off, here are the one and only Flaming Lips with a cover of 'Seven Nation Army.'  Enjoy: