The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips formed back in 1983 within Oklahoma City, following founder and guitarist Wayne Coyne allegedly stealing a collection of musical instruments from a local church hall. He went on to enlist further band-members in the shape of his brother Mark, who sang, as well as their friend and bassist, Michael Ivins. After rehearsals and gathering material, the band made their first ever live appearance – at a nearby transvestite club.
Sadly, however, finding the right rhythm-keeper for the ensemble proved challenging work, with the core trio soon recruiting Richard English as their full-time percussionist, prompting the release of their self-titled debut, issued on green vinyl and their own Lovely Sorts Of Death label-imprint two years after they had originally kicked off. Yet, the excitement of rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t enough for Mark, who soon departed to get married instead, leaving his brother Wayne as head singer-songwriter for the act.
As a three-piece, the band released a further two LPs in the advancing couple of years – ‘Here It Is’ and ‘Oh My Gawd!!’ – and soon gained a tour-support with The Butthole Surfers, during which they were befriended by a concert-promoter named Jonathan Donahue, incidentally, a man that had just started up his own soon-to-be-legendary group, Mercury Rev. Coyne and Donahue became close compadres, with Jonathan soon becoming the Lips’ sound-technician.
However, following the recording of the challenging ‘Telepathic Surgery’, drummer English left, with Nathan Roberts coming on-board to take his place – along with Donahue, who became a full-time member, albeit under the pseudonym of Dingus. What resulted was 1990’s stunning ‘In A Priest Driven Ambulance’, recorded during the same time Jonathan was working on the Rev’s also awesome debut-LP, ‘Yerself Is Steam’.
Warner Brothers were soon satisfied with FL’s work following the group making numerous calls to jump aboard the label’s roster of acts, signing them up for the band’s first major-label full-length, ‘Hit To Death In The Future Head’. The response was sadly minimal. Donahue soon departed to work full time on MR, and Roberts, yet another drummer, fled the group, too.
But, naturally, more members soon appeared – in the forms of new guitarist Ronald Jones and tub-thumper Steven Drozd; 93’s ‘Transmissions From The Satellite Heart’ was spawned – as was, seemingly, another dud reaction. Until a year later. Where the single ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ became a top-40 hit, enabled them arena-sized support tours, and (bizarrely) offered the guys an appearance on top TV drama-series of the time, ‘Beverly Hills 90120’.
They returned again – following a cut ‘n’ paste release of oddities entitled ‘Providing Needles For Your Balloons’ – with 1995’s ‘Clouds Taste Metallic’, another strong work, yet one that couldn’t live up to the peaks experienced during the previous commercial high. The subsequent events were just sheer madness, too; drummer Drozd had his hand amputated following his being bitten by a spider, and Jones disappeared on a spiritual journey from which he never returned. As if this wasn’t enough, Ivins became the victim of a hit-and-run incident, at the same peculiar moment that Coyne was accused of becoming insane, this suggested after his attempt to conduct the music of forty cars, all with their tape-machines playing various forms of music concurrently.
Still, hardly using these troubles as set-backs, they soldiered on, producing some of their finest musical-products to date within 97’s ‘Zaireeka’ – comprised of four CDs designed to be played alongside each other at the same moment in time – and 1999’s classic ‘The Soft Bulletin’, released to universal acclaim and a tremendous rise in profile.
Now, with 2002’s expectedly bizarre, but incredible, ‘Yoshimi Vs The Pink Robots’, it seems that the strangeness is set to continue for some even more enjoyable and thrilling years.
OFFICIAL SITE: Styled out to match the group\'s most recent album, anticipate a myriad of info and a snappy design - all in Flash.
THE WORLD OF THE FLAMING LIPS: The most interesting thing here about this fan-site are the archived photos - revealing the original band line-up and early rehearsal images.
TRADING POST: Trading FL concerts on various formats has become a cult amongst the group\'s fan-base - find out further info here.