Last summer at Art Park, I was lucky enough to see, or should I say experience, my first full fledged Flaming Lips concert. I had caught them at Lollapalooza back in 2006, but it was hard to get completely into it with my poor viewing spot. I had an idea of what to expect leading up to the show as front man Wayne Conye crawling over the crowd in his massive human hamster wheel bubble has become a staple of their shows. The moment the show began, massive balloons filled the Art Park ampitheatre, while a sea of confetti almost made it hard to see the stage at times, and I was in the third row!. The props on stage ranged from mega phones to giant hands(to even bigger hands) to elaborate light and video shows to people being plucked right out of the crowd to dance on stage in orange jump suits. When I had caught them at Lollapalooza, their stage was filled with people in inflatable astronaut, aliens, and I believe Santa suits all jumping around stage. I can not remember every song played that night, but I will never forget how I could not smiling the entire eveing. I was watching a freaked out circus unfold on stage and I don't think I will ever experience anything quite like that again.
At the very beginning of Bradley Beesley's documentary The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks, the viewer is presented with two conflicting quotes describing the band. The first, from one time manager Michelle Vlasimsky, states "These were not normal guys from normal families. You're talking about freaks". The second comes from Coyne himself: "We're just normal guys trying to make interesting music". If you asked me this after their concert last summer, I don't know which quote I would agree with, but after viewing The Fearless Freaks, well. I guess I still don't have an answer. The film takes the viewer from the band's early days in Oklahoma City to through the recording and touring to support their 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, where a newer generation of fans, including myself, would begin to listen to the experimental group. Beesley first saw the band play when his older brother took him to his first punk rock show back in the 80s, and would later meet Coyne when they were neighbors in art school.
The band's original lineup included Wayne Coyne on vocals and guitar, Coyne's younger brother Mark on lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass, and Richard English on drums. Coyne would describe the band as a "hillbillies gone punk version of The Who". Others would refer to the band as "punks taking acid". While the early stage show had nothing on Art Park, the band showed signs of their warped theatrics as their punk/psychedelic rock fusion began to find its won. Many pegged them as a knock off of early punk bands like the Butthole Surfers. Gibby Haynes, the lead singer of the Butthole Surfers, is filmed multiple times stating that The Flaming Lips are nothing but a rip off of his band, not hiding his displeasure for Wayne Coyne at all, which are some of the film's funniest moments. Once the band began to slightly refine their sound, though, they were signed to Warner Brothers Records in 1990.
Race For The Prize - The Flaming Lips by FOE
It's fitting that the band's most ambitious and experimental album, 1997's Zaireeka, is what made people start taking the band seriously. After the modest success of their first two albums on Warner Brothers Records, Transmission from the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic, the band's change in direction led them to create a 4 CD album which was meant to play simultaneously on 4 different speakers to create a warped kind of orchestra. In what are the film's most interesting scenes, the band worked and refined the project by conducting a series of experiments with the album. First in 1996, in an Austin parking garage, they distributed 40 copies of the record on cassette, all containing something just a little different than the last, intended to be played all at once in 40 car stereos. Their next experiment, known as the "boom box experiment", saw them employ another 40 volunteers, all with their own cassette and boom box playing Zaireeka.
It is in this scene where the viewer gets to see the band's vision of their experimental orchestra, or as they called it, their "interactive tape deck concert performance, take shape. The members of the band led their tape deck musicians while instructing them to change the volumes and tones of their players, creating a unique experience that could never truly be replicated. Fittingly, the band who was once referred to as "not making music for now,[but rather] making music for two years from now" would find a way for fans to listen to Zaireeka in the present. The band would carry their Zaireeka momentum into the recording of their next album, 1999's The Soft Bulletin, referred to by many as the band's masterpiece.
The Flaming Lips - It's Summertime by Johnny Strychnine
Family, drug use and death, especially during the life of drummer turned multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, who would join the band in 1991, is a running theme throughout the film. Coyne introduces the audience to his mother and many brothers, who referred to themselves as "The Fearless Freaks" for their reckless and violent neighborhood football team. Drozd's family, in particular his older brother and father, was very much into music. His father, a jazz musician, would state "We love music. My mind never leaves there." Later in the documentary, while filming Coyne's brainchild science fiction movie Christmas on Mars, we see the band members working with friends and family, mostly in Coyne's back yard, to create Coyne's vision. While the shooting began in 2001, the film would finally be finished in 2008. We learn that three of Drozd's immediate family members took their own lives while he was growing up. Members of both Coyne and Drozd's family, Ivins' family has never really shown in the film, are talked about using drugs.
In the most candid, yet shocking scene of the film, Drozd is shown preparing to shoot himself up with heroin. While he prepares the needle, he talks about the effect the drug has had on his life. He states that during his 5 year addiction to the drug he has lost pretty much all of his money and his girlfriend at the time had left him. While we do not see Drozd actually taking the drug, we see the immediate effect as he explains the feeling of the drug entering his body. It was not until the recording sessions of Yoshimi did Coyne finally put his foot down to Drozd's heroin dependency, something that former band member Richard Young cites as his reason for leaving the band, and while the film does not go into detail of him kicking his addiction, the film makes clear that the band would not be where they are today, both creatively and personally, had Drozd not kicked his habit.
The Flaming Lips - Buggin' by dlt1007
Despite his success and stature in the music community, the film shows that Coyne remains pretty grounded. Still living in Oklahoma City, he takes us to his former place of business: a Long John Silver's that is now a Vietnamese Noodle Bar. He talks about a time at work when he was held at gun point during a robbery, citing this experience as one of the key factors of him taking music seriously. Coyne walks through his old neighborhood, explaining to people why he is being filmed, most of whom seem to have no idea who he or his band are. He loves to scare kids at Halloween and is still close with his brothers, one of whom, Tommy, seems to still be an addict. Coyne's quote at the beginning of the film, about being "normal guys trying making interesting music" seems to finally ring true. While the music has always been interesting to say the least, it was not until viewing The Fearless Freaks did the normal guys aspect really fit into the equation.
Those looking to view The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks may watch the entire film for free on Hulu here.
~mm
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