The avant-rockers’ disc-gem and another blow of a show

There have been no heroes over the last quarter-of-a-century (The Stranglers, circa 1977) and with sonic pioneers in retreat, it’s been one long industry-assault on decency, innovation and weirdness… Thank the Big Boss (note - not Springsteen) for bands like The Flaming Lips…They recently visited our shores for a show performed in animal costumes – two rabbits, a frog and a bear – in advance of their new album, ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’.

The Wayne Coyne led group’s 10th album is another trawl through the psychedelic landscape but this one has been through a tragedy of apocalyptic proportion… ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ in broadest sense tells the tale of karate queen Yoshimi and her fight with a robot but, like all the best science-fiction, it is about the humanity of the present. It is not about the UFO guests but our alien-selves, the dark, the undiscovered, the disturbing in humankind.

There is a Philip K. Dick’s (‘Minority Report’ is based on his story, as ‘Blade Runner’ was) book ‘The Unteleported Man’ about an individual who refuses to be teleported (which turns out to be one-way ticket to oblivion, great step to self-euthanasia) and his experience inevitably alters reality. Coyne is that man, on the outskirts of the accepted, propagated, dull and banal…

“We probably see things slightly differently,” Wayne Coyne explains in his laid-back and quiet way, “than other artists. Why, is a million dollar question. We all start, interpret and understand life and events from our own standpoint and this is our vision. Again, why – I don’t know. It just is; perhaps because we like different kind of sounds, we dream more or have backward imagination, it is not up to me to know, explain…”

The F-Lips’ radiant, oddly elemental pop melodies are enhanced with complex shadowy bass, decorative noises that are chimerical far beyond the regulation de jour. If you wish, The Flaming Lips shimmer like David Lynch or David Cronenberg’s films in the long night of blockbuster-ing because they are never what they appear at first.

A vespertine aura

The Flaming Lips, the ever-increasingly eccentric combo from Oklahoma, do things the way that breaks every rock rule in the book. To say there are many bands of their ilk that have given us equal pleasure would be like claiming that Mona Lisa had a dixie. The Residents, Critters Buggin, Primus, Tuatara, Buckethead, are the few that have provided this kind of food for thought and fuelled our (true) alt-bliss. What the F-Lips have in abundance is impeccable sense of experimental pop and a nous to back it with.

“We just do what we like,” his calm-but-unsettling normality enforces the Lynch comparison, “and that’s been our strength from the very beginning. We’ve never set out to emulate anything, to imitate anybody, we’ve always simply wanted to make our own music. And, we’ve been very lucky to be able to do so… without much of a problem.”

Aside the industry’s expectations, don’t they feel furious, mad, homicidal that lesser bands, from Limp Bizkit to Linkin Park, have achieved much more?

“No, that’s not the point,” Coyne displays a bit of emotion, “we’ve never been in competition with anybody. This is not a race and success is a relative state of mind. We’ve been successful all our lives because we manage to do what we’ve always wanted. We are aware of other bands that have become popular over the years but we also remember a lot of others who are not around anymore. In retrospect, we’ve always been more concerned with longevity.”

Dystopian empathy

The Flaming Lips’ shows are combination of music and images: psychedelic moods, most of them on the suicidal side of the mental fence, depressing but mesmerising listening that is further enhanced (worsened for some, perhaps) by film footage that includes cataract removal, open-heart surgery, crashing planes, spacemen and feature film clips. Coyne onstage is evenly frustrated and demented, using puppet gloves (frog, nun, monkey) to emphasise the fake-nature of the experience, a rock theatre that embraces intelligence. Such is the Wayne’s world, a love-child of Captain Beefheart and Bunuel.

One wonders if he could handle fame were it to arrive in all its fully demanding horror?

“That’s a good question,” Coyne reposts, “and it is something I haven’t thought a lot about. But, after all these years in the business, I don’t think it would have an impact as if it happened when we first started. I don’t know, if it were to happen, it would probably complicate my life a bit but it wouldn’t change my universe. Fame, I don’t care about, I couldn’t do with the money that comes with it… For sure, but – who couldn’t?”

If art can be seen as attempting order out of chaos, The Flaming Lips still sound like the Big Bang is in progress; this group produces brutally beautiful and majestically neurotic music that beggars description. Equally on disc or during a blow of a show. But, should we be optimistic?

“About what?” Coyne sounds puzzled. “Music, culture, the world? You’ve got to be a realist and realise that everything dies in the end. What we consider music now will pass on, culture is changing all the time, we die, the world will end sometime… Is it getting worse? Probably, but that’s not a reason not to be pessimistic…”

Listening to this cosmic, cartoon surrealism that is clued-up, emotive and always on a lookout for the Big Truth, you realise that it doesn’t really matter, being on plus- or minus-side of anticipating future, because it changes nothing but perturbs one’s life.