 A (nearly) brief history of the Flaming Lips -
The Flaming Lips have been going since some time in 1983, although it didn't kick off properly until the following year. What you'll find below is an attempt to reconcile the various accounts, conflicting 'facts', and strange stories that make up the interesting story of one band's development in their 'accidental career'.... you can also get some kind of insight into the current members of the band, although you might need a barrel of salt to go with these particular biographies:
So, on with the story…
1983 was the year. It is said that it started after a gatecrashed party. The parents of a young Michael Ivins were out of town, people got drunk, and a guy called Mark Coyne arrived uninvited. Windows got broken, and our story more or less begins, "..the next day Wayne [Coyne] shows up with a drummer guy and said, hey, I've heard you've gotta bass." And so the Batman theme came to be played. A lot. Mark started to do the singing, and then they made a four song demo tape.
Despite calling themselves the Flaming Lips, a first gig eventually materialized. It was at a transvestite club in Oklahoma City, called the Blue Note. Then there was the gig in the all-black Blues bar. This was all pretty weird, but somehow fitting, for four skinny twenty-something (well, except for the drummer who was pushing thirty) white guys. Soon after all that, the drummer guy moved on and (as far as anyone knows) joined the airforce. More drummers came and went but by 1984 the Flaming Lips were settled into the line-up which would cut their first record - with Richard English now fulfilling the percussive duties. 'The Flaming Lips' was self-released in late 1984, pressed on green vinyl, after Wayne's Dad sent them into a local studio to use up his credit on the collapsing OKC trade barter system.
Having the only PA in the Oklahoma punk rock circles that they were moving in gave these four young men the opportunity, while opening for bands such as Husker Du and Black Flag, to inflict their curious (formerly death rock but now) punk noise (with added classic rock tendencies) on various unsuspecting hardcore fans. A good review in Maximum Rock'n'Roll upped the ante a bit while they kept playing shows and pressed another 1,000 records (on red vinyl in 1985) before getting a chance to go and support the Jesus and Mary Chain in San Francisco. Mark quit shortly after this, as he was getting married, but the band kept on playing more shows along the West Coast. Someone from Restless Records finally happened upon one of those shows (probably in LA), and they were soon signed up with 'Hear It Is' emerging in that same year, 1986. Recorded in two to three days, the album featured an exquisitely wasted-looking Ivins in the foreground of the cover photo. Around this time, Michele Vlasimsky took up the management reins as the Lips continued to play further afield and both coasts were fully explored - some of it under the wing of the (then very scary) Butthole Surfers. In no time at all, the Lips had also made another record. Spending almost two weeks to use up the $10,000 Restless gave them, "We booked ourselves into the biggest, most sophisticated studio we could find," they ended up with "Oh My Gawd..." and a definite shift in sound. While some pointed at some kind of revivalist rock label, the reality was that they had ("accidentally" they claim) made a quite strange sounding record. This began a great tradition of a change in emphasis for every record, with the defining highlight 'One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond on A Sunday Morning' seeming quite far out for 1987.
Their travels around this time took them to Buffalo University in the state of New York, where a young man promoting shows was keen to book them, paying enough money to make the drive well worthwhile. The band struck up a friendship with Jonathan Donahue and good times were had after the gigs, with odd nights spent jamming with Jon and some of his other musician friends.
By the time they came to making the next record, for which they had dreamed up a concept of making an entire side of noise collage ('Hells Angels Cracker Factory' was later reduced to a CD bonus track), Donahue was in the van doing the sound for the shows. 'Telepathic Surgery' came out in 1988 and, a few dates into the tour to promote it, Richard English quit the band following some creative friction and little involvement on the last two tracks they had recorded for it. So Wayne and Michael went on and played as a twosome - aided by Jon's adept mixing, until they were joined by new stickman Nathan Roberts. It was on this leg of the tour, in Canada, that Donahue came on stage with the band to play some fairly freaky noises on a second guitar. The possibilities for new sound were fairly quickly recognized and, for a while to come, the band was then built on the concept of being a four piece.
The Flaming Lips could be placed in the new and hip "post punk" category, and their music is as versatile and diverse as their individual members.
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