SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Ashes in the Air” (2012).
2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album. Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid. Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album. Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.
The second song sounds a lot more like The Flaming Lips (latter period). Starting out with spacey zaps and a super fast drum electric drums beat, the song is actually slow and trippy with interweaving heavily distorted synth lines.
Wayne sings lead (with his voice modified):
You and me we were both so fucked up
You’re fucked in a good way
I’m fucked up in a bad.
After the first verse, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon sings the echoing first lines in a highly processed almost unrecognizable voice. This was before Bon Iver recorded his weirdo 22, A Million album so it’s safe to assume that either Wayne influenced Justin or Wayne allowed Justin to explore an arena he hadn’t before.
The song is catchy in that darkly sweet sounding style that The Lips create. Despite the fact that the lyrics are quite dark:
We thought we could outrun them but they had robot dogs
So, yeah, The Flaming Lips in a nutshell.
It ends with those same spacey zaps fading out–a pretty solid Lips song.
[READ: August 1, 2019] Strangers in Paradise XXV #2
Issue 1 ended with Katchoo in a guy’s house. Issue 2 opens with Katchoo hanging for dear life on the side of a mountain.
The story gives some background on the Parker Girls story. Darcy Parker was the leader of a group of women–dangerous, deadly women who were selected for their beauty and their skills. She mentored and paid for them and essentially owned them. If they turned on her, they were killed with no mercy.
The woman from issue 1, Laura, whose real name was Stephanie was a Parker Girl. She cut a deal with the Senate to revel the details of the Parker Girl operation. Since Darcy was now dead, she assumed she could easily hide. But Parker Girls don’t give up.
Katchoo tries to figure out how to get information about where Stephanie could be hiding. Then she remembers Jet, an old friend. Jet is in a jazz band in Massachusetts, so Katchoo heads there and meets Jet and her enormous boyfriend Earl.
Jet gives her some information where they might be able to find Stephanie–in a gated house. It’s this house, where the owner has a gun and guard dogs, that Katchoo finds herself dangling off the edge of a cliff.
A literal cliffhanger.
I’m glad I didn’t wait a month between issues to read this.
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