SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #93 (October 9, 2020).
The Flaming Lips have recently performed a live concert in front of an audience (Yes!). They did this by putting themselves and every audience member in one of Wayne Coyne’s giant bubbles. What an amazing idea and a wonderful experience, I’m sure (especially after nine months of no live music).
Back in October, The Lips did their very first Tiny Desk Concert. And, being the Lips, they decided to do their home concert entirely in their own bubbles. (Although technically two people share two bubbles).
This Tiny Desk Concert features two songs from their newest album American Head.
The Flaming Lips have always embraced the surreal. Drugs are undoubtedly part of the culture, and on their new songs from American Head, drugs are at the core. These are songs for the lost, the overdosed dreamers, the damaged, the car crashed.
The open the set with “Will You Return/When You Come Down,” a simply wonderful song.
On the album’s opening track “Will You Return/When You Come Down” (which also begins this concert), Steven Drozd asks in falsetto, “Will you return? Will you come down?” while Wayne Coyne responds, “Thinking back to those lost souls / And their ghosts / Floating around your bed / Hear it said / Now all your friends are dead.”
I love everything about his song. Gentle bells (from percussion Nicholas Ley) open the song along with Steven Drozd’s falsetto singing the refrain. (Drozd is an amazing guitarist but only plays the keys in this set). Wayne begins singing the verse. It’s gentle and pretty, and then with a drum flourish from Matt Duckworth in comes Michael Ivins’ typically wonderful bass lines.
The song builds beautifully into a big major chord with Derek Brown’s acoustic guitar leading the way.
Whenever I’ve seen The Lips live, Jake Ingalls almost always sits on the floor. In this set he’s sitting with Steven. I’m never quite sure what he does, but I imagine he’s creating all kinds of interesting sounds. Ingalls’ band Spaceface is pretty wonderful, but the way.
“God and the Policeman” features one of Ivins’ coolest basslines around. It’s a stuttering rumble that seems to come from nowhere and adds a fantastic element to this song. Ley adds in some tubular bells and Wayne plays the siren on his megaphone. The main musical melody is a pretty piano circuit that soars with Wayne’s voice.
On the record, Kacey Musgraves sings the backing vocals but Steven takes them here. Wayne says that he has a good Kacey-esque voice.
Steven replies:
It sounds like you’re saying something nice but I can’t hear anything you’re saying.
The go back to 2013’s The Terror for “Be Free, A Way.” Wayne says he wrote this when he was depressed. He’s only been really depressed once or twice and this song came out of one of them. I love the echoing vocals as Steven follows Wayne’s lead. The vocal melody of two word sentences is just fantastic.
They end the set with “It’s Summertime” from 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Yoshimi is a fantastic album from start to finish, although this song is somewhat of a left-field choice–not one of the big hits from the album. Wayne gets a nice trumpet solo too.
This is a wonderful set to see. And I really hope they bring their bubble shows to a theater near me.
[READ: November 20, 2020] “My Three Fathers”
I have not read any of Ann Patchett’s books, although I keep meaning to. Her soon to be released novel is supposed to be fantastic.
This essay sounded kind of interesting even without knowing anything about her. She talks about having had three fathers during her life. She prefaces all of this by saying that marriage is irresistible to her family members: “we try and fail and try again.” She and her sister have both been married twice, while her mother married three times (thus, three fathers).
Her first father was her biological father. He and her mother divorced when she was little. Her second father was her mother’s second husband–he adopted her. Her third father was her mother’s third husband. Her mother married him when Ann was an adult.
She writes about this third wedding, the rare time when all three of Ann’s fathers were together and at which she got a picture of herself with the three of them.
Then she talks about all three men. (more…)
This is another new single from The Flaming Lips’ new, more mellow album American Head.
S. and I saw clipping. open for The Flaming Lips. It was an unlikely pairing to be sure. clipping. are a noisy glitch hop band fronted by Daveed Diggs. Their songs are noisy and violent and more than a little unpleasant.
