Flaming Lips

It is said that the Flaming Lips was a band born shortly after a gatecrashed party. 1983 was the year and Wayne Coyne, a $60 a week fish-frying employee of Long John Silver's, had finally saved up enough money to buy the Les Paul he'd been eyeing in a local shop window. 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 this is where our story more or less begins, "..the next day Wayne shows up with a drummer guy and said, hey, I've heard you've gotta bass." Despite Michael's misgivings about his own skills, "I thought four strings would be easier. It wasn't," they got together and jammed, "We must have played the Batman theme about ten times." Looking back, Wayne remembers that, "I learned to play fairly well within a couple of weeks, and everyone thought I was going to be the next Hendrix or something. I never really got much better than I was after those first two weeks..." In a short while, they had got Mark, younger brother of Wayne, to do the singing, and they made a four song demo tape, featuring the by then ubiquitous 'Batman Theme', along with 'Anyway Anyhow Anywhere', and a couple of other songs - 'Killer On The Radio', and 'Handsome Johnny'.

they eventually scored a first gig. It was at an all-black bar, and they were supposed to be playing old time R&B of some sort. Against all the odds, they managed to earn two encores, each one consisting solely of the Batman theme, naturally.There followed a gig at a transvestite club in Oklahoma City, called the Blue Note. This was all pretty weird, but somehow fitting, for four skinny twenty-something (well, except for the drummer who was pushing thirty) straight white guys playing what they thought of as 'death rock'

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, and the band practising regularly in a disused meat locker. A wily move of buying their own practice PA system opened doors for the band. Having the only PA in the Oklahoma punk rock circles that they found themselves moving in gave these four young men the opportunity to open up for all the hardcore bands of the time, in return for running the sound for everyone else. While opening for bands such as Husker Du, Black Flag and the Minutemen, the fast developing Flaming Lips were able to inflict their curious punk noise (they had moved on from the death rock by now) on various unsuspecting hardcore fans.

Their very first record, entitled simply, 'The Flaming Lips' was self-released in February 1985, pressed on green vinyl, and recorded, "To make people take us seriously." The recording was facilitated by Wayne's Dad sending them into a local studio to use up his credit on the collapsing OKC trade barter system. The engineers, more accustomed to recording radio jingles, were somewhat nonplussed but the record fulfilled it's purpose when a good review in Maximum Rock'n'Roll upped the ante a bit. They continued playing shows locally and managed a few (short) tours involving, "Stupid amounts of driving" - a modus operandi that was never really left behind for the next fifteen years ("The tours just got longer!"). By this time they had to press another 1,000 copies of their record, with this run coming out on red vinyl in early 1986 and going to various distributors. Mark quit shortly after this, as he was getting married and his 'normal' existence was put under strain by one particular tour of the south-western states. Unperturbed, Wayne took over the vocals, singing the songs he had written, and the band kept on playing more shows, including quite a few along the West Coast. Someone from Restless Records finally happened upon one of the LA shows, and they were soon signed up, "Cos it wasn't like anyone else was beating down the doors." The band received $5,000 to record the first album, 'Hear It Is' in LA - "We thought it was a fortune and we could probably record for years with that amount of money."

By this time, the band were building themselves a formidable reputation as a live act - they had bought two smoke machines, and were certainly not afraid to use them. They also developed something of a reputation for playing very loud and vigorous versions of various Led Zeppelin songs. Eventually, the band's notoriety meant their travels 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 long drive well worthwhile. Despite the fact the band tended to arrive red-eyed and stinking from driving 20 hours straight, they struck up a friendship with Jonathan Donahue and repeat visits were made over the next few months into 1988. Good times were had after the gigs, with odd nights spent partying and, later on, jamming with Jonathan and some of his other musician friends.

NPR Topics: Pop Music