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(See below for details on our book giveaway contest!)
This is the ultimate book for fans of Oklahoma eccentrics, The Flaming Lips! Author Jim DeRogatis has been a fan of the band since 1989, when he first interviewed the band's core frontman Wayne Coyne and his sidekick Michael Ivins. This guy has seen them in concert 50 times, he participated in the biggest Parking Lot Experiment to date, and he was even in the studios during the recording of Clouds Taste Metallic and the band's latest album, At War with the Mystics (in stores April 2006). So, basically, DeRogatis knows what he's talking about, and you get an inside peek into the band that you simply would not get with any other author!
First off, the book is beautifully styled, as anything pertaining to The Lips should be: it has a vibrant, textured cover, and the pages are peppered with black-and-white photos of the band throughout the years. Book designer Terry Karydes also used an excellent array of fonts, paying homage to the band's more "psychedelic" days with the wavy-curly fonts, and then to the band's current experimental space-age style with the futuristic fonts.
Part of the Flaming Lips appeal, for me anyways, is that these are guys just like you and me, who happened to make it big through hard work, perserverance, and by being true to themselves. I mean, really, it's a philosophy I have always believed in, and a big dose of my love for The Lips is that they're such a prime example of that! No offense to The Strokes, or whoever, but the boys in The Flaming Lips did not come from rich families and most certainly did not have everything handed to them on a gilded tray. As someone who also grew up poor in a small Southern town, their similar history certainly endears me to them. Cementing their own humble beginnings, the book begins with some wonderful profiles of the boys' childhoods in Oklahoma, including adorable pictures of a seven-year-old Wayne holding his beloved Nauga Monster, and a cutie eleven-year-old Michael with a major white-boy-fro!
It's long been a part of Lips' history that Wayne used to work at Long John Silver's. (Yes, another detail of their blue-collar background that endeared him to me.) However, the book also reveals that, uh, this was not Wayne's only source of income at the time. Needless to say, that kinda bummed me out to discover...
BUT! Reading more about Wayne and Michael increased my love in other ways! As you read over the past 23-years of their career, you really just marvel at how damn hard they worked! It's such a cliche, but they truly sacrificed everything, from relationships to their health, to get to where they are now. The book covers the rotating-door of musicians, including their early frontman Mark Coyne, Wayne's brother, who left the band in 1986. And, they also talk about the shy, soft-spoken guitarist Ronald Jones, circa early 90's, who left the band in a sad, awkward way (and later declined to be interviewed for this book).
Is it getting heavy? Well, yes, naturally, the book takes some somber turns, such as when discussing the heavy drug-use of drummer Steven Drozd. (And I won't give it entirely away, but let's just say there is more to "The Spiderbite Song" from The Soft Bulletin than the public initially knew!) And speaking of The Soft Bulletin, the album's major theme of the passing of Wayne's father is also covered. That album was actually the one that drew me wholeheartedly to the band, because it was so honest and vulnerable and touching. Also, a few years ago, The Lips went on tour with Beck, providing both an opening band, and a backing band to Beck during his Sea Change tour --- well, oh me, oh my! Turns out these artists are now no longer on speaking terms!!! That juicy bit of backstage gossip certainly surprised me!
The book closes with the band working on their upcoming album, an optimistic ending to a story that's obviously not close to ending. With At War with the Mystics in stores this month, and then the band's movie Christmas On Mars not far away, let's just say that DeRogatis will probably have plenty of material to use in a follow-up book twenty years from now! (janice.04.06)
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book giveaway!
We have one paperback copy of this book to give away to a lucky winner! Just contact us with your name, mailing address (U.S. addresses only please), and a Flaming Lips song title with an animal in it. We'll take the first three valid responses (limit one entry per address) and pick one lucky winner at random! Good luck!
