By Andrew Lee
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
 WARNER BROTHERS
Veteran bandmates Wayne Coyne, Michael Ivins
and Steve Drozd always entertain with a playful
musical attitude.
Though a simple guitar strum opens the title track of The
Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,”
it’s no indication of the childlike vitality that defines the
tone of the album.
Dominating the album are chattering and bubbling electronic
textures that share the same Technicolor vibrancy as the Japanese
influenced artwork that adorns the packaging. It shows that even
after 20 years, The Flaming Lips band members still possess an
undeniable naiveté.
But for anyone who has followed the band’s career through
its unpredictable path, that’s hardly a bad thing ““ The
Flaming Lips’ essence of wide-eyed wonderment is exactly what
drives the band’s musical progress and experimentation.
“You’ll meet a lot of people, who seem to have
reached some kind of plateau in their life,” Lips bassist
Michael Ivins said. “I think (for us) there’s always
something to strive for, even though we’re compared to a lot
of people who might have settled down by the time they’ve
reached our age.”
The band, which gained nationwide recognition in 1994 with its
esoteric alt-rock hit “She Don’t Use Jelly,”
quickly faded from the mainstream and ended up labeled as a one-hit
wonder.
However, the band’s devoted fan base has supported them
enough to maintain healthy relations with Warner Bros., even as the
group undertakes projects too bizarre for mainstream consumption.
For example, 1997’s “Zaireeka” is a four-CD set
meant to be played all at once with four separate stereo
systems.
 http://publicitymaterials.wbr.com/
Doesn’t that pink robot look scared, as the heroic Yoshimi
casts her intimdating shadow on the Flamings Lips latest album
cover?
“It kind of annoys me when people start drawing battle
lines in the sand, saying, “˜You’ve got to do it this
way,'” Ivins said. “To me, that just ends up
limiting you. I think that’s probably been our mantra through
the years. Why would you want to limit yourself? It just seems
silly “¦ You can do a painting that’s just all primary
colors but throw some pastels in on the next one. Why
not?”
According to Ivins, one of the biggest hindrances to the
band’s creative ambitions is the lack of time to follow
through with all their ideas. Their hyperactive imaginations are
evident in the sprawling, urgent nature of previous albums, even up
to the stadium-sized psychedelics of 1999’s “The Soft
Bulletin.”
“Yoshimi,” however, sounds like the most meditative
Lips album in recent memory. Influenced by the death of a friend,
the album balances somber musings (“It’s
Summertime”) with exuberant appreciation in the face of
life’s transitory nature (“Do You Realize?”). The
album bases its core on the complicated and sometimes contradictory
emotions that come with the death of a close friend. Communicating
these emotions in a lucid manner was one of the band’s
biggest goals.
“In terms of trying to fit so much stuff in, you could
dilute the idea of what you’re trying to say,” Ivins
said. “That’s the whole thing. You can create
something, but it kind of takes on a life of its own once you put
it out for the world to see.”
“(In the past) I think there would be a little ambiguity
in what we were actually trying to say “¦ (but) I think by the
time we got to “˜The Soft Bulletin’ we were able to be a
little bit more focused about what it was we were trying to say in
each particular song,” Ivins added.
But that’s not to imply the band has settled down ““
things are as hectic as ever. Even after the release of
“Yoshimi,” the band members are not only spending time
promoting it, they’re also working on a full-length feature
film titled “Christmas on Mars,” written and directed
by band member Wayne Coyne. According to Ivins, there’s never
been a project too ambitious for the band.
“From traveling around with 50 boom boxes and getting
people in the audience to come up and actually play them as we
conduct them, to putting out a four-CD box set that’s
supposed to be played all at the same time, or even to make a
movie. Whatever ideas we do come up with, we always try and make
them come true,” Ivins said. “Even actually starting a
band 20 years ago and saying, “˜Can we actually do
this?’
“And here we are, 20 years later. I guess we’re in
it for the long haul,” Ivins added.
The Flaming Lips will play at the Unlimited Sunshine Tour on
Aug. 11 at 5 p.m. at the Greek Theatre. For more information, go to
http://www.unlimitedsunshine.com.