Flaming Lips in Print
In honor of last week’s long-awaited release of the Christmas on Mars DVD, it’s well worth taking a look at Jim DeRogatis’s band biography Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma’s Fabulous Flaming Lips.
The Christmas on Mars movie is only the latest amazing production from Oklahoma City’s fearless freaks of rock and roll. While their history is so often shrouded in local mythology and urban legend, DeRogatis’s book tells the unvarnished story of this group of true Oklahoma cultural heroes whose influence and fame has spread worldwide.
Noted music journalist DeRogatis first interviewed the band in 1989, and he has kept close tabs on their development and groundbreaking work ever since. His book not only profiles the band’s rise and relates the biographies of its members, but DeRogatis also provides an outsider’s perspective on Oklahoma culture and society from the time band leader Wayne Coyne’s family arrived from Pennsylvania in the early 1960s.
Coyne’s roots in the Classen-Ten-Penn neighborhood of Oklahoma City are well drawn by the author, as is the story of bassist Michael Ivins’s transformation from Classen High School valedictorian to mohawked, skeleton-suited psychedelic rocker. Between their first gig at the Blue Note Lounge to a triumphant New Year’s Eve 2004 appearance at New York’s Madison Square Garden, DeRogatis draws on family photo albums, interviews with old friends and bandmates, and his own thoughtful insight to profile this unpretentiously brilliant group.
Early on DeRogatis notes Oklahoma’s official Latin motto, which translates as “work conquers all.” Coyne tells the writer at one point, “Anybody with as much luck and determination as me could do this,” but as DeRogatis makes clear, the band’s extraordinary work ethic was paired with a genuinely inspired artistic vision. The reader is often reminded of Coyne’s 11 years as a fast-food fry cook on Classen Blvd., during which time he expanded the band’s horizons and craft with constant touring until reaching major-label success in the early 1990s.
Despite his unlimited access and lengthy interviews with the band, DeRogatis isn’t shy about including honest critiques of their body of work. The result is an excellent read both for longtime fans and new acolytes who wonder how the singer in a dapper designer suit ended up surfing across concert crowds in his giant inflatable ball.
Jim DeRogatis’s Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock is a sweeping history of the genre that deeply influenced the Lips and so many other bands. Fascinating portraits of supergroups like Pink Floyd are balanced by obscure tales of artists like Texas’s 13th Floor Elevators and the Andy Warhol associates of the Velvet Underground.
DeRogatis’s excellent, heartbreaking study of the iconic rock writer Lester Bangs, Let It Blurt, tells the amazing story of the real-life character memorably played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Almost Famous and is one of the most remarkable rock and roll biographies ever written.
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Comments
Thanks for the Placebo Headwould suggestion, Reggie! The library system doesn’t have this, but I’ll be firing off a “suggest a title” request as soon as possible.
The library does have the great “Fearless Freaks” DVD documentary on the Lips, as well as the awesomely disturbing “Okie Noodling” DVD, for which the band provided original soundtrack music. Happily, you can even get the “Zaireeka” CD set from the library, although it would be helpful if it were possible to check out three extra CD players with which to coordinate the four-way symphony.
Thanks, Chris. I have to admit, I’ve never been able to experience Zaireeka the way it’s meant to be played, four discs on four different boomboxes. I may, indeed, have to check out that copy from the library and see if I can make it happen!
Bravo, Chris, for featuring our own fearless hometown freaks! There’s another Flaming Lips book that’s worth finding:
Waking Up With a Placebo Headwound. Images of the Flaming Lips from the Archives of Jay Blakesberg and J. Michelle Martin-Coyne 1987-2004.
Beautifully packaged, this is the ultimate coffee table book for Lips fans.(Don’t know if the library system has this. Should have gone online and checked before I posted, uh?)
Oh, and if you want a nice overview of some of the rock legends of our time, check out Timothy White’s Rock Lives. It’s a compilation of the late writer’s interviews and stories. It’s one of my favorite rock books.