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New Flaming Lips video: Even weirder and nakeder than their last one
Credit: George Salisbury
You know how the last Flaming Lips video, for “Ashes in the Air,” featured an alien with an eyeball for a head and lots of dead naked people? Well, their latest clip features no aliens or death, but it’s pretty much just one big ol’ nakedfest. It’s for “You Lust,” a 13-minute epic of their latest album, The Terror. Thankfully it’s been edited down to more like four minutes for the video, because four minutes is about as much flaccid penis close-ups as I can stand. Watch and you’ll see what I mean. (Heads-up: NSFW on account of it being a nakedfest and all.)
New Flaming Lips video features Bon Iver and lots of naked dead people
Even though it features an alien with a giant eyeball for a head, a baby with a man’s face, and lots of blood-soaked naked people huddled around mutilated corpses, the most perverse thing about the new Flaming Lips video might be that it’s for a song that isn’t even on their latest album, The Terror, which comes out this month. Instead, it’s a fan favorite from last year’s collaborative album, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, featuring folkie falsetto hero Bon Iver on vocals. Has no one explained promotion to these people? (I’m kidding, of course: head Lip Wayne Coyne might be the shrewdest self-promoter of any artist we’ve ever covered.)
In another perverse move, the Lips’ label, Warner Bros., has decided to release The Terror in the U.K. on April 1st but delay its Stateside arrival until April 16th. Why, Warner Bros., why? It’s like you’re daring us to illegally download it. (I’m kidding, of course: We here at TWBITW do not condone online piracy or illegal sharing of copyrighted material in any form. Stay in school, kids!)
Anyway, here’s “Ashes in the Air” in all its bizarro glory. I’ll resist the urge to give away the surprise ending, but I will say this: If you’re easily grossed out, you should totally post a video of yourself watching it.
Sorry, the Flaming Lips Anatomically Correct Chocolate Heart is sold out. Your Valentine will hate you now.
If you’re like us, you probably have a tendency to procrastinate before Valentine’s Day, then freak the fuck out on Feb. 11th when you realize that every restaurant in town is booked up and you’ll be taking your wife to In-N-Out Burger (again). So it’s no surprise that we totally missed the boat last week on telling you about this crazy anatomically correct, limited-edition chocolate heart the Flaming Lips released via Oklahoma-based gift shop Dwelling Spaces. We’re a little slow sometimes.
Made by a chocolatier from Texas called Dude, Sweet Chocolate, the “Flaming Lips Chocolate Human Heart” is made from “72% South American dark chocolate studded with hazelnut mini whoppers and waffle cone crunch” and contains a USB drive featuring various Flaming Lips love songs, including such baby-making classics as “Love Is Mind Control” and “Moth in the Incubator” (and yes, clearly they’re defining the term “love songs” a bit loosely here).
Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, apparently it was so awesome that it sold out almost instantly. Sorry, kids. How about some In-N-Out instead? You have to admit, it’s a pretty romantic name for a burger joint.
In other Lips news, their new album The Terror arrives April 2nd. No word yet on what Wayne Coyne will encase it in, but you can bet it will be something delicious and/or disgusting.
New Flaming Lips album “The Terror” finally gets a release date: April 2nd
Photo by George Salisbury
Has it really been five months since we first reported that the Flaming Lips were gearing up to release The Terror, their 13th studio album and first “proper” album (if that even means anything anymore) since 2009′s Embryonic? My how time flies when you’re eating paint chips and going to GWAR concerts.
Anyway, after some overly optimistic speculation from irresponsible music bloggers (us included) that The Terror might see the light of day as early as last December, we now have it on good authority (Warner Bros., the Lips’ label) that the nine-track set will finally arrive on April 2nd. We just previewed the whole album earlier today (“already?” you ask—yep, we’re fancy) and are happy to report that it’s far and away the weirdest, darkest shit Wayne Coyne and co. have recorded since Zaireeka, not counting any of that 24-hour-song nonsense they were churning out awhile back. Here’s the full tracklist:
1. Look…The Sun Is Rising
2. Be Free, A Way
3. Try To Explain
4. You Lust
5. The Terror
6. You Are Alone
7. Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die
8. Turning Violent
9. Always There…In Our Hearts
We’ll have a full review closer to the actual release date. We wouldn’t want to give away too much before then.
P.S. Apparently, if you pre-order The Terror on iTunes, you instantly get a non-album bonus track called “Sun Blows Up Today.” Here’s a lyric video for the track that just debuted today. Warning: Nothing on The Terror is this catchy. Or this apocalyptic. I almost resisted the urge to describe this song as “catchalyptic” but…no, I went ahead and did it.
Weirdify Playlist 12: Whack Christmas
It’s been way too long since we did a new Weirdify playlist, but there’s no better occasion for getting into the back into the swing of things than Christmas. You either love holiday music or you hate it—and if you’re like us, your opinion on the subject probably swings wildly between those two extremes depending on what they’re playing while you’re picking up your Zoloft at CVS. (Please, baby Jesus, no more Mariah Carey.)
Fortunately, there are approximately five gazillion metric fuck-tons of holiday and Christmas-themed recordings to choose from, and many—most, even—don’t involve Grandmas getting run over by reindeers or old classics getting run over by the melisma of former American Idol contestants.
So with our patron saint, Frank Zappa*, as our guide, we dove into Spotify with all the shopping-cart-filling zeal of a Black Friday shopper at Wal-Mart to bring you our final Spotify mix of 2012: “Whack Christmas.” It’s what we’re dreaming of. Soon, it’s what you’ll be dreaming of, too. Especially when you get to “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.” That shit is catchy!
Giddy up, giddy up, let’s go! (That’s Christmas-speak for, “Launch your Spotify player.” Or use the embedded player below. Cuz Spotify finally lets you do that now.)
*There’s no Frank Zappa on Spotify and, to the best of our knowledge, he never recorded any Christmas music. But if one of you Frank-ophiles out there cares to correct us, we’ll happily link to whatever Santa-related sonic mayhem he may have concocted.
Some notes on your listening experience:
1. Capital Kings, “Carol of the Bells.” You didn’t think we’d ease you into this mix gently, did you? Fuck no. You’re gonna start with a dubstep version of the most melodramatic Christmas carol of all time. When the bass drop hits, try crushing a carton of eggnog on your forehead. You’re feelin’ it now, bro!
2. Ronnie James Dio, Tommy Iommi, Rudy Sarzo, Simon Wright, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” This is from an album called We Wish You a Metal Xmas…and a Headbanging New Year! Need we say more? R.I.P., Holy Diver. (P.S. There might be another track from this album later in the mix. But you’ll just have to stick around to find out.)
3. Wesley Willis, “Merry Christmas.” I bet Wesley Willis gave great Christmas gifts. Or at least great Christmas head butts. We like this holiday a lot, too, Wesley!
4. Johnny MacRae, “Here Comes Fatty Claus.” You can find this on a delightful collection—sadly, not available on Spotify—called A John Waters Christmas. It kinda does for Christmas what Pink Flamingos did for overweight transvestites.
5. Randall Reed with the Forerunners, “The Peppermint Stick Man.” This unintentionally (we hope) child molestery Xmas original is from another worthy compilation called The American Song-Poem Christmas, a collection of amateur one-off singles recorded by would-be singer-songwriters and (we presume) very, very depressed session musicians. Here’s a tip for all you aspiring writers of children’s songs: Never use the word “erect” in a lyric.
6. Bob Dylan, “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Did you know Dylan released a Christmas album a few years back? It’s true. He also apparently smoked a carton of unfiltered Camels right before the recording sessions.
7. Afroman, “Police Blow My Wad.” This early ’00s novelty rapper took all the royalties from his one and only hit, “Because I Got High,” and blew them on a holiday album called A Colt 45 Christmas. And weed. Probably mostly on weed. This one is set to the tune of “Feliz Navidad”…get it? No? Smoke a bowl first and it’s hilarious. Trust us.
8. Elf-Elf and Dok-Im, “My Christmas Bells (Elf Vocal).” This might be Jake’s favorite rap song ever. Mashed potatoes!
9. The Jingle Punx, “It’s What I Got in My Sack.” Is there any better cure for too much shitty Christmas music than some good old-fashioned snot-punk? Also, he said “sack.” Heh-heh.
10. The Vandals, “I Don’t Believe in Santa Claus.” Next time someone asks you, “Hey, what’d you get me for Christmas?”…just play them this song. Unless you actually got them something. In that case…you know what? Play it anyway. ‘Cuz The Vandals rule.
11. Nerf Herder, “I’ve Got a Boner for Christmas.” Who needs “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” when we’ve got this romantic Yuletide ditty to keep us warm? Did you know “stocking” rhymes with “cock in”? Well, it doesn’t, really, but who cares? Let’s all get laid for Christmas!
12. Edmund Welles, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Think of this as a little post-punk palette cleanser, courtesy of our favorite all-bass clarinet ensemble. Not weird, per se, but gosh-darned purty.
13. Tiny Tim, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Another track from A John Waters Christmas, starring the world’s greatest ukulele-strumming, falsetto-voiced, late-night TV cult hero. This old Christmas chestnut takes on new life when it’s sung by someone who sounds like he’s gargling with angels’ tears.
14. British Summer Time Ends, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” As we point out frequently on this blog: The ’80s were a weird decade. This track appears on a random 1987 compilation called Joyeux Noel that features John Zorn and a bunch of other bands we’d never heard of, including these British Summer Time Ends guys. We tried Googling them for like two hours and all we could come up with was this. If anyone knows more about them, share, please! ‘Cause this version of “I Saw Mommy” is pretty great.
15. Lou Monte, “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.” This 1960 novelty song regularly shows up on “Worst Christmas Songs Ever” lists. Which we think is pretty unfair, actually. When shit like our next song is still in circulation…
16. Bobby Boris Pickett, “Monster’s Holiday.” To be fair, it must have sucked being Bobby Boris Pickett. That dude was doomed to forever rehash his one and only hit. Still, can you imagine if today’s acts released Christmas-themed cash grabs this shameless? Oh, wait, they do. Don’t worry, we won’t taint this mix with any of that Bieber shit. We’ve got a much cooler child pop star…
17. Gayla Peevey, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” Little Gayla Peevey was only 10 years old when she recorded this novelty hit in 1953. By 18, she was a Lindsay Lohan-like coke whore running over valets outside Hollywood’s sleaziest nightclubs. Kidding! Actually, she changed her name to Jamie Horton and released a song called “Robot Man.” Beat that, Miley Cyrus.
18. RuPaul, “Santa Baby.” A drag queen singing a seduction song to Jolly Saint Nick? Sure, why the hell not? Much like RuPaul’s Drag Race (seriously, how is that thing on its fifth season?), it wears out its welcome pretty quickly, but hey, that’s what the skip button is for.
19. The Superions, “Crummy Christmas Tree.” So long as we’re in camp mode, let’s throw in a track by B-52′s frontman Fred Schneider’s Xmas-themed side project. If that sad tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas specials could sing…it would sound exactly like Fred Schneider. Who knew?
20. The Avalanches, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” There’s a whole, massive subgenre of surf-rock/beach-themed Christmas music, most of which is, frankly, kinda lame. But this instrumental version of the date-rapiest of holiday standards is kinda groovy, isn’t it?
21. The Klezmonauts, “Joy to the World.” Hey, all you “War on Christmas” conspiracy theorists, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Most Jews actually love Christmas. Not the Jesusy, away-in-a-manger stuff so much. But Santa, the presents, the tree, the eggnog—they’re totally down. Neil Diamond didn’t record A Cherry Cherry Christmas because his Christian overlords at Columbia Records were holding a gun to his head. We’re sure the same holds true for The Klezmonauts, who recorded an entire album of klezmer-styled holiday standards under the obvious but genius title of Oy to the World. It’s like a delicious Hanukkah latke topped with figgy pudding instead of apple sauce.
22. Family Force 5, “Little Drummer Boy.” We interrupt this mix for a little Christian crunk rock. There’s actually an entire album of this shit, The Family Force 5 Christmas Pageant. But because we love you so much, we’re only gonna share with you this, the shortest track on the record. You’re welcome.
23. Soul Saints Orchestra, “Santa’s Got a Bag of Soul.” Let’s get the horrible sound of crunk rock out of our ears with a little funky ’70s soul, shall we? This is from an outstanding collection of rare-groove Christmas records called In the Christmas Groove. And we really can’t play it without playing the man it’s obviously cribbing from…
24. James Brown, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto.” This isn’t even really the Godfather of Soul’s weirdest Christmas track…but we’re including it anyway, because it’s awesome.
25. Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, “Jingle Bells.” A reader named Trey suggested we check out Bela Fleck’s Jingle All the Way album. “Not the weirdest but definitely different,” he said. And honestly, we were skeptical—but then we stumbled across this banjo-and-throat-singing version of “Jingle Bells” and we were like, “Holy shit, Trey. You are a master of understatement.”
26. Alice Cooper, Billy Sheehan, John 5, Vinny Appice, “Santa Claus (Claws) Is Coming to Town.” OK, fine, we’ll throw in another track from We Wish You a Metal Xmas. Even though you’ve all been very naughty. We’ve got a list, too, y’know.
27. Psychostick, “Jingle Bell Metal.” You didn’t think we’d get through this whole mix without throwing in at least one metalcore freakout, did you? You know us better than that.
28. Insane Clown Posse, “Red Christmas.” Or an ICP song. There’s also gotta be an ICP song. Whether you like it or not. And we know that secretly, you kinda like it. It’s okay, we do, too. “I’m dreaming of a dead Christmas…”
29. Doctor Octoroc, “Have Yourself a Little Final Fantasy.” From the album 8-Bit Jesus. ‘Nuff said.
30. DEVO, “Merry Something to You.” When a Yuletide comes along, you must whip it. We spent about an hour throwing DEVO puns around and that was the best we could come up with. Sorry.
31. Heather Noel, “Santa Came on a Nuclear Missile.” We went back to the The American Song-Poem Christmas well for this bizarre little Cold War-era artifact. Ah, those were the days.
32. William Hung, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Among the many reasons American Idol sucks worse than ever these days, there’s this: That show has never produced another would-be contestant as delightfully terrible as William James Hung Hing Cheong. If it was nothing but tone-deaf wannabes with humorous foreign accents, we’d watch that shit all the time.
33. Eban Schletter, “Carol of the Bells.” When he’s not composing music for shows like Spongebob Squarepants, Eban Schletter records bizarre concept albums like Cosmic Christmas, which has something to do with a satellite that brings the spirit of Christmas to alien civilizations, but is mostly just an excuse for him to do theremin-and-analog-synth covers of old holiday warhorses like “Carol of the Bells.” Cosmic, man!
34. Angry Snowmans, “Drinkin’ Rum & Egg Nog.” A reader named David really wanted us to feature these guys. So here you go, David! Just remember to drink responsibly: After your fifth rum & eggnog, switch to brandy & eggnog.
35. MDC, “Black Christmas.” A little holiday nihilism, courtesy of the Bay Area punk band known alternately as Millions of Dead Cops or Multi-Death Corporation. On second thought, David, go ahead and drink yourself into oblivion. Damn, we’re all depressed now. But hey, I bet I know what would cheer us up…
36. Jingle Cats, “White Christmas.” Nope, that really didn’t help at all. Let’s try something else…
37. Sparks, “Thank God It’s Not Christmas.” Ah, much better. This is the venerable art-pop duo Sparks in full ’70s glam-rock mode. We’re not even sure what it really has to do with Christmas, but it’s just a great song.
38. The Polyphonic Spree, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Tim DeLaughter’s orchestral rock ensemble in full-on psych-rock mode, from their new Christmas collection, Holidaydream. If more Christmas carols were this creepy and minor-key, the holiday music at the mall might actually be bearable.
39. The Flaming Lips, “A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn’t So).” This isn’t really the Lips at their weirdest. But it’s certainly Wayne Coyne at his most awkwardly sincere. You’re not just a dreamer, Wayne. We believe it can all change! Even here at Weird Band HQ, we’re not above a little peace-on-earth sentimentality. In fact, after all the shitty Top 40 versions of “Frosty the Snowman” have faded, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
40. Barnes & Barnes, “I Had Sex With Santa.” Well, that and a few cheap laughs. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
Brace yourself, Broadway: Flaming Lips musical is heading your way
As if the Flaming Lips haven’t had a busy enough 2012: Next week, the five-years-in-the-making stage musical adaptation of their classic 2002 album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, is finally set to debut at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. It’s being directed and co-written (along with Wayne Coyne) by Des McAnuff, the guy who brought The Who’s Tommy to life at La Jolla back in 1992. McAnuff’s Tommy eventually ran for two years on Broadway, so a Flaming Lips musical on the Great White Way isn’t as crazy as it sounds. It might even be pretty good, given McAnuff’s track record. Then again, he also directed Jersey Boys.
In other Lips news: The band’s next studio album, The Terror, is now tentatively set to come out in January of 2013. Originally, it sounded like Wayne and co. really wanted out the album out before Christmas, but maybe they finally decided they’ve done enough for one calendar year.
Yoshimi runs Nov. 6 through Dec. 16; tickets and more info available here. Judging from this behind-the-scenes video, it should feature at least one awesome 14-foot-tall robot and a few not-quite-so-awesome flying ones.
Flaming Lips announce new album, “The Terror”
Between appearing at Stephen Colbert’s StePhest Colbchella ’012 festival, setting Guinness world records for most shows in 24 hours, releasing 24-hour songs encased in human skulls, and pissing off Erykah Badu, the Flaming Lips have been just about the hardest-working rock band on the planet for the past 12 months. So it should come as no surprise that they apparently have a brand-new studio LP, tentatively titled The Terror, set for release before year’s end. The surprising part is that they’ve managed to do all this despite the fact that, according to frontman Wayne Coyne, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd has been battling drug addiction for at least some of this incredibly prolific period.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Coyne revealed that Drozd was “in a bad way” for much of the recording of The Terror as well as the band’s most recent, collaborative album, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. The article doesn’t specify what drug(s) Drozd was hooked on, but portrays the troubled Lips member as spending much of his time holed up in a separate recording studio, writing what Coyne describes as “horribly creepy” songs, some of which will find their way onto the new album.
Coyne tells Rolling Stone that his bandmate has fully recuperated and is “better now than ever.” Hopefully he’ll soon be able to tell his own version of what went down—because, although we’re assuming Coyne talked to Rolling Stone with Drozd’s full permission, there’s still something a bit creepy about using your friend and bandmate’s addiction problems to, in essence, talk up how intense your next record is going be.
There’s no music from The Terror available yet as far as we know. But in the meantime, here’s a video of Wayne Coyne and Stephen Colbert crowd-surfing in matching giant hamster balls. Enjoy.
Flaming Lips play eight shows in 24 hours, try to break Guinness World Record
Photo by J. Michelle Martin Coyne
If we wrote a new post every time The Flaming Lips pulled a new publicity stunt, we’d have to quit our day jobs. Twenty-four hour songs, Record Store Day releases embedded with actual blood of famous people, unauthorized NBA basketball theme music, semi-naked videos with Erykah Badu—these guys have been churning out Pitchfork link bait like the world’s about to end. And hey, maybe it is, right? So The Lips might be on to something. At the very least, it might help them sell a few more records, since the NPR crowd basically stopped paying attention to them after Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
For their latest headline-grabbing ploy, Wayne Coyne and co. will attempt to break the Guinness World Record® for most concerts in different cities in a 24-hour period. It turns out they only need to play eight shows to break the record, which makes the whole thing seem slightly less impressive—but hey, a record is a record, right? Still, if any bands reading this want to try for nine concerts in 24 hours, let us know. It can’t be that hard, can it?
Here are the eight record-breaking shows, along with opening acts. Bonus points to The Lips for managing to book both Neon Trees and Neon Indian for this stunt.
June 27 Memphis, TN Handy Park (Doors 3:30pm)
New Fumes & The Flaming Lips
June 27 Clarksdale, MS Ground Zero Blues Club (Doors at 6:30pm)
Gary Clark Jr & The Flaming Lips
June 27 Oxford, MS The Lyric (Doors 8:30pm)
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals & The Flaming Lips
June 28 Jackson, MS Duling Hall (1:00am)
Neon Indian & The Flaming Lips
June 28 Hattiesburg, MS Benny’s Boom Boom Room (6:30am)
Hunter Hayes & The Flaming Lips
June 28 Biloxi, MS Hard Rock Casino (9:45am)
Neon Trees & The Flaming Lips
June 28 Baton Rouge, LA Varsity (12:30pm)
GIVERS & The Flaming Lips
June 28 New Orleans, LA House Of Blues (4:00pm)
Grimes & The Flaming Lips
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Hattiesburg is getting the short end of this whole thing. Lips fans there gotta show up at 6:30 and sit through an opening set by this guy? There ain’t enough trucker speed in Mississippi to get us out of bed for that shit.
In other Lips news, their Record Store Day “exclusive,” The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, is coming out next week on CD and digital formats. In honor of that momentous occasion, which won’t break any Guinness World Records that we’re aware of (unless there’s a category called Most Head-Scratching Collaborations on a Single Album), we’ll play this post out with the apocalyptic (hey, the world’s ending soon, right?) animated video for the Heady Fwends track, “The Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee.” Enjoy.
Thunder Up! Flaming Lips remake “Race for the Prize” as an NBA fight song
We’re a little worried about Wayne Coyne. The man hasn’t started drinking tiger blood yet as far as we know, but lately he’s been pulling publicity-whore stunts at such a breakneck clip, we’re seriously considering changing the name of this site to Weirdest Thing Flaming Lips Did Today in the World.
So here’s the latest headline-grabbing curveball from Coyne and co., who in just the past year have 1.) released a 24-hour song encased in an actual human skull; 2.) collaborated with Ke$ha; 3.) tweeted naked photos of Erykah Badu; and 4.) pressed the actual blood of their collaborators into 10 copies of the limited-edition vinyl release Heady Fwends, which they then sold for $2,500 apiece. Compared to all that, this sound relatively tame: They’ve recorded a theme song for the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, who as I write this are duking it out in Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference Finals with the heavily favored San Antonio Spurs.
The song itself is a remake of the old Lips song “Race for the Prize,” rewritten with a schoolyard-like “Thunder up!” chant and lyrics that were apparently crowd-sourced from Twitter and include the immortal line, “Thunder came thundering,” which might be the best lyric in rock history since America’s “The heat was hot.” And wait! If the Thunder can defeat the Spurs and advance to the NBA Finals, there’s a good chance they’ll be facing…wait for it…the Miami Heat! The Heat will be Hot and the Thunder will come Thundering. It will be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Koan face-off of epic proportions.
Anyway, here’s the Lips’ basketball fight song, “Thunder Up: Racing for the Prize,” which is just so gosh-darned adorable that I can’t really imagine NBA fans embracing it. Then again, “Super Bowl Shuffle” happened. So who knows? And hey, maybe a little sunny psychedelic rock is just what Thunder fans need. After all, you probably have to be high to think they have a prayer against the Spurs. (He shoots! He scores! Sorry, OKC fans, couldn’t pass that one up.) [Update: OK, OKC fans. You were right, I was wrong. Can we still be friends?]
Flaming Lips collaborate on Record Store Day release with Bon Iver, Lightning Bolt and…Ke$ha?!?
(Photo: J. Michelle Martin Coyne)
Well, it’s not quite as bizarre as a 24-hour song released inside an actual human skull, but it’ll have to do. The Flaming Lips are releasing a new album of collaborations on limited-edition colored vinyl on Record Store Day (April 21st) and the guest list reads like one of those blatantly bogus Coachella lineups. Among the artists lending their vocal and musical talents to The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends: Chris Martin, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Erykah Badu, Bon Iver, Biz Markie, Neon Indian, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Prefuse 73, Tame Impala, Lightning Bolt, and Ke$ha. Yes, Ke$ha will appear on the same album as John Lennon’s widow and our favorite bass/drums noise-rock duo. We’ll give you a moment to bang your head on your keyboard and weep for humanity.
But wait, it gets better worse: Wayne Coyne recently told Rolling Stone that he had so much fun working with the slutwave princess that he’s considering teaming up again on her next album. “She’s a lot of fun and crazy and open to ideas,” Coyne insisted, “and she’s creative. She’s all these things that you don’t know.”
Now, to be fair, we haven’t heard the Ke$ha/Lips/Biz Markie track “2012″ yet, so who knows? Maybe it will blow our minds. After all, we’re talking about a band that once recorded a pretty dope song about Spongebob Squarepants. So anything’s possible. But Ke$ha brings such a diverse array of suck to everything she touches, from Flo Rida hooks to Bob Dylan covers, that we are not optimistic.
As for the rest of Heady Fwends: Several tracks from it are widely available on the Interwebs, including a live version of the Neon Indian collab, “Is David Bowie Dying?”, and the Bon Iver track, “Ashes in the Air,” which is predictably the one that has the hipster blogs all atwitter. But this being Weirdest Band in the World, we must leave you with the Lightning Bolt tune, which bears the fantastic title “I’m Working at NASA on Acid” and comes with this nifty little video released last August. Bolt fans, stay with it until about the three-minute mark; things start to get interesting, trust us.
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends will only be available on Record Store Day (Saturday, April 21st) at select independent retailers. To find a participating store near you, visit the official RSD site. You also might want to call ahead, because not every store will be carrying it, and the ones that do have it might sell out in a hurry.
There’s also a really cool video on the Flaming Lips website showing how the multi-colored vinyl for Heady Fwends was pressed. As you can see, every single copy is unique. Wonder what these puppies will fetch on eBay in a few months?
