On June 26th the limited edition Record Store Day double-LP set The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends will get a widespread release at digital outlets and on CD (pre-order the disk for $9.99 at Best Buy or Amazon now!). This new version will swap the vinyl edition’s final track (“I Don’t Want You to Die” featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin) for a previously unreleased collaboration with Aaron Behrens of Ghostland Observatory,“Tasered And Maced.” Hear both songs below.
On June 27th – the day after Heady Fwends’ widespread release (coincidence? I think not!) – The Flaming Lips will team with MTV’s third O Music Awards to oversee the world’s first 24-hour livestreamed awards show and play concerts in a Guinness World Records setting 8 different cities in one day. Follow along: a scrap book of comments, photos, reactions and other random thoughts from fans on a bus trailing the Lips on this historic day will be posted in real time to this blog. From now though the live-blogging post, previews and the latest updates will be posted at facebook/TheFutureHeart and twitter/FutureHeartDay.
Additionally, both the Lips as a group and Wayne Coyne individually have been nominated for awards. We the people select the winners: read more about the award show and voting process here.
The Lips have been preparing numerous songs they’ve NEVER performed in concert for these webcast shows, among them: “This Here Giraffe” (from 1995’s Clouds Taste Metallic), “It’s Summertime” (from 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots), “The Rain Song” (1973 Led Zeppelin cover) and Heady Fwends tracks (Ke$ha cut “2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)” and “Girl, You’re So Weird” with New Fumes).
According to fastcocreate the band “made a pact to stray away from the standard playlists on this mini-est of mini-tours.” Thus, they’re also working on an unidentified song from Zaireeka (their 1997 album consisting of four CD to be played simultaneously) and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart’s smash-single-that-never-was “Be My Head” (last played in 1994… and even then only a handful of times)!
And get this – it looks like Steven Drozd will make a partial return to playing drums in concert:
Additionally, last night at a special show in Lawrence, Kansas (Kliph Scurlock’s hometown) the Lips were joined on stage by Deerhoof to debut “21st Century Schizoid Man” – yes the 1969 King Crimson classic (known to the kiddies these day as the jam Kanye West sampled on “Power”).
The Flaming Lips will travel on their magical mystery 24 hour tour with a bunch of weirdos according to Wayne Coyne, who clarified to Spin, “all this feels exactly like what we’d like a tour to be but what it could never be…. playing weird little places off the path. “It’s like Easy Rider, except this time the rednecks don’t win.” As they travel they’ll join a range of artists playing concerts already in progress for “little mini-shows.” Among the artist they’ll collaborate with live: Jackson Browne, Neon Indian, Grimes, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, New Fumes, Phantogram and The Who’s legendary frontman Roger Daltrey (pictured below right with his pals Wayne and Michelle Coyne). In the initial press release for the trek Wayne described the journey as “Like when the Sex Pistols did their one and only American tour, the weird mid-south (Memphis to New Orleans), has something very absurd about it when contrasted with radical visionary musicians… Elvis and Jazz were at one time radical, but are now mainstream tourist attractions…”
This week Wayne Coyne elaborated on the 24 hour tour to Billboard: “It seems very possible we could get the world record — which I’m not even that interested in, but I think we’ve turned it into this… very interesting bunch of things for the Flaming Lips to do, to play with a bunch of our friends, play with a bunch of weird artists and for our audience who will be in tow with us. I think it will be a great, strange day that will go down in Flaming Lips history. And now that we’re in it and starting to realize what it’s all about, we’ll probably do days like this every year and just go to some very strange part of the world and do something that seems absurd and IS absurd. It makes life interesting, right.”
He added to fastcocreate.com: “I’m playing along with it all. Don’t get me wrong; it would be nice, in the end, if next year’s Guinness Book of World Records came out and the Flaming Lips were in it, as opposed to Jay-Z or whoever has the record now. But that’s not really my thrust…. The reason I want to do it is more about doing this very strange day and night and day, where we play all these shows with different artists we like, and have an audience of about 300 people who will make this trek with us,” Coyne says. “I like the idea that all of this core of our really great hardcore audience can join us and see us play all these little spots, playing music that we’ve never played before…I don’t think we would’ve thought of this on our own, but now that we’re figuring out how to get equipment from one place to the next and get it set up while we’re driving there, we’ll probably try to do shows like this again. I love doing stuff that’s completely unique and different for those fans. I think that’s the way the world is gonna go—that it isn’t just about ‘Can we get a bunch of people to give us a bunch of money at one time?”
In addition to performing the record-setting 8 shows, the Lips are also nominated for the “Digital Genius Award” – the same category Wayne lost to Bjork last year. This time the full band is up against Gorillaz, OK Go, Amanda Palmer and iamamiwhoami in that category and Wayne is nominated for “Most Extreme Fan Outreach” against Bon Jovi, Dustin Wong, Manchester Orchestra, Portugal. The Man, Snoop Dogg, Taylor Swift, Deadmau5, Riot In Paris and DJ Shadow. All nominees are listed here. Remember to vote often at omusicawards.com/vote.
The very notion of a band traveling throughout the south playing shows with a crowd of fans following is outrageous in itself. Add to that the Lips are aiming for a Guinness World Record, that they are live debuting numerous songs and bringing back others from long absences, that they are collaborating live with artists they’ve never performed with (for example, covering Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains The Same” with Grace Potter) and that Steven Drozd might make his long-awaited concert return to the drum kit and this is shaping up to be the most epic day in the Lips’ nearly 30 year history!
No, really…
Wayne Coyne: “I’ve accepted the job of, not DRIVING, but commandeering the Magical Mystery Merry Prankster bus… I’ve accepted the attempt at breaking the world record of performing 8 shows in 24 hours. And I’ve explained to the music freaks at MTV, VH1 and CMT that I am not a host… But, I always liked the way Jerry Lewis would get all sweaty toward the end of his yearly telethon…To play and sing Flaming Lips songs at 8:00 in the morning… Well… I’m open to new experiences…”
Below is the itinerary for the day. Click here for a more detailed show-by-show guide included full information on who they are playing with, what live rarities and covers you can expect to hear, how to get tickets etc…
24 Hour Tour: The Flaming Lips…
…withNew Fumes at Memphis, TN’s Handy Park on June 27; Doors 3:30 PM
…with Hour of the Time, Majesty Twelve (aka HOTT MT) at Clarksdale, MS’ Ground Zero Blues Club on June 27; Doors 6:30 p.m. (Gary Clark Jr opening)
Houses of the Holy Led Zeppelin covers with Grace Potter and The Nocturnals at Oxford, MS’ The Lyric on June 27; Doors 6:30 p.m.
…with Neon Indian (“Is David Bowie Dying??”) at Jackson, MS’ Duling Hall on June 28, 1 AM
…withJackson Browne at Hattiesburg, MS’ Benny’s Boom Boom Room June 28, 6:30 AM (Hunter Hayes also on the bill)
…withPhantogram (Dark Side of Moon?) at Biloxi, MS’ Hard Rock Casino on June 28, 9:45 AM (Neon Trees opening)
…with Linear Downfall at Baton Rouge, LA’s Varsity on June 28, 12:30 PM (GIVERS opening)
…withGrimes and The Who’s Roger Daltrey at New Orleans, LA’s House Of Blues on June 28, 4:00 PM
Note tickets are still available for some shows and partial proceeds from all sales will be donated to VH1’s Save the Music Foundation. Again, full ticket info (alongside show-by-show previews) is here.
The Future Heart 
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