Prog-minded punks or psychedelicised pop saboteurs? However you look at them, you'll arguably never be as baffled by The Flaming Lips as the band themselves. In RC 510, P frontman and creative spearhead Wayne Coyne guided us through 10 landmark Lips albums, from the DIY hit'n'hope of Oh My Gawd!!!... The Flaming Lips (1987) to the lysergic alt-rock of Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993), the immersive format fuckery of Zaireeka (1997), the hip-hop-inspired art-rock of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002) and beyond. Now, as the group celebrate their 40th anniversary and mark 20 years of Yoshimi... with a 5LP box set and tour, Coyne, now a father of two, is back via Zoom, talking from his hotel room ahead of a live show in Knoxville, Tennessee - to tell RC about the pact he made with the gods of music.
The Flaming Lips turn 40 this year. What does that mean to you?
Back in the 80s, when we had been around for five years, we'd think this is either like, oh, good, we're hanging in there; or: It's pathetic that we can't find anything better to do... And I never liked being young. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I didn't do anything except work on art and music. I didn't go out to bars or take drugs or anything, so I was already settled into being kind of an older guy. So, once I started to actually get older, it really began to make more sense for me. Twenty years is an insane amount of time for a weirdo band to be together doing stuff that already seemed insane. And you have to think, if The Rolling Stones have been around for 60 years, and we've been around for 40 years, it's not that big of a difference. So, I think we've gotten used to it, little by little.
You're the last man standing from the original line-up. Are The Flaming Lips still a band in the traditional sense? Or is it you plus the musicians you hire?
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Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.
The books every record collector should read. Vinyl, you may have heard, has made a big comeback. In 2022, sales of vinyl albums surpassed compact discs (CDs) for the first time in more than three decades in terms of global revenue, racking up more than $1.2bn.
"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.
David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods. For many, 1984 remains the nadir of his Phil Collins” phase; an artistic/sartonial/tonsorial disaster area. But was it really that awful? Forty years on, Matt Phillips explores Bowie's so-called annus horribilis.
7" Heaven & Hell the Story of the 45 - The 45 turns 75 this year. Matthew Quinlan charts its history, recalling the RPM wars and two belligerent titans who went into battle over the speed of spinning sound
Someone needs to come and empty the bins behind the Lloyds Bank branch in Kingston-upon-Thames. It’s been raining and flattened cardboard slumps next to a flytipped air conditioning unit and a rusting clothes rack. There are two signs at head height on the red brick wall. One warns that you’ll be clamped if you park here; the other, a stainless-steel plaque, marks Nipper’s 100th birthday. Nipper, the dog at the heart of the HMV and RCA Victor logos, was a white terrier with chocolate brown ears, maybe a Jack Russell, Smooth Fox, or Bull Terrier, more likely a mix. This is his final resting place. He was buried under a mulberry tree but, you know, urban sprawl, progress, etc. The plaque was unveiled by the Chairman of HMV Stores on 15 August 1984, while Captain Sensible, Janice Long, and a Nipper doppelganger looked on. Round the corner, at HMV and Our Price, George Michael’s Careless Whisper was flying off the shelves, and every copy turned at 45 RPM.
STARS ON 45s
A BUNCH OF MUSICIANS - 45, COUNT 'EM! RHAPSODISE ABOUT THEIR FAVOURITE SINGLE
THE TORTURED SHOPPER'S DEPARTMENT
John Coleman celebrates the great art of vinyl collecting on the 45th Anniversary of Record Collector and finds out, in an exhausting series of anxietyinducing sprees, how much vinyl you can buy today, ina variety of outlets, with 45.
Young American
A serendipitous collaboration with David Bowie in 1974 kick-started Luther Vandross' recording career. But he still faced an uphill struggle to succeed as a solo artist. Charles Waring talks to some of the singer's most trusted collaborators about his early years and how he battled to be heard....
MOD ALMIGHTY
Steve Ellis began his career as a mod in flower-power clobber as frontman of chart-toppers Love Affair. Quitting in 1970, he worked with The Who's Roger Daltrey then gave up music to become a docker before a near-death experience. Interest in his work was rekindled after hooking up with long-time fan Paul Weller. Lois Wilson hears how his romance with music endures.
ANARCHISTS IN THE UK
EXACTLY 45 YEARS AGO, CRASS, THE ANARCHIST ACTIVIST COLLECTIVE, WERE FINISHING PIVOTAL SECOND ALBUM, STATIONS OF THE CRASS.
The boy with the thorn in his side
David Cassidy was arguably the biggest solo star of the immediate post-Beatles era, yet his fame as well as his boyish good looks and extracurricular excessesovershadow the excellence of his breathily intimate, musically accomplished records. Simon Goddard, RC contributor and author of an acclaimed series of books on David Bowie, hails the work of the tortured pop idol
"I COULD JUST THROW MUD AT THE WALL"
There's little sign of slowing down from the 19-year-old Pete Townshend. Currently on the go: multi-media project The Age Of Anxiety; a dance production of Quadrophenia; and Pete Townshend Live In Concert 1985-2001, a 14-disc boxset of his solo in-concert recordings. Not, he admits, that his every whim and fancy are worth deeper exploration. \"Some of them are good ideas, some of them are pretty dumb,\"
