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July 08, 2005

The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks

Via my Netflix account, I watched the new Flaming Lips documentary The Fearless Freaks a couple of weeks ago. Created by Brad Beesley, who has worked with the band on numerous videos and other projects, it focuses on the core members of the group and features a lot of home movies and footage taken in Wayne Coyne's Oklahoma City locale. If you're a fan, I enthusiastically recommend it, but I'm afraid that it won't interest those people who are not fans.

My favorite scene is on the bonus disc and shows Wayne at what appears to be a family Christmas gathering. He hides in the kitchen dressed as Santa, and uses a stage prop smoke machine and one of their handheld spotlights to make a grand, and almost scary, entrance into the party.

And this is really cool: Tiny Mix Tapes quotes Wayne Coyne from the introduction of the CD soundtrack, "There's lots of embarrassing clips of us with weird haircuts, and bad clothes, and though this CD has a very limited run of only a few hundred, all who can are urged to copy it and put it on the Internet and do whatever you can do with it. Please, please do not pay hard-earned money for it." So there you go, download the CD soundtrack here.

After watching the video, I came away with the understanding that The Flaming Lips, with their collaborative spirit, experimental temperament, and entertaining personas, are one of the best bands ever. The second thing I learned is that everyone in Oklahoma City is on drugs (that's not true, but this film sure makes it seem that way).

Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for the soundtrack tip and the photo.

Posted on July 8, 2005 12:44 PM | Category: Music

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