With new guitarist Ronald Jones and drummer Steven Drozd, the Flaming Lips cut 1993's sublime Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, which they supported by playing the second stage at Lollapalooza and touring the nation in a Ryder truck. Donahue soon exited to focus his full energies on Mercury Rev, followed by the departure of Roberts. Following a series of hopeful phone calls to Warner Bros., the company signed the Lips in 1991, and in 1992 their oft-delayed major-label debut, Hit to Death in the Future Head, appeared to little commercial notice. While touring in support of the Butthole Surfers, they played Buffalo, New York, where they were befriended by concert promoter Jonathan Donahue after a jam session with Donahue's nascent band Mercury Rev, he and Coyne became close friends, and Donahue eventually signed on as the group's sound technician.Īfter recording 1988's difficult Telepathic Surgery, English exited, reducing the Lips to the core duo of Coyne and Ivins after adding drummer Nathan Roberts, Donahue adopted the name Dingus and became a full-time member in time to cut 1990's stellar In a Priest Driven Ambulance while simultaneously recording the brilliant Mercury Rev debut, Yerself Is Steam. Continuing on as a trio, the Lips released 1986's Hear It Is, followed a year later by Oh My Gawd!!!.The Flaming Lips. When Mark Coyne soon departed to get married, Wayne assumed full control of the group in addition to remaining its lead guitarist, he also became the primary singer and songwriter. After progressing through an endless string of drummers, they recruited percussionist Richard English and recorded their self-titled debut, issued on green vinyl on their own Lovely Sorts of Death label in 1985. Giving themselves the nonsensical name the Flaming Lips (its origin variously attributed to a porn film, an obscure drug reference, or a dream in which a fiery Virgin Mary plants a kiss on Wayne in the back seat of his car), the band made its live debut at a local transvestite club. The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1983, when founder and guitarist Wayne Coyne allegedly stole a collection of musical instruments from an area church hall and enlisted his vocalist brother Mark and bassist Michael Ivins to start a band. An acid-bubblegum band with as much affinity for sweet melodies as blistering noise assaults, their off-kilter sound, uncommon emotional depth, and bizarre history (packed with tales of self-immolating fans and the like) firmly established them as true originals. From their beginnings as Oklahoma weirdos to their mid-'90s pop culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 2000s, the Lips rode one of the more surreal and haphazard career trajectories in pop music. Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands were so brave, so frequently brilliant, and so deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips. From their beginnings as Oklahoma weirdos to their mid-'90s pop culture
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