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Underground > Radio & Music >

Flaming Lips : Yoshimi Vs. the Pink Robots

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21:37 / 11.10.02

New artwork? If there's one thing you don't want to buy either this or Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid for, it's the artwork. Acid, in particular, has an astonishingly awful cover.

03:52 / 12.10.02

I'm lucky enough to be seeing the 'Lips with Beck Monday night at their warm-up show in Claremont, CA. A VERY happy monkey am I.

Yoshimi battles the Pink Robots was the first Flaming lips album I picked up, on Beck's indirect recommendation from this year's Shortlist of Music awards nominations - though their sense of melody and rhythm-change-up and their asskicking drumming were always well appreciated (I think the casual non-Flaming-Lips listener is familiar w/ 'She Don't Use Jelly/Vasoline' and 'Bad Days', great songs, but a woefully limited.)

It's a damn fine record. I've thought of it as a narrative as well, conjures a lot of very vivid visuals. As I've said, I'm a VERY happy monkey to be seeing them. From what I've heard, Beck's playing WITH them for awhile as the opening band, and they'll be doing a few Flaming Lips rewrites of Beck songs. Should be interesting.

18:16 / 13.10.02

i'm listening to day they shot the jesus egg/mushroom tapes right now and fucking love it! it's the first demo/outtakes/crap rec i have from this band, and is a must have for fans. actually, i'm overjoyed if not surprised that the lips are enjoying a new popularity. i noticed that the tower recs in philly (and probably all of them) have reduced all the old lips albums to $8.99. i know a lot of people won't support the corporate record store blah blah, but damn, what a good price.

i'm gonna fucking miss beck/lips both nights in ny. stupid college. stupid stupid college.
also missed 'em this summer w/ de la soul.

long live *ahem* alternative rock...
(are we still angry [in an early-90's style apathetic way] that our music has been dubbed "alt rock"? personally, i think it's funny, but really don't know what else to call it...)

Matthew Fluxington

22:13 / 11.11.02

Hey, according to Pitchfork, there's going to be a new Flaming Lips live-in-studio mini-album coming up over the next couple months. Here's the info:

A couple months back, the Flaming Lips released a promo-only live mini-album titled Yoshimi Wins! as a press perk to promote their latest release, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Yoshimi Wins! contains eight live performances recorded at various U.S. radio stations, and features four in-studio versions of tracks from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin, and four covers of songs recorded by Beck, Radiohead, Kylie Minogue, and Irving Berlin. According to inside sources at Warner Brothers, the record may now see commercial release. The label hopes to have Yoshimi Wins! on shelves sometime before Christmas, though a first-quarter 2003 release is more likely. Tracklist:

01 Do You Realize?? (CD101 Version)
02 Can't Get You Out of My Head (KEXP Version) [Kylie Minogue cover]
03 Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1 (AOL Sessions)
04 The Golden Age (CD101 Version) [Beck cover]
05 Waitin' for a Superman (WXPN Version)
06 Knives Out (KCRW Version) [Radiohead cover]
07 In the Morning of the Magicians (KCRW Version)
08 White Christmas (WXPN Version) [Irving Berlin cover]

That Radiohead cover is a work of genius, I've got it.

22:56 / 11.11.02

I was lucky, lucky, lucky last week, and got to see the Lips play at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, one of a tiny number of non-Beck gigs they're going in the states this year. Needless to say, it was fucking great. Twenty people in animal costumes lined the stage sides, armed with nautical spotlights. Steven and Micheal were also in the form of animalistic shamans, while Wayne was the ringleader in a cream suit, fistfuls of confetti ever-ready. Steven played drums on the opener ("Race For The Prize") and I thought I might die. Over the course of the set they did many favorites, bolstered by Yoshimi material ("Fight Test", "Y pt 1" "...Realize?") and a handful of covers -- "Knives Out", a Syd-era Floyd tune and a jokily inept version of "Where It's At". Over the course of all this, I managed to keep the top half of my head from cracking and falling off as I smiled like a child for two hours. They're simply one of the most giving and inspired shows in rock, and are on the fast track to becoming that rarest of birds, My Favorite Band.

Matthew Fluxington

01:31 / 12.11.02

Hey, did they do any Clouds Taste Metallic songs? When I saw them last, they were still doing "Lightning Strikes The Postman" and "When You Smile"...I'd hate to think that they would abandon those songs, or never play "Psychiatric Explorations..." or "The Guy Who Got A Headache..." ever again.

What other songs did Steven plays drums on? I can tell that you were blown away, but is he as amazing in person as on album?

Did they do "Are You A Hypnotist?"

02:13 / 12.11.02

No "Hypnotist", unfortunately. But yes, they did do "Postman", as well as "35,000 Feet of Despair". Steven drummed on "Postman", alternating between the kit in the bashy bits and his other instruments during the non-bashy stuff. He played on another track as well, but can't remember which, dammit. I want to say it was "When You Smile" but can't be sure - my brain is mush from a Hollywood weekend.

And he is every bit as good as on record (and as I'd remembered him from seeing them pre-Ronald freakout). He's so loud and solid and ON. Most of the other tracks had another drummer (I think Beck's Joey Waronker) playing, which was nice. That guy fucked up the end of "What is the light?" IIRC, and it was funny to watch Drozd react to that. Of course, Drozd started the "Where it's at" cover by teasing the audience with the keys before the band launched into it. By the time they'd hit bit where Wayne should've come in, he admitted that he only knew the chorus and started to just shout "Where it's at!", leaving the other three to catch up. Funny.

I was sad to not hear "Headache" or "Slow Nerve Action", esp since the latter would've been a great one to have Steven drumming on.

And they ended the show with "Somewhere over the Rainbow".

Matthew Fluxington

03:13 / 12.11.02

Did you see them perform on Conan O'Brien? They did "Do You Realize" on Halloween, with several people onstage in various costumes provided by the Conan/SNL prop department (sadly, the crazy corn guy and Foam Rubby Andy were not present), Wayne was a pirate, Michael and Steve were fuzzy furry creatures without the masks. The best thing for me was that they had some of Conan's sketch comedians pretending to play bass and some other instruments, making crazy rock faces and goofing around. It was one of the most silly and ridiculous performances I've ever seen on tv, it was just beautiful.

06:33 / 16.12.02

Just thought I would mention on here that their going to be on the Mark and Lard show (Radio 1 UK) today - starts at 13:00 I think.

11:26 / 23.01.03

Another update - not sure if anyone is interested, although it does sound quite interesting. Their going to be on Top of the Pops tomorrow night with Justine Timberlake playing the bass for em...

12:48 / 23.01.03

Do You Realise has to be their greatest, made even better by the way that All We Have Is Now forms a kind of coda to it, covering the same subject matter (the acceptance of death as inevitable, 'live for the moment' sentiments that in the

Yes, E. Randy Dupre. Yes! E. Randy Dupre. Yes!!, E. Randy Dupre!!.

Aff. This record is so *unfair*. It's one of those bittersweet moments in life when you listen to the album *you* would love to have made... I mean, listen to "Fight Test", and the lyrics to "Fight Test"...

I want to marry Wayne Coyne.

13:28 / 23.01.03

Another update - not sure if anyone is interested, although it does sound quite interesting. Their going to be on Top of the Pops tomorrow night with Justine Timberlake playing the bass for em...

And they're going to say 'happy birthday' to a guy who was in the audience in Nottingham, and by extension, the whole audience..

If they manage to replicate their whole insane psychedelic live show set-up on top of the Pops, it will be a glorious moment..

06:55 / 24.01.03

Was it me, or was the gig in Nottingham, like, totally amazing? Having had The Flips done on my 'must see' list for a while now I was rather happy to see all my expectations matched. I think I’m just a sucker for animal costumes, giant balloons, glitter, puppets, smoke machines and fake blood. Basically, the equation of "Waitin' For A Superman" and "Do You Realise??" plus mild amounts of chemicals, meant I was blasted so high that it took me a good number of hours to come down from spangly hippy-shit heaven.

Unfortunately, this meant that when a bloke from Q magazine grabbed me after the gig for some sort of vox pop, rather than a short, snappy soundbite detailing precisely how they they r00led, I ranted for ten minutes about the aesthetics of kitsch and the portrayal of grand emotion in pop music. What with me coming off like three kinds of semi-coherent quimbecile and a photograph that undoubtedly makes me look like a sweaty chimp post a boot in the lovegrapes, I have little hope of my dignity remaining if they run it.

The only other slight downside to the gig is that my MP *still* refuses to pass my proposed bill that allows me to hunt with horse, hound and pitchfork anybody who stands next to me and continually bawls out IN MY EAR old songs that a band CLEARLY ISN'T GOING TO PLAY. Silly bumbleheads.

13:55 / 24.01.03

No, it wasn't you. The show was that amazing and more so than I can express.

Hey, pity I don't know who the heck you are, otherwise I'd surely have said hello..

Yeah, perhaps the people shouting for old songs should have given it a rest after a while, but.. well, y'know, they've written hundreds of wonderful songs over the years, and the kids really dig 'em, so whatchagonnado?

I got a quick shout in for 'Moth in the Incubator' just to keep up appearances..

Matthew Fluxington

14:18 / 24.01.03

So, what did they play? Can you give us an approximate setlist?

14:35 / 24.01.03

Can't be certain this is all the songs, and it's probably not in the right order, but something along the lines of;

Race For The Prize
Fight Test
something which was apparently a cover of a Pink Floyd song..
Yoshimi Pt.1
Lightning Strikes the Postman
All We Have is Now
In the Morning of the Magicians
She Don't Use Jelly
Do You Realise?
Waiting For Superman

And shockingly, I don't remember what song they played for the encore, except that it was long, and good, and I was too dazed to identify it..

11:35 / 25.01.03

It was Lucifer Sam from Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Great song, fucking great cover.

I saw them on Tuesday. It's difficult to talk about without being overcome.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:58 / 28.01.03

I really violently disliked them for ages because of the singer's voice, like Mercury Rev, but sometime after 'Do You Realise?' stopped being played I softened a bit, and though I'm not yet in the 'liking them' camp I do find 'Yoshimi battles the Pink Robots' (the single) makes me smile all goofy-like when I hear it being played every ten minutes on XFM (the basic playlist on XFM is 'Electric Six, 'Flaming Lips, Electric Six, Flaming Lips...'). So I've got the album from the library and quite like it. And now I'm not sure exactly why I found them so irritating for so long.

23:09 / 04.05.03

This isn't exactly a question about Yoshimi, but I didn't want to start a whole new thread to ask a question that can be fairly simply answered: which version of "The Soft Bulletin" does everyone recommend to buy, the UK version (with Slow Motion) or the US version (with The Spiderbite Song)?

00:01 / 05.05.03

Y'know, I've still not heard The Spiderbite Song. I just can't imagine the album without Slow Motion on it , though; it forms the perfect transition between the two tracks that bookend it.

How about you buy either, download the track you're missing and rip a new copy of the album with both on?

00:10 / 05.05.03

On a Soft Bulletin tip, does anyone else think that the inclusion of the Race for the Prize and Waitin' for a Superman remixes ruins the end of the album? Their existence isn't justifed, let alone their inclusion as part of the track running on a proper release (neither adds anything to the originals and both manage to remove those elements that made the original tracks so special). I always hit the stop button at the end of Sleeping on the Roof in order to avoid them, which means Buggin' hardly ever gets played.

15:54 / 21.03.07

Holy crap.

Aaron Sorkin (THE WEST WING, STUDIO 60) will write the script for a Broadway musical based on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. It's to be directed by Des McAnuff, the impresario behind the Tommy musical.

Words fail me.

Uatu.is.watching

19:14 / 21.03.07

I have one word for this news: Mushrooms!

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