Withall the attention and surgence of popularity of Flaming Lips, it'sunsurprising that their older, pre-Warner Bros. material (which hasbecome increasingly harder to find) has been reissued through Restlessand Rykodisc. The good news is that there is a fairly large amount puremusical gold in the older material, and that these releases bring someattention to that. The bad news is that the early collection, Finally, The Punk Rockers Are Taking ACID, is pretty much fans-only material. It's not bad, but it's probably not what casual fans are going expect or even grow to like.
The 3 CDs that make up ACIDare packed with extras and b-sides, but overall, it's all pretty raw.It's like the first EP, which makes up the first five tracks on thefirst disc, sung by Mark Coyne (Wayne's brother who later left theband). It's great if you're a fan, with a cover of Sonic Youth's "DeathValley '69," Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush," along with someclassic Flaming Lips songs like "One Million Billionth Of A MillisecondOn A Sunday Morning." The majority of the material from the 3 disc setcomes from the band's first few albums, Hear It Is, OH MY GAWD!!!...The Flaming Lips and Telepathic Surgery.The only concession to space seems to be "Hell's Angel's CrackerFactory," edited down from 20+ minutes to three. Excellent liner notesby head Lip, Wayne, round out the set as a real gem. A cheaper, morecompact overview of the pre-Warner bros. Flaming Lips, 1984-1990, is also available on Restless.Samples:
The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus EGG on the other hand, is a 2-disc set made up of the In A Priest Driven Ambulance album (and some extras) and a CD version of the often-bootlegged Mushroom Tapes (demos and outtakes from the In A Priest Driven Ambulanceperiod). The album itself is the first truly great Flaming Lips recordand the last before they went to Warner Bros. and is in many ways, thepinnacle of the Flaming Lips' pre-Warner/punk days. It included theaddition of another guitarist, Jonathan Donahue (later in Mercury Rev)and it was also the first time they worked with Dave Fridman, who wouldhelp the band sculpt itself into what it has become (this album was hissenior year thesis in college.) There are moments of brilliancescattered casually all over the album: the ambient cricket sounds andpassing cars on "There You Are" are because the band recorded theacoustic guitars in the middle of the night in a grocery store parkinglot near a highway; Wayne's off-key singing which give the songs anearnest feel they would otherwise lack; and the use of Jesus as a"something to believe in" stand-in rather than as a religioussignifier. The original In A Priest Driven Ambulance albumclosed off with a lopsided, but very (unintentionally) sweet cover of"What A Wonderful World," but this expanded version has a few moreextras, including a medley of The Sonics' "Strychnine," and "(What's SoFunny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding." The second disc has afair amount of really cool outtakes, including a slide guitar jam thatlater became "There You Are." Also included are the two versions of oneof Priest Driven Ambulance's highlights, "Five Stop MotherSuperior Rain." One is made up of three minutes of feedback drones, theother twice as long and with a lovely piano line, while the original onthe first disc has melodic guitar lines instead of the piano. For abonus disc, it fulfils its purpose remarkably well—alongside the"Priest Driven Ambulance," the discs compliment each other beautifullyin a way that they couldn't alone.
- Five Stop Mother Superior Rain (original)
- Five Stop Mother Superior Rain (alternate)
- (What A) Wonderful World
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