Can nepotism be a genre? Seriously, these guys are the Flaming Lips Jr. Supposedly frontman Dennis Coyne is Wayne Cone’s nephew, but maybe that’s a cover story (kind of like how Jack Nicholson was led to believe his mother was his sister) and there’s some deep-seated family secrets hiding the truth and he’s actually Wayne’s secret son. Whatever the case, these guys don’t only sound like the Flaming Lips, they even seemed to have employed the same design team, as the cover art and liner notes ofThe Birth look like rejects from the the Yoshimi cover design sessions. Dennis worked as a roadie for his uncle’s band for a few years, so maybe the Flaming Lips are the only band he’s ever heard. It would make sense. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar; Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies, occasional psychedelic freak-outs, oblique lyrics about space, lasers and even a Superman reference. Really? Musically there is nothing wrong with this record, there is even one stand-out track, the bass-heavy “Those Who Are from the Sun Return to the Sun” but…it sounds just like the Flaming Lips! What’s the point? If I wanted to hear the Flaming Lips, I’d listen to The Flaming Lips, not their junior varsity squad. (Warner Bros 2009)
My first exposure to the Flaming Lips was seeing the video for “She Don’t Use Jelly” on MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead” show, which immediately pegged the Lips as a novelty in my mind (and not one that I even enjoyed all that much). How could one not see novelty in a song with a character who spreads Vaseline on her toast? This was kid stuff, and yes, I could be a silly kid, but where I drew my lines of tolerance for silliness were admittedly very arbitrary (example: I unironically enjoyed Mister Ed). As such, I completely shut out the Lips.
The buzz was loud and clear on Bee Thousand, the lo-fi masterpiece by Dayton alt-rockers Guided by Voices. This was the record that everyone positively had to own, so I borrowed it from a friend of mine…and totally didn’t get it. The songs aren’t finished! Are these demos? When lead singer Robert Pollard – whose last name should be a synonym for ‘prolific’ – saw a song to its completion, as he did on “Tractor Rape Chain,” I was definitely into it, but too many of the songs felt like piss takes to me, so I politely stayed off the bandwagon. Five years later, he made “Teenage FBI” with Ric Ocasek, which I loved, but still didn’t buy any of their records. Then they dropped Human Amusements at Hourly Rates, a compilation of Pollard’s more, ahem, finished songs, and I finally bit, and the disc scarcely left my CD player for months afterward. And then, of course, the band broke up just when I was beginning to appreciate them. Luckily, they recorded 16 albums in 17 years before calling it quits. The only question now is: which one do I start with? – David Medsker
