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— by James Montgomery
There are several reasons to be worried about Wayne Coyne.
At the moment, he is swigging from two massive cans of Monster energy drink, cradling them on his hip like big, blue aluminum babies. He's also working on a towering glass of iced tea, taking it down in slow, measured sips. It's the kind of caffeinated cocktail that's necessary to combat sleep deprivation, and Coyne needs it. It's entirely possible that he has not slept in more than three days.
He's been wearing the same rumpled gray suit since he landed in Austin, Texas, 72 hours ago, and the lapels are jutting out at bizarre angles. The bags underneath his eyes are large and puffy. He is unshaven, lanky and lean, and as he totters through the lobby of a posh Texas hotel, he looks certifiably crazy — the kind of guy you might see at a bus stop somewhere downtown.
And maybe he senses the glaring eye of the tanned concierge, or the countless puzzled stares he's getting from the sea of senior citizens milling about the lobby, because when he approaches our table, he's walking with an agitated gait, and his eyes are wild. It's clear that he wants to get as far away from this hotel as possible.
"This place is sort of bizarre. I don't really know what's happening," he says, running his hand through his spotty beard. "There's this bagpiper who's been following me around all morning."
OK then!
This sort of experience is not uncommon for Coyne or the rest of the Flaming Lips, who for some 23 years have been scraggly outsiders pursued by lord-knows-who-or-what. Through a dozen albums and countless EPs and singles and reissues, they've fashioned an impressively healthy anti-career out of left-turns and oddball choices, having been, in various incarnations, noisy experimentalists, psychedelic noodlers, druggy art rockers, symphonic synth enthusiasts, pop stars and prog-rock aficionados.
Through it all, Coyne has served as the Lips' seemingly possessed ringleader, a tireless, unflappable, modern-day version of P.T. Barnum: His charisma and salesmanship have played no small role in the Lips' long, strange trip from being a blip on the cultural radar to full-fledged sorta-celebrities — a band with a bizarro résumé that defies all precedent and definition. They've performed on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and in parking garages around the world. They make mind-bending videos and psychedelic sci-fi films about aliens celebrating Christmas. They are — along with Sonic Youth, with whom they're touring this summer — one of the most underappreciated yet influential American rock acts of the past quarter century.
And despite their esteemed if not vastly lucrative status, they've still managed to make the trip from their native Oklahoma City to Austin for the South by Southwest Music Conference, the annual industry gathering that's as much about corporate-sponsored parties and free booze as it is about music. And for 72 hours, Coyne & Co. will run roughshod through it all, staging a pair of secret shows and — much to the dismay of event organizers — starting an impromptu concert/parade right through the heart of Austin.
In theory, the Lips are here to promote their upcoming album, the dense and sprawling At War With the Mystics (released on April 4), but according to Coyne, their SXSW trip had another purpose: To cut through the hype and the industry blather and just blow people's minds.
"I know that South by Southwest is full of hype and a bunch of expectations. So we didn't want to just play normal shows, we wanted to make them extra special. So we decided to play at horrible frat bars, like the kind of places where if you don't drink beer, you have to leave. It's a horribly dysfunctional place for a gigantic rock show, which makes it sort of perfect for a Flaming Lips show," he laughs. "Obviously we can't have big laser beams and TV screens and stuff, so we just decided to dump balloons into the crowd. And I have this confetti launcher, and I just set it off and let confetti rain down. It's just paper, but in the right context, you can make these things seem like a bit of magic.
"Audiences want something fantastical to happen. It's like going into a comedy club: 'If you've walked in here, you've come to laugh — you're not here for the dinner because the food sucks,' " he continues. "I feel like if you come to a Flaming Lips show — no matter where that show is being held — you're willing to look at some balloons and say, 'Wow, this is fantastic.' "
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