Hey Party People,
Inevitably, we all jump on the blogwagon eventually.
And I've been bottling up my nerdy music anecdotes and bon mots for too long. I'm not a stranger to the blogging world though. I had one once, another music blog. That was like, three years ago though. A lifetime in the blur of the blogosphere. Sun rise, sun set -- it's a wide wild turning world, and I'm just trying to get my footing.
I haven't gotten out of the writing game though. I've been writing music reviews, band profiles and concert previews for a few publications, mostly Soundproof Magazine and 24 Hours Magazine in the past year. I love doing it, and I've got to interview some incredible musicians and hear some incredible music as a part of it. But I've been thinking for a while about creating a forum for my own musical musings and not the stories that are handed to me. What made me finally initiate it, though, was an idea for a story I got while watching the Coachella Festival live performance DVD.
The Flaming Lips' performance is second last, but certainly not the least. In fact, it obliterates "less is more". Balloons and confetti blanket the audience, there's smoke and lights and a singing nun puppet. The Frontman Wayne Coyne is dressed in his signature cult-y all white suit. He climbs into a giant inflatable sphere and, with the help of lots of stage crew members, is lifted onto the raised hands of the enchanted audience. It's sort of a bizarre image: he's a real life bubble boy, and he looks like a child learning to walk. He's lifted back on stage and emerges from the sphere, born again mid-performance, and finishes singing "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" with the help of his nun puppet. The experience is spiritual, childish, religious and a little Freudian. All this and more at a Flaming Lips gig.
At every Flaming Lips show there are a pack of fans dressed in animal costumes dancing on both sides of the stage. They get to watch and be a part of the show. Every Lips' fan has been or aspires to be one of those dancers who get to party with the band and meet them after the show. Myself included. More so than I am a fan of the group's music, I'm a fan of their over the top performances. Live music is fun and playful to be enjoyed in a community of like-minded fanatics, and is not something to be kicked and punched and robbed of your shoes over. I've seen a lot of great performances, but I've always looked forward to my chance to board the UFO and get intergalactic at a Flaming Lips gig. And I'm going to see what it takes to do it on stage at their Bluesfest 2010 performance, July 10 in Ottawa.
Until that happens, this blog will serve to document how it's done, if I can do it. It will also likely exhibit some casual daily remarks about this band or that album or their project or her book.
If you or anyone you know have some pull with the Bluesfest honchos or the Lips' animal wrangler, your good word would mean the galaxy to me.
Shine on you crazy diamonds,
V. Rachel "Rocky Racoon" Weldon
