THE DUKE ON
THE FEARLESS FREAKS – THE
WONDROUSLY IMPROBABLE STORY
OF THE FLAMING LIPS
THE FEARLESS FREAKS – THE
WONDROUSLY IMPROBABLE STORY
OF THE FLAMING LIPS
The truth of the matter, I feel obliged to relate, is that I was a
fairly late-comer to the table reserved for Folks What Dig The
Flaming Lips Somethin’ Savage. I could yack on about how it was The
Duke and The Duke alone who pushed She Don’t Use Jelly in the
direction of all that MTV rotation, but no, I’d be talking out my
arsehole, and worse, probably using some sort of comedy accent
nobody could ever hope to understand.
The horrible facts of the case are that, in the final analysis, it
would appear that it took until well after the release and
subsequent critical adoration of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
before I bothered to give them a second of my time. What happened
was I picked up Yoshimi and the album that preceded it, The Soft
Bulletin, on the very same day, and I have to say, man, it weren’t
no divine revelation flooding The Duke upon commencing the ol’
press-play / sit-back, 1-2 combo.
I thought it was very smart, for sure. I imagined students probably
dug the hell out of it. Intelligent, I mused, but that’s enough of
that.
The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi… were filed away, and who could even
begin to imagine whether or not The Duke would ever reach for them
ever again in the here or hereafter?
Until!
One day, one day when a fella was basking in the light of The
Libertines, I got a curious craving in the midst of the gut-paste.
Mother of fuck, I announced to no one in particular, I simply must
put on those records again, those records about Pink Bulletins or
Soft Robots or whatever the hell. Something tells me these records
are just about set for to blow The Duke’s balls out the back of his
head.
That right there, it would appear, is pretty much what occurred.
Three weeks later I was still pickin’ testicle out from behind my
ears.
I can only assume that the period of hibernation, all those months
spent curled up next to The Finger and The Fall in the CD cupboard,
it had somehow rejuvenated these compact CD’s. Some glorious
metamorphism had taken place, this oh-so-clever “student music” had
somehow, via means I can only assume to have included plenty voodoo
and pixie-dust, become the most spellbinding, life-affirming music
I had heard since back in the day when the girl with the eyes like
fire used to lull me to sleep by singing softly bout sweets.
What immediately occurred was that The Flaming Lips subtly
infiltrated every corner of every list I ever made, particularly
lists concerning Songs What Make Me Feel Like Bubbles or Songs What
Make The Dawn Last A Fortnight.
The Flaming Lips, it turned out, spent their time crafting glorious
symphonic, psychedelic, uplifting, spiritual pop music. It turned
out I loved them. It turned out nothing got a fella smiling like an
early morning chaser in the key of Race For The Prize.
Nowadays I adore these Flaming Lips fellas, and so you’ll be less
than amazed, dazzled, shocked to the back of the liver and so on,
when I reveal something about how The Fearless Freaks, Bradley
Beesley’s stunning career-spanning Lips documentary, got me giddy
as a fella hopped on the whiskey-cracks for the best part of a
month.
Less expected is banter along the lines of how this is undoubtedly
one of the best flicks of the year.
Look here, a quote for some poster of some sort in the future time;
“The Fearless Freaks, I dare say, is not just a fantastic
Rockumentary, but a truly glorious slice of cinema.”
What possesses a man to make these kindsa hyperbolic proclamations?
What the fuck sights has he seen for to instil such evangelical
zest?
Sights culled from every corner of The Flaming Lips’ existence, for
one thing. Beesley pays attention to the music, for sure, but he
pays just as much attention, if not more, to the human dramas, to
the characters behind those stunning compositions.
We see footage of The Fearless Freaks, a football team featuring a
buncha future-Lips plus siblings, friends, assorted dope-soaked
malcontents. We see Lips frontman Wayne Coyne talk us through an
armed robbery in a fast-food joint he used to work in. We see early
live-shows, the truly abysmal music serving as a superfluous
soundtrack to the demented stage-bound abandon. Fire, motorbikes
used as instruments, terrifying haircuts.
We see Wayne wandering around the set of his in-production sci-fi
opus Christmas On Mars, a wonderful spacecraft set erected in his
driveway.
We see musical genius Steve Drodz shooting up in a tiny garden
shed, talking us through the procedure, the brown bubbling away on
a spoon, Drodz peeking out the window as he prepares a vein, then
gabbering maniacally as the “orgasm” ploughs a furrow from his arm
to his brain. I imagine that even if the last thing you can think
of wanting to do is sitting down with Yoshimi and her Robots of an
evening, that scene right there will still kick the teeth out any
face fit to gaze.
A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, indeed.
The Fearless Freaks is fit to sit alongside any rock documentary
you care to mention, it’s a flick that transcends the musical
shenanigans to become something that anyone with a thirst for
beautiful character sketches or human drama, whether unbearably
tragic or wonderfully uplifting, really needs to be seeing.
The same way The Duke cheered for hours after seeing Some Kind Of
Monster, despite the fact that the subject – Metallica make a truly
shitty record – seems like the last thing anyone wants to be
bothered with, the same way Hated – GG Allin & The Murder Junkies
is a mesmerising flick regardless of the shockingly feckless
tunesmithery, just the same is how The Fearless Freaks slaps a
man's yap purple with tragedy, with hope, with humanity and plenty
heart, even if the music ain’t nothing worth a damn to half the
audience.
The music is spellbinding, mind. Just that it don’t matter if you
don’t dig it, this is still a remarkable motion picture.
What it all comes down to, should you need a nice conclusion to the
tale, is that even if I couldn’t give less than half of nothing for
the tunes woven by these fellas, I think I would still find this to
be an incredible, bizarre, beautiful motion film that, for sure,
has a couple moments of serious gut-thrashing tragedy, but,
ultimately, reveals itself to be just about as uplifting as falling
asleep in the black and waking up with the sun teasing the blinds
and a street-choir stood across the road singing Waitin’ For A
Superman.
What it is, is a film about a buncha wonderful people who end up
becoming one of the most exciting rock bands in the here or there,
a group of people united by a love of punk-rock and The Butthole
Surfers, a buncha folks who initially couldn’t string a G# together
for all the money in fuck, who wander through any number of hiccups
and disasters to end up someplace close to divine.
The 2-Disc DVD is stuffed to the throat with extra tomfoolery, best
of which is the commentary track featuring the filmmakers and the
band themselves, filled with anecdotes and observations and surreal
revelations. Who knew one of em once won an Adam Ant lookalike
contest?
In addition, there’s a load of excellent deleted material, some
live performances, and the usual array of photo galleries and
slideshows and the like.
The Fearless Freaks is just a beautiful motion flick, is all there
is to it. I couldn’t recommend the damn thing any more if you had
me tied up with shoe-laces and hung over an inferno, threatening to
cut the binds at any second if I don’t relate with more zealous
mania just how fantastic it all is.
I love it with the kinda intensity could get a man a night in the
cells in certain quarters. Just fucking incredible, is all there is
to it.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Sign The Mondo Guestbook
fairly late-comer to the table reserved for Folks What Dig The
Flaming Lips Somethin’ Savage. I could yack on about how it was The
Duke and The Duke alone who pushed She Don’t Use Jelly in the
direction of all that MTV rotation, but no, I’d be talking out my
arsehole, and worse, probably using some sort of comedy accent
nobody could ever hope to understand.
The horrible facts of the case are that, in the final analysis, it
would appear that it took until well after the release and
subsequent critical adoration of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
before I bothered to give them a second of my time. What happened
was I picked up Yoshimi and the album that preceded it, The Soft
Bulletin, on the very same day, and I have to say, man, it weren’t
no divine revelation flooding The Duke upon commencing the ol’
press-play / sit-back, 1-2 combo.
I thought it was very smart, for sure. I imagined students probably
dug the hell out of it. Intelligent, I mused, but that’s enough of
that.
The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi… were filed away, and who could even
begin to imagine whether or not The Duke would ever reach for them
ever again in the here or hereafter?
Until!
One day, one day when a fella was basking in the light of The
Libertines, I got a curious craving in the midst of the gut-paste.
Mother of fuck, I announced to no one in particular, I simply must
put on those records again, those records about Pink Bulletins or
Soft Robots or whatever the hell. Something tells me these records
are just about set for to blow The Duke’s balls out the back of his
head.
That right there, it would appear, is pretty much what occurred.
Three weeks later I was still pickin’ testicle out from behind my
ears.
I can only assume that the period of hibernation, all those months
spent curled up next to The Finger and The Fall in the CD cupboard,
it had somehow rejuvenated these compact CD’s. Some glorious
metamorphism had taken place, this oh-so-clever “student music” had
somehow, via means I can only assume to have included plenty voodoo
and pixie-dust, become the most spellbinding, life-affirming music
I had heard since back in the day when the girl with the eyes like
fire used to lull me to sleep by singing softly bout sweets.
What immediately occurred was that The Flaming Lips subtly
infiltrated every corner of every list I ever made, particularly
lists concerning Songs What Make Me Feel Like Bubbles or Songs What
Make The Dawn Last A Fortnight.
The Flaming Lips, it turned out, spent their time crafting glorious
symphonic, psychedelic, uplifting, spiritual pop music. It turned
out I loved them. It turned out nothing got a fella smiling like an
early morning chaser in the key of Race For The Prize.
Nowadays I adore these Flaming Lips fellas, and so you’ll be less
than amazed, dazzled, shocked to the back of the liver and so on,
when I reveal something about how The Fearless Freaks, Bradley
Beesley’s stunning career-spanning Lips documentary, got me giddy
as a fella hopped on the whiskey-cracks for the best part of a
month.
Less expected is banter along the lines of how this is undoubtedly
one of the best flicks of the year.
Look here, a quote for some poster of some sort in the future time;
“The Fearless Freaks, I dare say, is not just a fantastic
Rockumentary, but a truly glorious slice of cinema.”
What possesses a man to make these kindsa hyperbolic proclamations?
What the fuck sights has he seen for to instil such evangelical
zest?
Sights culled from every corner of The Flaming Lips’ existence, for
one thing. Beesley pays attention to the music, for sure, but he
pays just as much attention, if not more, to the human dramas, to
the characters behind those stunning compositions.
We see footage of The Fearless Freaks, a football team featuring a
buncha future-Lips plus siblings, friends, assorted dope-soaked
malcontents. We see Lips frontman Wayne Coyne talk us through an
armed robbery in a fast-food joint he used to work in. We see early
live-shows, the truly abysmal music serving as a superfluous
soundtrack to the demented stage-bound abandon. Fire, motorbikes
used as instruments, terrifying haircuts.
We see Wayne wandering around the set of his in-production sci-fi
opus Christmas On Mars, a wonderful spacecraft set erected in his
driveway.
We see musical genius Steve Drodz shooting up in a tiny garden
shed, talking us through the procedure, the brown bubbling away on
a spoon, Drodz peeking out the window as he prepares a vein, then
gabbering maniacally as the “orgasm” ploughs a furrow from his arm
to his brain. I imagine that even if the last thing you can think
of wanting to do is sitting down with Yoshimi and her Robots of an
evening, that scene right there will still kick the teeth out any
face fit to gaze.
A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, indeed.
The Fearless Freaks is fit to sit alongside any rock documentary
you care to mention, it’s a flick that transcends the musical
shenanigans to become something that anyone with a thirst for
beautiful character sketches or human drama, whether unbearably
tragic or wonderfully uplifting, really needs to be seeing.
The same way The Duke cheered for hours after seeing Some Kind Of
Monster, despite the fact that the subject – Metallica make a truly
shitty record – seems like the last thing anyone wants to be
bothered with, the same way Hated – GG Allin & The Murder Junkies
is a mesmerising flick regardless of the shockingly feckless
tunesmithery, just the same is how The Fearless Freaks slaps a
man's yap purple with tragedy, with hope, with humanity and plenty
heart, even if the music ain’t nothing worth a damn to half the
audience.
The music is spellbinding, mind. Just that it don’t matter if you
don’t dig it, this is still a remarkable motion picture.
What it all comes down to, should you need a nice conclusion to the
tale, is that even if I couldn’t give less than half of nothing for
the tunes woven by these fellas, I think I would still find this to
be an incredible, bizarre, beautiful motion film that, for sure,
has a couple moments of serious gut-thrashing tragedy, but,
ultimately, reveals itself to be just about as uplifting as falling
asleep in the black and waking up with the sun teasing the blinds
and a street-choir stood across the road singing Waitin’ For A
Superman.
What it is, is a film about a buncha wonderful people who end up
becoming one of the most exciting rock bands in the here or there,
a group of people united by a love of punk-rock and The Butthole
Surfers, a buncha folks who initially couldn’t string a G# together
for all the money in fuck, who wander through any number of hiccups
and disasters to end up someplace close to divine.
The 2-Disc DVD is stuffed to the throat with extra tomfoolery, best
of which is the commentary track featuring the filmmakers and the
band themselves, filled with anecdotes and observations and surreal
revelations. Who knew one of em once won an Adam Ant lookalike
contest?
In addition, there’s a load of excellent deleted material, some
live performances, and the usual array of photo galleries and
slideshows and the like.
The Fearless Freaks is just a beautiful motion flick, is all there
is to it. I couldn’t recommend the damn thing any more if you had
me tied up with shoe-laces and hung over an inferno, threatening to
cut the binds at any second if I don’t relate with more zealous
mania just how fantastic it all is.
I love it with the kinda intensity could get a man a night in the
cells in certain quarters. Just fucking incredible, is all there is
to it.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Sign The Mondo Guestbook
