The Flaming Lips know how to cause a scene. Whether its confetti cannons, Yetis, bubble boys, fake blood, or Wayne Coyne coming to life out of a giant psychotropic vagina, Oklahoma’s best acid-punks know a thing or two about theatrics. And so, to mark the release of Embryonic, their twelfth album, the band will play a secret MySpace show at a pop up store in Los Angeles tonight. Oddly enough, the pop up store just happens to be the Nike/Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood. Shhh, don’t tell. While tickets are super limited and only available on a first come, first serve basis, the Lips, crowd pleasers as they are, will stream the show live on the web. The fun started about 30 minutes ago and will go all day long. Bored? TWEET your review of their new record Embryonic, streaming at our new Tweet Release feature here. Or take a virtual trip to the Flaming Lips pop-up show over here.

The skinny:

It’s possible that over the past several weeks you’ve noticed the reviews slow to a trickle around these parts. We had our reasons! Cookies weren’t involved! Okay, maybe they were! All of us at Tripwire HQ are pleased to introduce to you today a new chapter in our “take” on music criticism—by handing over the keys. Starting this week and every Tuesday hereafter, we’ll be posting a full album stream through our friends over at LaLa. What we’d like you to do is lend us your brainwaves and tweet whatever crosses your mind while listening. Maybe there’s a riff you can’t get out of your head. A lyric? A moment? An image? If you’re feeling ambitious, spend your 124 characters reviewing the record as a whole. Just toss those tweets over to us at @thetripwire and by the end of the week, we’ll cobble together and share the beautiful mess of a madlib it creates. Or, if you’re a complete Luddite/TwitterHater, you can just leave a review in the comments section. We’re flexible. You’re the boss now.

This week’s album up for review is The Flaming Lips’ Embryonic, a psychedelic comeback if we’ve ever heard one.

“And for like ten minutes she would just do these fucking amazing animal yelps and screams and growling and all this shit.”

Now it makes sense. Wayne was referring to Karen’s O’s magical mystery vocals in this new Lips song, “I Can Be A Frog” off their upcoming album, Embryonic.

Freshly sharpened pencils, lumpy apple slices and All Tomorrow’s Parties: it must be back-to-school time! Located in upstate New York at a country club with a capacity of only 2,800, this music festival sounds exactly like the liberal arts colleges I would have sacrificed myself at age 17 to attend. But instead of semesters of boredom and years of loans, this is just one big orgiastic weekend, September 11-13, partially curated by free love-enthusiasts The Flaming Lips.

The Sunday lineup, hand-selected and headlined by the Lips, includes Super Furry Animals, Boredoms, Crystal Castles, Deerhoof with Martha Colburn, and best of all, No Age performing Hüsker Dü with Bob Mould. I’m seeing colors right now. Check out the full line-up here.

In related Flaming Lips news, a new digital EP, titled “Songs from The Future Album Embryonic” is available to ATP ticket purchasers for free, and at basement bargain price for the rest of us. The three-song sampler should get you salivating for their first studio full-length in three years, coming out this fall… It’s about damn time.

Chris Martin and co. seem to have mastered the art of the generic pop-rock song when they wrote the title track for their last album Viva La Vida. Why else would the British alt-rockers keep finding themselves under scrutiny from other musicians accusing Coldplay of ripping them off? First it was Joe Satriani, claiming the foursome stole the melody for “Viva la Vida” from his song “If I Could Fly”, but now Cat Stevens has joined in on the drama, claiming the band actually ripped off the melody from his song, “Foreigner Suite”.
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