Remember that freaky orgy of a Flaming Lips video we told you about a few months ago? Well, the Oklahoma psych-punks wrapped production on it and shipped it off to the Internets for viewing. We can assure you that the the video, which features a bunch of naked Portlanders on mountain bikes, Wayne in his home, the bubble and a gigantic hair ball of a vagina birthing enough nude hippies to warrant its own Rainbow Gathering, is a pretty entertaining affair. We’re also going to go ahead and deem this Not Safe for Work. That is, of course, unless you work in a hospital on Mars, a vagina hair ball farm or Vincent Gallo’s production company. Not really sure what else we can say about this, as it really says it all itself, save that we haven’t seen this much pubic hair since we first got our hands on the Joy of Sex. Something tells me Alejandro Jodorowsky would dig this one.

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.

I mean…this just kind of speaks for itself.

The first time we were tipped off to the Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse collaboration, it came via a poster. This time it’s coming from across the pond.

As we told you, Danger Mouse and Linkous have written a 13-song album called Dark Night Of The Soul that features, among others, David Lynch, The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop, Frank Black and The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne.

Now, as revealed to NME, the album has a full track listing, release date (or approximate at least) and some special packaging.

Dark Night Of The Soul will be released sometime in June and will come packaged with a book of David Lynch photographs to accompany the music. It will retail at £38.99 (so, like twice as much in the U.S.) and be limited to 5,000 copies. And get this — there are no plans to release the album as a legal download or on any other formats. We assume that means the physical release will be on wax (or better be).

An exhibition will run in the Los Angeles Michael Kohn Gallery from May 30, showcasing the photographs alongside the music. Danger Mouse is also producing Beck’s follow-up to his 2006 album The Information.

Dark Night Of The Soul track listing
01. Revenge (featuring The Flaming Lips)
02. Just War (featuring Gruff Rhys)
03. Jaykub (featuring Jason Lytle)
04. Little Girl (featuring Julian Casablancas)
05. Angel’s Harp (featuring Frank Black)
06. Pain (featuring Iggy Pop)
07. Star Eyes (I Can’t Catch It) (featuring David Lynch)
08. Everytime I’m With You (featuring Jason Lytle)
09. Insane Lullaby (featuring James Mercer of The Shins)
10. Daddy’s Gone (featuring Nina Persson)
11. The Man Who Played God (featuring Suzanne Vega)
12. Grim Augury (featuring Vic Chestnutt)
13. Dark Night Of The Soul (featuring David Lynch)

You might want to refer to him as Professor Coyne from now on, because the Flaming Lips frontman is getting back to the classroom basics this August. The now veteran musician will be teaching music to students at the University of Central Oklahoma, as part of a new music program set up for the college. At least he has the hair to fit the part of the nutty professor.

The Oklahoma university has set up a new Academy of Contemporary Music, which is focused on giving students an in-depth look at the music industry from seasoned professionals. The school is enlisting the help of industry giants like Greg Kurstin (Lily Allen’s producer) and Warner Bros. Records General Manager Tom Biery among a few others, who will be teaching classes in guitar, bass, drum, and vocal performance, as well as music production.

Scott Booker, who is head of the Flaming Lips’ artist management company, is the head behind the new academy. Working alongside the university and state officials, Booker was able to bring the new academy to Oklahoma, with the help and partnership of the U.K’s Academy of Contemporary Music, which was founded in 1995, according to PopMatters.

The new program will provide some of the best music industry education available at a collegiate level, and classes will take place off of, you guessed it, Flaming Lips Alley in Oklahoma City’s Bricktown district. The idea of Coyne in a classroom is not that ridiculous of an idea, but we’re pretty sure Win Butler probably won’t be signing up on Coyne’s class anytime soon.

We’re willing to bet you’ve never heard Madonna quite like this. The Flaming Lips have managed to make a “Borderline” into a dreamy, otherworldly little opus, and Wayne Coyne sounds so earnest and desperate. Why do you keep on pushin’ his love over the borderline? Why?

Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has waved the white flag in the battle of indie-egos. As we told you back in March, Coyne had dissed the Arcade Fire pretty badly in an interview with Rolling Stone, fueling Arcade Fire’s Win Butler to verbally strike back. Now, Coyne has apologized for his words in Rolling Stone, and said the statement he made was misunderstood.

According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Coyne said he never meant his rude remarks to be aimed at the members of the Arcade Fire themselves, but at the people running their stages at a couple of festivals. Coyne said he wishes the incident never happened, and that he feels really bad about it.

“I like enough of their music,” Coyne said in the interview. “The idea that I’m somehow against them… I’m not!”

We are waiting for Win to give the yay or nay on Coyne’s most recent remarks, but it should put most of this silly argument to rest. If not, the next logical step after Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly would be for Coyne to speak with TMZ, and we all know what would happen then.

There is always a faint feeling of apprehension at the thought of Radiohead covers — lets face it, not many people can deliver a performance quite like Thom Yorke. But Macy Gray’s cover of “Creep” at the Los Angeles premiere of the music documentary The Heart is a Drum Machine, wasn’t all that bad.

The r&b songstress was backed by Matt Sorum, former member of Guns N’ Roses, on drums, and Billy Morrison of The Cult on guitar at the event, which took place at the Nike Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood. Along with Gray’s performance, Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction also played, covering The Rolling Stones‘ “Sympathy for the Devil”, and Juliette Lewis also performed. The event was part of the LA Weekend series of culture events.

The performances were done in celebration of The Heart is a Drum Machine’s release, which looks at the reality of music as a unique human expression. The film has a hoard of musical guests who discuss the idea behind the distinct musical/human relationship, including Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips, Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In this week’s Singles Collection, we visit some of the outer reaches of the sonic spectrum, with a voyage to some of the odder corners. This week’s trio of bands, two of which were reared deep in the ruddy Midwest, while the third is a gaggle of NYC miscreants, all currently plumb the depths of strange aural cocktails and willful obfuscation in their quest for, well, whatever the hell it is they’re looking for.

Getting us started this week is the debut offering from Columbus stargazers Outer Spacist, “The Mind is as Outer Space” b/w “I Talk with Telepathy Baby” on Columbus Discount Records. True to their name, they do seem to be from another planet entirely, albeit one populated by the ghosts of ’60s psych lords like The Seeds, Roky Erickson and Strawberry Alarm Clock. The A-Side is cut at 45, the B-Side at 33, which, if your not paying attention, drastically changes your initial impression of the flipside. Anyway, the A-Side is a sizzling romp, an acid-fried guitar rave-up accentuated by fat organ stabs, wildly oscillating synths and vocal histrionics the bridge the gap between Iggy and Black Randy. The B-Side is just as stunning, beginning life with a strange interpolation of “We’ve Only Just Begun”. then blasting itself into the cosmos on a stuttering backbeat and a skuzzy wall of shimmering, reverb-laden guitars and amazing lyrics like, “i’m a motherfucking space man, baby” (or that’s what it sounds like he’s on about) before the whole thing disintegrates into a raygun-wielding outro that sounds like someone hitting Buck Rogers with a sledgehammer. These are still available direct from CDR, or from your favorite local purveyor of the phonographic arts.

Next up we’ve got sneak peek of the new side-project from Chicago’s cosmic-Kraut lords Cave, Sneakers‘ Children Into People EP on the always awesome Permanent Records imprint. This 6-song effort emanates a hissing, This Heat-type malevolence from every pore, which, is definitely a very good thing. It’s cut at 33rpm, but at 45rpm it sounds like a hyper-speed Durutti Column, or some type of fantastic racket that would have caused people (drug-riddled or otherwise) to go bonkers at the Hacienda in ‘82. Every track here is a scorcher, but the highlight of the A-Side has to be “Chick Freaked Out”, a barn-burner of a tune prone to short, violent outbursts and that arrives crammed to the gills with terse, urgent riffing and heavily FX’d vocals that sound, in the best way possible, like a cross between Howard Devoto and Wayne Coyne. On the flip, closer “Nudes” takes the cake, with its demonic grooves and delirious clap-trapping. These aren’t out just yet, but make sure to check with Permanent Records soon to get you some.

Last but not least this week, we’ve got the new offering from Silk Flowers, “In This Place and Time” b/w “Frost” on Dean Spunt’s always intriguing Post Present Medium, the follow-up to their rapturously received self-released debut 7″. For some reason, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that the A-Side should be played at 78rpm, but regardless, it’s a killer slice of slow-burning punk noir, replete with a twittering melody and menacing keyboard lines that anchor the whole show in the murk. The flipside, “Frost”, is an oozing slice of organ-drenched meta-stain, pitched somewhere between B-Movie horror soundtracks and the incessantly chanted refrain the “It’s a Small World After All” ride at Disney. This is still widely available, but who knows for how long.

That’s all we’ve got for you this week, but make sure to hit us up again soon, as we’ve got some mega-awesome, super secret squirrel surprises (and a few changes) in store in the weeks to come.

Sigh. This is what it’s come to? It’s one thing for Rolling Stone to drop a quote in an interview with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips dissing Win Butler and The Arcade Fire for being pompous (doesn’t seem that hard to believe, does it?). But for them to run a headline in their “Smoking Section” that blasts, “Exclusive: Wayne Coyne Tears Apart Arcade Fire!” is quite another. Now the music-world is abuzz with the two iconic front men exchanging verbal blows through the media.

We have our own opinions of both (see the headline), but that’s a whole other story, because yesterday Rolling Stone posted a quote from Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips accusing the Arcade Fire of being dicks in real life. In fact, the entire quote looks like this:

I’m a fan of them on one level, but on another level I get really tired of their pompousness. We’ve played some shows with them and they really treat people like shit. Whenever I’ve been around them, I’ve found that they not only treated their crew like shit, they treated the audience like shit. They treated everybody in their vicinity like shit. I thought, ‘Who do they think they are?’ I don’t know why people put up with it. I wouldn’t put up with it. I don’t care if it’s Arcade Fire or Brian Eno. If either of them walked into a room and treated people like shit I’d be like, ‘Fuck you, get outta here.’

People treat Arcade Fire like they’re the greatest thing ever and they get away with it. Those sort of opinions change my view of their music. They have good tunes, but they’re pricks, so fuck ‘em. Who does Arcade Fire think they are? I’ve been around groups. I’ve been around the Edge from U2 and he’s the fucking sweetest guy ever. I was around Justin Timberlake when he was young and he was just a normal, nice, kind person. Anyone can be polite and kind and people who have the privilege and money and attention should understand that. If they don’t, then fuck ‘em.

Again, we can only speculate, but considering we’ve rarely seen the Arcade Fire smile, it doesn’t seem impossible to believe that they are not the most friendly of people. Still, it is rather unbecoming of Coyne to openly bash another band in one of the larger music publications of the world.

But don’t fret effeminate Arcade Fire fans, your leading man is not taking Mr. Coyne’s statements laying down. Today, Win Butler struck back by blogging (gasp!) about the incident on the Arcade Fire website (click on “Win”). If words could hurt, just imagine the pain Wayne would be feeling after getting verbally smacked up like this:

Wow, I can’t believe I am actually writing to defend my bands “real” personality. I wish I could not respond to something like this, but the reality is is that people will be asking me questions about it for the next 5 years. I also fear that people will base their opinion of our band on the media quotes of a guy who doesn’t even know us.

Win

So there you have it. Two grown men who each made about one great record apiece fighting through the media. If Oasis, Blur and hip-hop have taught us anything, this will keep both in the spotlight despite the ratio of good music coming out of either. So we figured, why take the high road? Might as well stoop to each of their levels and just make fun of them both. Congrats Mr. Coyne and Mr. Butler, we’ll be looking forward to the inevitable big festival you guys play together and waiting with bated breath to see if you guys slap it out like real “indie” rockers. Now THAT would be news!