The Flaming Lips...

You must know more sociopaths than I do

I did go to an Ivy League school, so...

rivers cuomo really hurt you, huh?

He always had a good rep, but current Evil Wayne turn seemed to coincide with him leaving his wife, which in turn coincided with tales of him macking on young fans.

Which also coincided with the real fame whore stunts and truly ott silliness.

like i said

real fame whore stunts

they've done this stuff since day one

aren't most people into psychedelia also assholes? isn't that the point of the michael cera movie with the cactus?

lol

I'd agree with what DL said a few posts back. He's utterly charming in the Fearless Freaks documentary, but it still gives a good sense of a more complex personality. I always respected him for calling out rock star bullshit as you mention. I interviewed him for tQ three years back and he was really charming and open. He quite happily chatted away on the phone for an hour and a half, which is pretty generous. When I subsequently met him after the Ally Pally show he was really friendly and gave me a hug. There was perhaps the sense he was 'meeting his public', but he seemed genuine enough. As a long term fan who has always responded to his good vibes, it's been pretty disheartening to watch all this shit unfold.

As for the stunts... well, they've always had big ideas, which the less generous could dismiss as gimmicks, but I think there's a distinction between projects like Zaireeka and the car park jams, which are artistically valid, inventive and fun, and the stunts of the past couple of years, where it seems that he's become addicted to doing one wacky stunt after another. As a result, the two good records they've made (Embryonic and The Terror) have been buried in the sparkly neon avalanche. I don't actually object to them working with Miley - anything to wind up rockists - but it's all too much.

I was thinking more of guesting on 90210 (silly bid for attention) than Zaireeka (genuinely interesting work that doubles as stunt)

Aw but the 90210 thing is hilarious.

I too thought it was funny at the time. It's still an obvious fame-whore stunt.

that is kind of a mean-spirited and weird way to look at it

perhaps that sounds a bit harsh - I just meant that the motivation to go onto 90210 looks essentially like the same motivation to record with Miley Cyrus, ie "aren't we WACKY to be associating with this mainstream goofiness? It's going to be so fun and crazy and unpredictable!" Which, okay, that's what he wants to do. At a certain point (ie 30 years on) the juxtaposition isn't quite as entertaining, to me, as it maybe once was.

The 90210 thing is soooo different from what he's doing now. Different time, different goal, different context. It was a novelty not the norm.

he's made it the norm by virtue of necessity - how else do bands stay in the spotlight in the current media climate

and he's made it the norm by pursuing that tactic for 30 years

aren't most people into psychedelia also assholes? isn't that the point of the michael cera movie with the cactus?

― the glimmer man (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, May 12, 2014 12:42 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, otm. Psychedelic people tend to put a religious emphasis on their drug experiences, which is fine if you want to unwind once in a while but if you do that constantly then you just keep getting more and more self-absorbed the longer your addiction lasts.

Growing up loving the Lips Clouds/Zaireeka era in all the old interviews he kept stating he doesn't do drugs but good for people that do, but restating that personally he doesn't do drugs. It wasn't a huge focus of their act. Feel like it's a big part of the band brand nowadays. First Miley collab pic was not her singing or them working on music but her rolling a joint. When he was working w Kesha he kept hammering on about how cool she was because she does acid. Etc. Saw an interview last night where someone asked him about a collab and what brought them together and he just said "Well, they do a lot of drugs, so they must like us".

Someone upthread mentioned coke(???). I had no idea about this. It would certainly explain asshole behavior.

I've known a few assholes, all of them have a particularly charming side.

it does not mean they are not sincere when they are being charming

it means, etc

Is it really that unusual for music journalists to encounter engaging, entertaining, charismatic people who are also capable of being gigantic assholes when they turn off the charm? This is a personality trait you run into in classical and opera constantly; given the various stories I've heard about a number of famous pop/rock musicians, I assumed the trait carried over to that arena as well.

so in summary: gross disrespect for women, defies contractual agreements, blames racism on dog.

no racism is the name of his dog

Someone upthread mentioned coke(???). I had no idea about this. It would certainly explain asshole behavior.

He's definitely tweeted/instagramed a few pictures of coke in the studio, I specifically recall one with Kesha with a bunch of lines laid out on table in the studio.

xp Give journalists a little more credit, DJP. When someone's charming you probe the charm. You work out if it's just diverting patter or if they're willing to be candid and self-critical. You look for little cracks in the charm that suggest something less pleasant. You look at how they interact with other people, whether they've had the same bandmates, mgmt, crew, etc for years, what their general reputation is. That's why I'm surprised. This kind of disconnect really is unusual.

I started writing a bunch of irrelevant nonsense that doesn't really belong on this thread, but yeah I have dealt with several (would-be, perceived and actual) sociopaths in my life and Wayne Coyne's behavior doesn't shock me, nor his ability to be massively charming to the right people.

you're fooled until you're not

Would totally read a DJP thread about megalomaniac opera/classical musicians.

I didnt see it before, therefore it wasnt there, and now that i see it, it must be that they've changed - otherwise I would have spotted it before.

obligatory morbs obama zing

As I say, DL, they can be totally sincere with the charm, there's nothing to see-through, it can all be for real...

Anyway, I've said "They" enough now..

I have met a few of those people in the opera world too, and more of them are coke heads than you might think -- at least in Europe.

i have definitely interviewed some VERY charming actors and then heard horror stories from the publicists.

not the same thing at all (unless......??????) but i've read a lot of stories abt the lost prophets dude and how incredibly charming and "gracious" he was.

well, quite.

Next up...

very bad people can be very charming. in fact this is how they often get away with and are able to be even badder.

exactly.

We all like to think of ourselves as "good judges of character" and so on...

I feel like we've gotten a little too serious, can we go back to unregistered's takedown of some dude's Andrew WK joke?

I've never fully understood the whole Steev Mike thing.

or why anyone would care about it so deeply so as to produce these nutty time-cube like exposes

Someone upthread mentioned coke(???). I had no idea about this. It would certainly explain asshole behavior.

― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 12 May 2014 17:23 (3 hours ago) Permalink

From an interview with The Quietus last year:

I wanted to talk about your drug experiences while recording The Terror – were you sort-of inflicting brain damage on yourself?

WC: I only take MDMA and coke and stuff. I've only done acid a few times, but these drugs are like the recreational fun drugs. That's what I call them. I'm not doing them in any soul-searching way. Even mushrooms, I'm like [high voice] "ah, it's fun, we're awake and we're having fun!" Never "I need to go inside myself and discover". There are drugs that let you relax, there are drugs that let your mind not be whatever it is that's torturing you for a while, and sometimes when you wake up you have a different perspective. "Why did I worry about that so much?" That, for me, is the beauty of those sorts of drugs. Your mind that can't escape itself, drugs allow it to be not so intense.

I'm like [high voice] "ah, it's fun, we're awake and we're having fun!"

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121217060553/simpsons/images/4/49/Mr_Burns_needle.png

Oh no, MDMA, it's even worse than i thought :(

STEREOGUM: I noticed at festivals Diplo has started running around in a bubble much like yours, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that.

COYNE: Well, I don’t have that many thoughts on it. We played a show with Diplo in Costa Rica about two years ago, and we all hung out together. And we went and explored some forest together and got drunk together and did some cocaine together and talked about music and live shows and all this and hung out with his people from his Major Lazer ensemble and stuff. And we talked about, literally, the space bubble and lasers and confetti. And I had a feeling, not in a bad way, but I just had a feeling. He was like, “Man, I gotta do some shit that isn’t just me standing there behind the record player.” And I was kind of — not because it was bad — I was kind of wanting to stop doing the space bubble anyway.

so basically everyone hates Diplo

He's definitely tweeted/instagramed a few pictures of coke in the studio, I specifically recall one with Kesha with a bunch of lines laid out on table in the studio.

― djenter the dragon? (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, May 12, 2014 6:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was this story

In what can only been seen as an effort to work with someone even less-talented than Yoko Ono, Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips were in Nashville over the weekend recording some music with Ke$ha. We know this because Wayne Coyne sent out several tweets about it.

Being a good judge of character, I say this journo is an asshole.

Yeah, I linked that more for the pics rather than the writing.

A rolled up single?