Original Article from Rolling Stone

There is a reason why the Flaming Lips have become one of the most improbably famous rock bands in the world: they are ridiculous. Seeing band ring in the new year at the Cox Center, their home city’s oldest venue for arena rock — in the same room where a teenage version of frontman Wayne Coyne once saw both the Who and Led Zeppelin give lessons on rock showmanship — it’s hard not to admire the Lips’ goofy charisma and general display of balls (both literal and metaphoric). Before launching into a set that would include a song-for-song cover of one of the most iconic rock albums of all time, Coyne reminded the sold-out crowd to look up whenever they stepped outside the venue. “Tonight there is a very rare full blue moon shining down on Oklahoma,” he said. “How lucky are we to have the universe cooperating with us completely tonight?”

For the next two and half hours, the universe mostly did cooperate. Having re-embraced their noisy, psych-rock roots with the release of 2009’s excellent Embryonic, the Lips struck a nice balance between the touchy-feely vibe of populist hits like “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” with freaky new jams like “Convinced of the Hex.” It’s easy to forget what a ridiculously great pop song “She Don’t Use Jelly” actually is until seeing it played in an arena at peak volume while an ocean of glow sticks and beers are hoisted into the air. After announcing an impromptu marriage proposal that had just taken place in the crowd (congrats to Tony and Debbie, whoever you are), Coyne serenaded the crowd with a sing-along version of Oklahoma’s official state rock song, “Do You Realize??” ushering in 2010 and showering the room with approximately one-gazillion balloons. He then pulled his wife onstage for a sweet “Welcome to 2010, motherfuckers!” midnight kiss.

The evening’s only buzzkill moment came from the long post-countdown transition from the classic Lips set to their Dark Side of Moon performance during which the stage was reconfigured and an already too-drunk crowd managed to get restless. Finally joined onstage by fellow Oklahoma freakologists Stardeath and White Dwarfs (featuring Coyne’s nephew Dennis), things got off to a rocky start. Once the green lasers and enormous Floyd-worthy mirror-dome got warmed up though, the band took admirable risks while working through Pink Floyd’s opus.

“Money” and “Time” were given an acid-wash kick in the pants and Steven Drozd provided a show-stopping replication of Dark Side’s female backing vocals. The set’s highlight was a gorgeous version of “Us and Them,” which revealed an obvious kinship between the Lips and their forebears. Like late-era Pink Floyd, the Flaming Lips are a band always struggling to reconcile its freaky, psych-rock tendencies with seemingly unsupressable pop leanings. In the wee hours of a brand new year, the results of said struggle were both messy and beautiful. “Maybe we’ll be able to do this forever” said Coyne before finally leaving the stage. Judging by the smiles on the faces of the crowd as they stumbled into the blue-moonlit night, he might just get his new year’s wish.

Set List:

The Flaming Lips:

“Race for the Prize”
“Silver Trembling Hands”
“Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”
“Vein of Stars”
“In The Morning of the Magicians”
“Convinced of the Hex”
“Evil”
“See the Leaves”
“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”
“Pompeii”
“The W.A.N.D.”
“She Don’t Use Jelly”
“Do You Realize??”

(New Year’s Countdown and balloon assault)

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs perform Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon:

“Speak to Me”
“Breathe”
“On The Run”
“Time”
“The Great Gig in the Sky”
“Money”
“Us and Them”
“Any Colour you Like”
“Brain Damage”
“Eclipse”

Read more articles from Rolling Stone

Original Article from Rolling Stone

The Flaming Lips will ring in 2010 by channeling Pink Floyd for a performance of Dark Side of the Moon during the Embryonic band’s New Years Eve Freakout!! concert at their native Oklahoma City’s Cox Center. According to the gig poster unveiled on the band’s official website, when the clock strikes midnight on 2010, Wayne Coyne and the Lips will launch into Pink Floyd’s legendary 1973 album with the help of the band Stardeath and White Dwarfs.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, the Flaming Lips recently rerecorded Dark Side in its entirety in the studio with the hopes of unveiling their rendition as a iTunes-only release. The album, which reportedly features cameos by Henry Rollins and Peaches, is a collaboration with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, a pack of Oklahoma City psych-rockers that boast Wayne’s nephew Dennis Coyne as its lead singer. Stardeath also opened for the Lips at the Soft Bulletin band’s last two New Year’s Eve shows.

Back in October, the Flaming Lips visited KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic to perform “Eclipse,” the closing track on Dark Side of the Moon. Listen to their interpretation over at the NPR Music site. This isn’t the first time a non-Pink Floyd cover band has taken on Dark Side in all its 43-minute glory live on stage: Phish previously assumed a “musical costume” and performed the entire LP in West Valley, Utah on November 2nd, 1998.

Related Stories:
Flaming Lips and Lenny Kravitz Wrap Voodoo Fest
Wayne Coyne ShamWows Us With Flaming Lips’ Furry “Embryonic”
Flaming Lips Road Test Dark New Tunes From “Embryonic” in L.A.

Read more articles from Rolling Stone

By now most everybody (stoned or otherwise) knows that watching The Wizard of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon unspools a motherload of eerie synchronicities. But did you know that the same thing happens when you combine Led Zeppelin IV and The Fellowship of the Ring? Or The Matrix and Metallica’s “Black Album”?

Fellowship of the IV and The Black Matrix are just two of the 17 full-length DVDs that you can pick up at Syncmovies.com. Other bizarre mash-ups include The Ozzorcist (Black Sabbath meets The Exorcist) and Nevermind the Memento (Nirvana’s Nevermind with Memento). The man behind the site and creator of these artifacts of black magic goes by the name “The DeVille,” a 48-year-old Atlanta-area native who does not reveal his real name for legal reasons. A doctor of synchronicity, he employs what he calls “the rainbow connection” to find them, looking for themes between the music and the film and then testing his theories via countless hours of trial and error. He happened upon the concept in 1999 when his son Ray hipped him to the legend of The Dark Side of Oz. “It just made my hair stand up,” says The DeVille of the first time he watched it.

Compelled by his discovery, The Deville quit his job in the collections department at the IRS and took a job at a video production company so he could hone what he was doing. Since then, The DeVille has devoted himself to making sync videos. His projects feature top-of-the line audio (some feature his own 5.1 surround sound mixes) and picture quality, and many come with subtitles featuring the movie’s original dialogue (as well as disclaimers urging his customers to support the studios and artists by buying the original movies and albums). Rock Daily decided to put some of these syncs to the test, and our results are below.

Movie: Fellowship of the IV
Combines: Led Zeppelin’s IV and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
“Whoa!” Level: Extremely high. Geek out to the highest level with this had-to-happen pairing. Robert Plant was obsessed enough with author J.R. Tolkien’s work to include Rings references in a number of Zeppelin songs. Packed to the hilt with synchronicities, this may be the one sync to rule them all.
Hot Sync: Frodo sheds a tear as Robert Plant sings “Don’t it make you feel sad when your trying to find your way home?”

Movie: Never Mind the Memento
Combines: Nirvana’s Nevermind and the 2000 thriller Memento
“Whoa!” Level: High. While the themes of Memento and Nevermind mesh well (alienation, self-loathing, references to guns), the fact that the scenes in this movie play out backwards means this is not the best disc to dive into for newbies.
Hot Sync: When it’s revealed that Leonard has written “He’s the one” on the back of a photo, it echoes the chorus to “In Bloom.”

Movie: Planes, Trains, and Candy-O
Combines: The Cars‘ Candy-O and the John Candy/Steve Martin vehicle Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
“Whoa!” Level: Medium. The DeVille has found a few hundred places where the movie and the music speak the same words at the same time, and he’s got the subtitles to prove it. This is an example of the lighter side of syncs.
Hot Sync: Ric Ocasek sings about a “clock machine” as Steve Martin is checking his watch.