Musings of a Punk Rock Father

I have spent some time the last couple days listening to a pair of discs my friend Kyle made for me that are essentially "the Best of the Flaming Lips." He divided it up into "the Indie Years" and "the Warner Bros. Years."

The first disc is pretty straightforward rock; it actually at times reminds me of the Melvins. The comparison is probably inaccurate as far as most people would be concerned, but they fit in my mind. Lyrically, the Lips seem to have always been a bit bizarre, but then, so were the Melvins (not that I want to carry this comparison too far, because it honestly doesn't work).

But even the second disc doesn't get as far out there as I imagined the Lips would be. They certainly have taken the definition of rock music and stretched it a bit. They're songs seem to get longer, dreamier, more ambitious (all generalizations, I admit). Actually, to use the Melvins one more time, listen to an album like "Stoner Witch" and then listen to their "Snivlem" album -- the comparison doesn't seem so far-fetched now. But the Lips can certainly get weirder than most casual listeners will wish to endure, prompting the inevitable drug use question.

Anyway, as I listened to this, I started thinking about band evolutions (and in some cases, the lack thereof). Some bands need to evolve, others don't. The Flaming Lips needed to evolve, because their music becomes more interesting as time goes on. On the other hand, I don't think the Misfits needed to evolve. I love the simplicity of their music, how it all sounds similar; it is comforting, somehow. But then they did "Earth A.D." which is certainly an influential hardcore record, but it isn't the Misfits that I loved. I cannot comment on the post-Glenn Danzig Misfits, however, because I consider them to be an inferior band.

On a somewhat micro-scale as compared to the Flaming Lips, I like the evolution of the New Bomb Turks. The Turks started off as yet another loud, fast and brash group of punk-rockers, although, as a band made of English majors, the songs had some substance other bands lacked. If you go through their albums, you will see a progression into a more mature, more confident band. Their third album shows a huge jump forward, and is the album in which they used...horns. And not in the ska sense, more in the classic R&B sense. Within the world of punk rock, a move like this is major. I remember lead singer Eric Davidson telling me only half-joking when that album was released that "this is the album we've always wanted to make." It sounded -- and he acknowledged the fact -- like such a rock band cliche. "This is the album we've always wanted to make." So often that statement comes to defend a truly awful album, but in the case of "Scared Straight," it is true. The Turks sound great with horns, and piano, and whatever else they use to create a better song. If you listen to their last two proper albums, "Nightmare Scenario" and "The Night Before the Day the Earth Stood Still," you will hear a band with a sound truly their own, not aping anyone else and not watering it down to make it more palatable to a mass audience.

I still need to finish listening to the Flaming Lips stuff, though. Right now I'm on "The March of the Rotten Vegetable" -- I think that's what it is called. But is interesting to listen to a band's work all in one sitting just to appreciate where they've come from and where they've gone. And in the case of a band still making new music, looking forward to where they will go next.