• If we only lived in Britain we could enjoy the 10 new stamps that immortalize some of most popular British musicians and albums. According to NME, albums from the likes of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, New Order will be part of the collection, due January 7, 2010.

• The Flaming Lips have always been pegged as a drug band, but aside from the heavy drug of Steve Drozd chronicled in such great cinema as Fearless Freaks, principle Wayne Coyne has been quick to brush aside such assumptions. However, the recent announcement that the Lips would be doing a front-to-back cover album of Pink Floyd’s epic Dark Side of the Moon may make Dorothy and Toto point fingers all over again. The supposed iTunes-only release features help from Henry Rollins, Peaches, and cousin Dennis’ band, White Dwarfs. No concrete release date has been announced.

• Drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano is set to release a collaborative album with double bassist (not politician and renowned philanderer) John Edwards later this month. The limited LP, titled Tsktsking, will be released via London imprint Dancing Wayang.

• The phenomenon known as Rock Band and Guitar Hero has sucked in the building block king, Lego. Lego Rock Band, due November 3rd, has unveiled the rock personalities and songs included in the game. Blur, David Bowie, Supergrass, The Police and Iggy Pop contribute tracks and their Lego likenesses to the game among a heaping helping of acts popular and niche.

• Jemina Pearl, former chanteuse of Be Your Own Pet, debuted her video for “I Hate People” this week and you may recognize a personality or two that lend their prowess to the song and video:

• It’s pretty much all repeats on the talk shows this week. The two new performances you should check out are both on Jimmy Kimmel: The Temper Trap on Thursday (they’ll also be live on KEXP at 7AM that day!) and Echo & the Bunnymen on Friday.

Fans who were excited to hear the new songs during The Flaming Lips‘ spectacle of a live show this summer can now hear the official versions as their latest, Embryonic, hits stores in a deluxe edition this week, including a fur box set! (Why didn’t Blitzen Trapper think of that?):

Springing forth also this week are new progeny from KEXP favorites like Grant-Lee Phillips, Forro in the Dark, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, We All Have Hooks for Hands, The Heavy, and the long-awaited and excellent sophomore release from Engineers. Interesting debuts arise this week from The Temper Trap and Neon Indian as well as Bad Lieutenant, not the full frontal Harvey Keitel-fronted ultra-violent movie (though it’s the spark of inception for it), but the new project of New Order’s Bernard Sumner. Check out the full list from Largehearted Boy. Oh, and if it’s immaculate births you’re into, the Bob Dylan Christmas album is indeed a reality and can be yours now. Here are the rest of the highlights:

Hello, Michele Myers here. I produce a KEXP Documentary every week. Each one is a short story (5-8 minutes long) on a musical subject. We do these series in batches of 10. Some of my favorite series so far have been: Punk Evolution, The Heart of Soul, Masters of Turntablism and Portraits of Post-Punk. You can hear them all in the on-demand section of kexp.org.

Our current series is called Psychedelics and it traces the origins of psychedelic music from 1966 until today. This past week we covered Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips.

This is especially exciting because I went to their concert at Marymoor Park (near Seattle) this summer, and it was the best show I’ve ever seen. There are shows I’ve enjoyed more musically, but as far as the total experience The Flaming Lips ruled the school. They created this alternative reality… and we were standing in it.

Listen to this documentary to get the effect of what it was like to stand in blasts of light, while confetti cannons blazed and balloons filled the air.

Next week we’ll feature UK ambient house band The Orb! Tune in to hear KEXP Documentaries every Thursday at 3pm on Kevin Cole’s show and every Saturday at 2pm on Stevie Zoom’s show. You can also hear all of our produced KEXP Docs in the On Demand section of kexp.org.

photos by Jim Bennett

Last Friday, while some of us were attending the last of the Concerts at the Murals, others were out at Marymoor Park in Redmond watching the ecstatic spectacle of The Flaming Lips, supported by fellow Oklahomans Stardeath and White Dwarfs. Part New Years, part Christmas, part Mardi Gras, and a whole lot of fun, the show featured fog machines, a human-sized hamster ball, dancing girls with furry masks, stuffed gorillas, bouncing balls, and tons and tons of confetti. KEXP photographer Jim Bennett was on hand to capture the visual celebration for you:

Stardeath and White Dwarf

The Flaming Lips

view the full set here

As August 18th nears and the primaries grow ever closer, the Three Imaginary Girls encourage everyone to do their civic duty AND shake that booty. Make sure to mail in those primary ballots on time. Make P-Diddy proud! You know he’s watching you from afar with a giant white “Vote or Die” t-shirt… While you’re waiting for those white knuckled tight-squeeze election results, use your vote to chose one of the following recommended shows to elect your mayor of Seattle Rock City.

8/14/09: Reflection Eternal/Slum Village/Slaughterhouse/Raekwon/ Supernatural, Showbox — This is going to be an incredibly eclectic night of hip hop. Raekwon the Chef will be a lone killa bee on the swarm, but that’s not to say he won’t bring the sting! A member of Wu Tang Clan STILL ain’t nothin to f#$k with!

8/15/09: Warning: Danger, Jaguar Paw, Duvallstar, Funhouse – Warning: Danger is what would have happened if Black Flag were from the Pacific Northwest. The result is wild. The lead singer has performed shows in the past wearing protective gear for beekeepers. If this isn’t enough to entertain you on a Saturday night, there’s no hope for you!

8/17/09: Michael Roe, The Crocodile — Touring on the breathtaking We All Gonna Face the Rising Sun, Roe’s solo efforts will rock the Crock. He brings acoustic rock and old gospel together to create a toe tappin, handclappin, masterpiece.

8/18/09: The Cave Singers, Easy Street in-store {7pm, Queen Anne} — Easy Street is offering you the chance to see indie royalty up close and personal. You can pick up that Falco CD you’ve been eyeballing too. No one’s watching!

8/19/09: Pete Yorn, Showbox – Touring on new album Back and Fourth, Yorn is bringing it with the indie-dreamboatness. His sound is perfect for as intimate and cozy a place as the Showbox. He’s doing 2 shows, so if you miss 8/19, or just can’t wait to see him again, he’ll be playing on 8/20 as well.

8/20/09: “Love No Love NW Compilation Release” — Your Heart Breaks/Gina Young/Carrie Cark & The Lonesome Lovers/Pufferfish/Sage Redman/Andrea Wittgens/Central Services, Triple Door- This is a benefit show for local non-profit New Beginnings. Their mission is to “provide shelter, advocacy and support for battered women and their children; and to change attitudes and social institutions that foster and perpetuate violence.” 100% of the album sales will go to support this important work.

8/21/09: The Flaming Lips, Marymoor Park — Anyone who knows anything knows this is going to be a giant party! Do you like robots, glitter, and giant bunnies? Do you like songs about science and love? If so, this is the band for you!

Go rock your vote and your socks off! In the profound words of Chris Farley in Black Sheep by way of the fast recuperating Beastie Boys “You gotta fight for your right to vote!”

See you at the polls (the Imaginary ones, since we’re mailing em in)

Mary Kwatkosky-Lawlor (Imaginary Mimi)
*Three Imaginary Girls*

In high iPod rotation:
The Minus Five
With These Hands
The Pissed Jeans

(>Three Imaginary Girls is a Seattle-based website that showcases the great music of the Northwest and beyond to music lovers worldwide. We post a Seattle live show calendar to help you fill your day-planner with loads of great shows, as well as record reviews, live show reviews, and an imagi-blog to entertain you throughout the day.)

• After 16 years repping hip-hop music and culture, Vibe magazine has ceased publication. Since its inception in 1993, the magazine has chronicled hip-hop and R&B culture and even published a few books along the way.

• Sometimes being a superfan can pay off: Death Cab For Cutie fan Ross Ching made his own video for the DCFC song “Little Bribes” and now Atlantic has hired him for a future video project.

• Wayne Coyne has recently revealed that Karen O and MGMT collaborated with The Flaming Lips on their upcoming album. Apparently the difficulties of recording the new album, entitled Embryonic, were so great that he forgot he collaborated with them.

• The fallout from these file sharing/digital downloading times has caused some major labels to rethink their strategy and take a few tips from successful independent labels. In fact, Sony has gone so far as to join forces with IODA, who provide distribution, marketing, and technology solutions for many independent labels. Whether Sony will be the changer or the changee in this new arrangement remains to be seen.

• Pirating: the new business model. Seems The Pirate Bay, whose founders were recently sentenced to serve a year in jail and pay $3.6 million in damages, will be sold for over twice as much to Global Gaming Factory X AB, who plan to turn the bit torrent monster to a perfectly legal lapdog. Napster, anyone? …anyone?

• Don’t look for EELS to tour their new album, Hombre Lobo, any time soon. Frontman E (Mark Oliver Everett) tells Spinner that he’d rather not “disrespect the audience by going out there and doing something that [his] heart’s not into.” At least, that’s “right now.” After three world tours in four years, he’s earned a rest… just not too long of a rest… okay, E?

• U2 kicked off their new tour, their first in three years apparently (has it been that long?), at Barcelona’s Camp Nou and paid tribute to Michael Jackson by dedicating their performance of “Angel Of Harlem” to him. Bono, who reportedly called Michael “an unspeakable talent,” dropped lyrics to “Man In The Mirror” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” into the song. And in seeming Jacko fashion (too soon for a joke?), the Irish icons are asking fans to wear masks, but this time with the express purpose bringing attention to the incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, who’s been a political prisoner in her own country for 13 years. From photos submitted to the band’s website, The Edge will select the best to be featured in a gallery on U2.com.

Gregory A. Prez

• Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be at a festival curated by Spoon in the band’s birthplace of Austin? Apparently Britt Daniel and the band have, so they’ve turned your dreams into a reality. SPOONX3 is barnstorming Stubb’s Amphitheater July 9-11. Headlined by Spoon each evening, the shows will feature differing opening acts and the promise of new Spoon Material. Joining the group during the festivities will be Trail of Dead, Low, Atlas Sound, Dale Watson, Black Joe Lewis, and The Strange Boys.

• In the ever-increasing amalgamation of American and Latin culture, the upcoming Rudi y Cursi soundtrack will feature the likes of Devendra Banhart, Dios Malos, and Juana Molina providing their own takes on regional Mexican classics. The film’s star, Gael Garcia Bernal, also contributes a Spanish-infused version of the Cheap Trick classic, “I Want You to Want Me.” The OST hits iTunes May 5th with the physical release slated for June 9th.

• Sample surgeon Girl Talk — who chooses the mild-mannered moniker Gregg Gillis by day — tells Billboard that his current malleable material flirts with the idea of creating actual songs rather than focus on clipped mash-ups. Please, save you Negativland and Paul’s Boutique vitriol for another time.

• In advance of a new single, a new album, and their upcoming Sasquatch appearance, Portland group Viva Voce are sharing the first track from Rose City (May 26 on Barsuk). Check it out now:

• Oklahoma has little going for it. Aside from some beautiful landscapes and basketball bragging rights for stealing Seattle’s mediocre basketball franchise, the true beauty of Sooner state shines in the music of The Flaming Lips. It turns out the people of Oklahoma, voting on a new state rock song, resoundingly voted for the OKC-based band’s “Do You Realize?” to represent them. Their elected officials in the State House, however, had other plans. But decreeing it the rule of the people, Governor Brad Henry vetoes the House’s nay and gave the people what they wanted: a song about accepting death.

• Webzine Tiny Mix Tapes has delivered the site’s first compilation, Tiny Mix Tapes Vol. 1: Darfur. Featuring Jim O’Rourke, Frog Eyes, WHY? and Dan Deacon (among others) the CD/LP is a fundraising apparatus, with 100% (you are reading that right) going to the International Rescue Committee. To find out more or to buy the compilation, click here Good music for a good cause — you give and you get!

• Apparently there’s more milking to be done to the Nirvana legacy — this time in the form of a live DVD chronicling the band’s 1992 set at world-renowned Reading Festival. The November disc will also contain unseen footage and the dollar sign eyes of Courtney Love.

• The musical guests on the late night talk shows this week are mostly reruns, but it’s definitely worth staying up or setting your DVR for Antony and the Johnsons on the Late Late Show, Bat for Lashes on Letterman, and most definitely The Decemberists‘ return to the Colbert Report for a rematch after guitarist Chris Funk was out-shredded by Stephen Colbert himself. If you missed their first appearance, you can witness their shame now:
  
  

  The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
  Chris Funk
  colbertnation.com

  Here are the rest of the week’s highlights:
  

  Monday, April 27

  Jimmy Fallon: Morrissey (R 3/23/09)
  Last Call: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (R 4/3/09)
  Colbert Report: The Decemberists
  Jimmy Kimmel: Franz Ferdinand (R 4/16/09)
  Tavis Smiley: Prince

  Tuesday, April 28

  Last Call: The Duke Spirit (R 3/20/09)
  Ellen DeGeneres: Prince

  Wednesday, April 29

  David Letterman: Manchester Orchestra
  Late Late Show: Antony and the Johnsons
  Jimmy Fallon: Gomez (R 3/31/09)
  Last Call: Ben Harper & Relentless7 (R 3/27/09)

  Thursday, April 30

  Jay Leno: Starsailor
  Jimmy Fallon: Santigold (R 3/3/09)

  Friday, May 1

  David Letterman: Bat for Lashes
  Jimmy Fallon: Cold War Kids (R 4/3/09)
  Last Call: The Duke Spirit (R 4/15/09)

• Pixies are back together for another reunion. This time, however, it looks to be just a one-show shot: June 14th at the annual UK extravaganza Isle of Wight Festival.

• Speaking of Frank Black and Kim Deal: You may recall Frank manned the boards for the new Art Brut album, Art Brut vs. Satan, due in the states May 12th, but you may not know that he also has an album with wife Violet Clark under the moniker Grand Duchy. The first couple of mutilation’s debut is due April 14th. As for Deal, it is believed that The Breeders are recording a new EP. Whether its release will coincide with the band’s ATP: UK performance (The Breeders are also curators) is anyone’s guess.

• Speaking of ATP, The Flaming Lip-curated ATP: NY has added some new talent. The September 11-13th event will now welcome a reunited Jesus Lizard, The Feelies, and The Drones.

• More Jeff Buckley material is surfacing in the repackaged version of the phenom’s only studio album, Grace. The new CD/DVD combo, Grace Around the World, will feature new footage of Buckley performing songs from the original 1994 album — you guessed it — from all over the world. A documentary is also included in the 15th anniversary set. We think, however, it’s time to have an intervention with Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert although it’s hard to say anything when new Buckley footage keeps surfacing.

• Jack White’s new project is a bit of a supergroup: The Dead Weather consists of The Kills’ Alison Mosshart (VV) on vocals, The Raconteurs’ (Little) Jack Lawrence on bass, Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita on guitar, and Jack White on drums. Check out their first single, “Hang You From the Heavens”:

• Time-out for fun! Have you ever wanted to turn your computer keyboard into a drum machine? Now you can with Keyboard Drums. Note: if you have the slightest bit of timing, you’ll get frustrated quick. If you like syncopation and can type 100 non-words a minute, you’ll become your household’s Dan Deacon.

• Mac McCaughan’s days before Superchunk are being chronicled in a new digital compilation through McCaughan’s label, Merge — maybe you’ve heard of them? The McCaughan-featuring trio know as Wwax now has Like It or Not to spread their long out-of-print 7-inch LPs and cassettes. The 15-track MP3/FLAC download is already available. This is part of a new initiative from Merge, who have already re-release three Richard Buckner albums digitally and promise more re-issues and compilations to help the label celebrate 20 years of productivity.

• Devo has re-evolved, promising a new album by the fall. The news comes on the heels of the band’s SXSW (which finds the band performing with Tricky one evening and speaking another) and ATP: UK performances (the band will perform Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo! in its entirety).

• Don’t forget to set your DVR’s to catch your favorite bands hitting the talk show circuit this week. Here are the highlights:
  Monday, March 16

  Jimmy Fallon: Public Enemy
  Last Call: Adele (R 2/10/09)

  Tuesday, March 17

  David Letterman: Bell X1
  Jay Leno: The Soundtrack of Our Lives
  Jimmy Fallon: The Ting Tings

  Wednesday, March 18

  David Letterman: Modest Mouse
  Jimmy Fallon: Vampire Weekend
  Jimmy Kimmel: MSTRKRFT

  Thursday, March 19

  Daily Show: Bruce Springsteen
  Jimmy Kimmel: The Duke Spirit

  Friday, March 20

  Jay Leno: Chris Cornell
  Late Late Show: Conor Oberst (R 8/7/08)
  Last Call: The Duke Spirit