this weeks chosen ones

i expect this to be a week of Flaming Lips excess on the blog circuit. i'll admit i'm on the fence on whether or not i will be picking up At War With the Mystics when it comes out on tuesday. over the course of the weekend, i saw them on letterman, saw and their new video as well as a video of wayne walking down sixth in austin in a bubble (which made the boombox experiment from when i saw him in sxsw back when seem sane). maybe i'm getting old, but the freak flag thing doesn't always do it for me. the Lips were a mainstay for me at one point through the universally agreed upon greatness of the Soft Bulletin (even though it included something that i've renamed "the Mandy Moore crying in the rain song"). then their follow-up (Yoshimi) just fell flat on me. *shrug* the Lips have had a number of covers appear on their eps. one such ep released in '94 included a live cover of Smog's "Chosen One," one of my all-time favorite songs. it's not a very spectacular version and doesn't sound very Flaming Lips-like, but i do like how he tells the lead in story that reminds you of the local music atmosphere they began in and it also helps remind me of a time when the group didn't wear costumes. it's also my sole contribution to the impending week of Flaming Lips.

the Flaming Lips "Chosen One"