Monday, April 19, 2010

Puttin' on a show

Well, it looks like this is YouTube embedding week. Last night, I went down to campus with a couple of friends to see the Flaming Lips. The Lips, by now, have become as famous for their entertaining onstage theatrics as they ever were for their music--and the band did not disappoint here in Ithaca, rolling out the streamers, balloons, confetti, disco dome, naked karate girl movies, hamster ball, and laser pointers that have brought them such renown.

Actually, they did disappoint some people--a few of my students today (I'm afraid I wasted about ten minutes of class time talking about the concert) expressed their underwhelmment at the hands of the Lips' neo-Vaudvillean onslaught. The show seemed corny and fake to them--one of them directed me to this video--


--as an illustration of what he doesn't like about Coyne & company. It's the word "gags" that bothered my student--he wanted spontaneity, and what he got was a bunch of tricks.

He's got a point. But what are creative writing classes about, if not learning a few tricks? The fact is, concertgoers (and, ultimately, readers) are aware that you're putting on a show, and that you have adopted certain techniques to amaze, amuse, and inform. A writer wants to express some of her idiosyncrasy, her unique take on things--but at the same time, she doesn't want to repulse you with the unformed gush of her unconscious. A writer trims, tweaks, emphasizes. She employs a few of the literary props she knows you're gonna like, in order to get you to appreciate the ideas that might otherwise put you off. The least compromising writers may have the most integrity, but, with a few exceptions, they're bound to have the fewest readers, too.

So you have to decide--do you want to play to a half-empty club, or do you want to fill a stadium? I remember the Lips when they could barely do the former, but I must say I have no problem with them managing the latter. Personally, I suspect that, as a writer, I'm more CBGB than Astrodome--but 20 years ago I would have said the same thing about the Lips. Giant laser hands, here I come!

9 comments:

Sasha said...

I love tricks, gags, formulas, nods, Easter Eggs...but I HATE the Flaming Lips' show.

1. Their payoffs are never worth their set-ups. Fifteen minutes to blow up a clear balloon so Dude can crowd-surf? Blah. What's the payoff there--that now instead of standing on the stage, he's now (finally) rolling around NEAR the stage? Besides, I could crowd-surf that whole time myself, with no waiting and more fun. Or what about randomly swinging a sparkly thing around? If you're going to put on a show and there are sparkly things, they goddamn better be on fire. Because otherwise, I could just set off firecrackers in my yard and get more of a show, with (again) no waiting and more fun. Constant anti-climaxing.

2. The gags are meaningless, which absolutely murders their already poor pay-off potential. If the gags are basically: we blow up this big balloon, and then you look at that big balloon, then how mind-blowing—or even interesting—can the experience be? The band tells you what to expect (shiny stuff! inappropriately-sized stuff! joke-y/sexy stuff! soft things gently drifting toward you!) and then they give it to you. Which is pretty much the definition of boring, unless you have serious control issues.

The gags never go anywhere interesting or unexpected, they’re lame facsimiles of relatively ordinary experiences, and they take FOREVER to get going. Everything in the show feels inconsequential and harmless. Terrible cause/effect ratio going on there, plus a total inability to scare and/or thrill. I don’t have a problem with the band using tricks, but I have a serious problem with their show-making craftsmanship.

(In short: I’m the prince of bloody darkness, Sharon—I can’t have bubbles.)

jon said...

there's always Alice Cooper's Guillotine, The Rolling Stone's Giant Pink Phallus, Frank Zappa's rubber chicken on a wire...lou reed shooting up water...hendrix playing with his teeth...i date myself (i know)...

ed skoog said...

Few things on earth are as excellent as a Flaming Lips concert, although the music itself is better than the show. I've been going to see them for twenty years--their shows in little rooms in Kansas were breathtaking and important, and are no less so now despite the heightening of scale. Last I saw them, I thought, man, a book of poems should be as tremendously dark and hopeful as a Flaming Lips show. And I'm tryin'.

Hope said...

I love the Lips, though I must agree that for me the music trumps the show. That's just the kind of girl I am. But I think Wayne is pretty unassailable. Or should be.

mccormick said...

I live in Oklahoma now, and it is difficult to describe how weird the Flaming Lips are to me within my new context. I mean I'm thinking of them playing Dark Side of the Moon--whole thing--on New Years at the Cox Center in Oklahoma City. Complete with bubbles, lasers, psychedelic whirligigs, animals real and fake, etc. This is a venue that is a ten minute walk from Toby Keith's Compound/Steakhouse. Wonderful, is what they are.

Z Cole said...

Hmm--what's the book equivalent of a flashy Flaming Lips concert?

Jason said...

"Hmm--what's the book equivalent of a flashy Flaming Lips concert?"

Possibly Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler...?

AC said...

Meh. I distrust the gags, like I distrust drugs. How unimaginative do they think we must be, if we let them impress us so easily?

Maybe I'm just bitter because I totally fell for the mad scientist/theremin player at that Meat Beat Manifesto show back in my gullible undergrad days. I actually wondered if the electricity was hurting him.

For some reason, though, I've always given the Danielson Familee a pass. Maybe because they looked like they'd be wearing those nurse uniforms around the house.

IBRAHIM said...

that was so good.