The Lips at Forty

Even after four decades, one of Oklahoma’s most avantgarde bands still rocks.

BY PRESTON JONES

I THOUGHT THERE was a virtue in always being cool,” Wayne Coyne warbles less than a minute into The Flaming Lips’ tenth studio album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

Taken from the LP’s opening track, “Fight Test,” it’s a knowing line, and one that serves a dual purpose. The song’s protagonist is wrestling with masculinity—“I should have fought him/But instead I let him/I let him take you”—just as the band performing it was coming off its critically acclaimed 1999 masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, which endeared the Oklahoma City act to legions of new fans and increased its mainstream visibility.

All of that is to say, the Grammywinning Yoshimi, which marked its twentieth anniversary in 2022, and the band—celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year—remain a vivid microcosm of The Flaming Lips’ left-of-center appeal.

“You don’t really want to just be doing the same thing year after year after year,” Coyne told the British music magazine Uncut last fall. “We’ve been around a long, long time. But luckily, every five or six years, it’s a little bit of a new world.” flaminglips.com

The riotous, carefree, and lysergic experimentation of the band’s early years gave way to an embrace (well, perhaps more of a side hug) by the musical mainstream, which in turn gave The Flaming Lips the wherewithal to spend much of the 2000s and 2010s plunging ever deeper into the recesses of the human heart and mind.

The psychedelically inclined rock band—currently counting Coyne, Steven Drozd, Derek Brown, Matt Duckworth Kirksey, and Nicholas Ley as its core membership—has always embodied the spirit of the state in which it formed. There is a questing, fearless quality to their music, befitting a state whose history includes land runs, moments when its residents charged headlong into the future with little more than their ambition and a desire to make something of themselves.

Whether it’s the bracing oddity of 1986’s debut Hear It Is, the loopy singularity of 1997’s Zaireeka project, or the harrowing intensity of 2013’s The Terror, The Lips rarely shy away from fusing glittering pop melodies with avant-garde presentation. That commitment to experimentation and finding new, creative ways to share a vision—not to mention the relentless work ethic Coyne and his bandmates have had from the earliest days—has made The Flaming Lips a persistent point of pride for the state, so much so that the band’s “Do You Realize??” was named the official rock song of Oklahoma in 2009.

What lies beyond the horizon? Apart from touring across the world to perform Yoshimi in full during 2023, only the group knows what is left to explore.

It’s vanishingly rare to think about the number of bands that have remained as creatively inspired and artistically challenging over such a span of years, and to know one of them has steadfastly called Oklahoma its home base throughout is to feel gratitude. The Flaming Lips could’ve been a phenomenon from anywhere—but it’s one that first freaked out right here at home. How cool is that?

It’s easy enough to learn about history in books, but to really get a sense of the past, there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself. Using these ten itineraries, travel the state to immerse yourself in the world of yesterday— no flux capacitor required: W hether touring historic hotels, Native museums, or decades-old restaurants, every Okie will find an angle to explore on this road trip.

THE JIM THORPE Home has been preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society so visitors can have a glimpse of what life looked like off the field for the Olympic gold medalist and his family. Don’t forget to take a gander at the 1876 Rice/Kerby log cabin, the oldest known homestead in Payne County, right next door. » 706 East Boston Avenue in Yale, (918) 387-2815 or facebook.com/jimthorpehome

NO COLLEGE WRESTLING program can claim more national titles in its history than the Oklahoma State Cowboys, so it’s fitting that the National Wrestling Hall of Fame calls Stillwater home. The hall not only honors legends of the sport— like brothers Pat and John Smith—but wrestlers who have gone on to great careers in other fields, like actor Mario Lopez.

» 405 West Hall of Fame Avenue in Stillwater, (405) 377-5243 or nwhof.org

SHARING A SPACE with city hall, the Johnny Bench Museum in Binger honors the area’s most

Ball Points

BY BEN LUSCHEN

It doesn’t matter what the rules are—if it’s athletics, there’s probably an Oklahoman somewhere at the top of the game. See some of the best history has to offer at these sporty sites.

famous former resident. Bench—who shone for the Cincinnati Reds alongside Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez in the 1970s and often still is called the greatest catcher in baseball history—got his start as the son of a propane salesman in the farming community.

» 202 West Main Street in Binger, (405) 656-2426 or johnnybench.com

UNLESS YOU GREW up in Commerce in the 1940s, you probably never got invited to young Mickey Mantle’s house for a game of catch. But if you grew up playing baseball in the ’50s or ’60s—and really any period after that—you probably dreamed about it. Thankfully, part of that dream never has to die, as the Boyhood Home of Mickey Mantle has been preserved in Commerce. » 319 South Quincy Street in Commerce, (918) 675-4373

THERE MIGHT NOT be a bigger or more varied collection of sports memorabilia in the

Sooner State than can be found in Guthrie’s Territorial Capital Sports Museum. Among the curiosities are displays honoring Earlene Risinger, the only Oklahoman to play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League depicted in A League of Their Own, and Harlem Globetrotter Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, who’s a founder of the museum. » 315 West Oklahoma Avenue in Guthrie, (405) 260-1342 or territorialcapitalsportsmuseum.org

AS COOPERSTOWN, NEW York, is to baseball, so is Oklahoma City to softball. The National Softball Hall of Fame chronicles the sport’s history from its creation in 1887 to the college game and the international exploits of Team USA—women and men—today. Don’t forget to check out the many championship plaques belonging to the Oklahoma Sooners.

» 2801 Northeast 50th Street in Oklahoma City, (405) 424-5266 or teamusa.org/usa-softball/ national-softball-hall-of-fame

1. CONSTRUCTION BEGAN on this 12,500-acre park in 1933, making Lake Murray State Park the oldest and largest in the state park system. Its iconic Tucker Tower, once intended to be a summer home for the state’s governor, now serves as a museum and 360-degree overlook above the park’s aquamarine lake. » (580) 223-4044 or TravelOK.com/ state-parks/lake-murray-state-park

2. ROMAN NOSE State Park is named for Southern Cheyenne chief Henry Roman Nose, whose profile graces the sign. Set among canyons and spring-fed creeks, the lodge, golf course, and rock-lined pool built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938 are a handful of highlights worth traveling for. » (580) 6234218 or TravelOK.com/state-parks/ roman-nose-state-park

3. CRADLED WITHIN the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma, Quartz Mountain State Park in Lone Wolf offers spectacular sunrises over Lake Altus-Lugert, some of the state’s starriest skies, and dramatic vistas. And with the roomy lodge, cabins, RV sites, and camping, it’s easy to kick your feet up. » (580) 563-2238 or TravelOK.com/stateparks/quartz-mountain-state-park