"Flaming Lips - The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg"

First impressions always color subsequent interactions. Doesn't matter what kind of interaction--whether it's with another person, with a piece of technology, with a book, with music, with a movie...we use our first impressions to gauge how we ought to react to something the next time we encounter it, we use them as a baseline for what comes after.

This is especially true for me when it comes to music. The first song or album by a particular artist that I hear shapes the way I think of that artist when I approach other albums they've done. Take Van Morrison, for example. The first album of his I ever heard was Moondance, easily the best record he ever cut. Every other Van Morrison album I've heard since then has been compared, in one way or another, to Moondance. Is it as good as that one was? Does it fit the same style? Do I, in effect, like it as much as I did Moondance? That first impression from Moondance shaped the way I thought about Van Morrison's music--it established what I thought of as his style. When something didn't mesh with the style I thought of as Van Morrison's (based on that one album), I had to find a way to reconcile it in my mind.

Well, the same holds true in the case of the Flaming Lips. My first encounter with their stuff was through the song "She Don't Use Jelly," but I don't really count that because I wasn't aware of who they were at the time and I'd forgotten about that song by the time I started actually listening to the Flaming Lips a couple of years ago. I've been hesitant to get their earlier albums, because I knew their style back then was a little different, so until recently I only owned Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin. Both are excellent albums that sound, while different, as though they came from the same band. It's like what would happen if Neil Young took modern day psychedelia and blending it with folk, rock, and electronica, and I dig it.

Then I picked up The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg, a compilation containing the album In a Priest-Driven Ambulance and all sorts of demos and outtakes and extra songs cut during the sessions for that album. Ambulance came at the end of the first phase of the Lips' career, right before they signed to a major label and polished up their musicianship and songcraft considerably. In a lot of ways, this sounds like a completely different band--they're doing noise rock here rather than the more polished amalgam I'd heard in Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin.

But the music is still very interesting, and you get to see the embryonic form of what was to come later. Ambulance is excellent for what it attempts, and several of the cuts here could have appeared on later albums (with a little polish) and fit right in. There's a sort of unrestrained energy running through the entire album, an enthusiasm for playing loud and hard and sloppy that subsequent albums would lack. And its this enthusiasm and energy that ultimately makes Ambulance (and the assorted other songs included in the Jesus Egg collection) worthwhile.

Some of the best songs on this collection are the rocker "Unconsciously Screamin'," the lovely ballad "There You Are," and a bizarrely affecting cover of the Louis Armstrong classic "(What a) Wonderful World." A lot of the extra tracks tacked onto the end of the album and all of the second disc seem a little superfluous to the casual fan, but there are some interesting moments--the several versions of "Unconsciously Screamin'" help give a sense of the creative process involved in crafting that song, and the cover of Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?" is a joy to listen to.

I can see why some folks wouldn't like this album; especially if, like me, they came to the Flaming Lips via their more recent work. But it's still an interesting set full of quirks, tiny pleasures, and occasional glimpses of brilliance. This probably isn't the best place to start with the Flaming Lips, but it's a worthwhile trip once you're sure you like the band's work.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Flaming Lips, "There You Are"