Flaming Lips - Drug Machine

(Glitterhouse, 1988)

No! No! NO this is not the same version of “Drug Machine” that appears on the unfairly-trashed Telepathic Surgery, so you best get that STRAIGHT. It’s slower, sludgier, druggier, heavier, though with the same frantic helium-gtr solo that makes the doggone thing so spiffy on the LP. Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion (OR IS IT AN EARTH-SHAKING ACCUSATION?!?!) that the 7” is in fact just Wayne singing over a slowed-down instrumental of the album take – anyone out there agree? Either way, AGREE that it’s mighty clever to use the B-side in order to cram-jam the self-consciously evil Sonics (“Strychnine”) and the self-consciously AWARE Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello (“Peace, Love, and Understanding”) into a seamless, nonsensical medley that musta been all kindsa cool/uncool back in ’88. Whatever. This is a definite pair of dandies, and both are included on Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid, a compilation that’s a shocking, fried-amp wonderland for those youngsters who know the Flaming Lips only as over-earnest orchestro-beards who are so reliant on pre-recorded tapes in concert and ultra-spiff production in the studio that they couldn’t possibly handle “sloppy.” No? Well. Buy the early stuff and hear ’em when they wuz FUN and LOUD!!