Urban Dictionary defines “heady” as “An adjective describing a trait of certain strains of cannabis that causes their user to experience or perceive increased or enhanced cognitive activity or ability.” While pot talk is more or less absent in The Flaming Lips’ newest collaborative project, references to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds thrown out by Bon Iver, Ke$ha, and Nick Cave lend to the album’s title Heady Fwends.
The album (which was initially released on vinyl this past Record Store Day) is released digitally tomorrow, the day before The Flaming Lips are set to challenge the world record for most concerts performed within a 24-hour period with eight shows lined up and down the Mississippii.
Starting in Memphis, the psych rock act will perform in Clarksdale, Oxford, Jackson, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. With hope that the Lips’ will overtake Jay-Z’s existing record, the effort will be extensively covered online and promoted to kick off the brand new MTV O Music Awards, an online music award show set up by the aging music network.
What originally started as collaborative EPs with Yoko Ono, Prefuse 73, Lightning Bolt, and a few others slowly ended up as a long string of songs that features a list of guest stars that share little to no correlation with each other. When it was originally released on Record Store Day 2012, the collaborative effort immediately garnered critical acclaim and widespread attention.
Additionally, the fact that the limited edition vinyl release of the album may or may not have featured blood from one of the guest performers pressed into the vinyl only adds to the lore of the release. With the demand for the hype-filled effort at a precipice, the band decided that this edition of the album would replace the closing track “I Don’t Want You to Die” (featuring Chris Martin) with “Tasered and Maced” (featuring Ghostland Observatory’s Aaron Behrens).
Be sure to pick up a copy of Heady Fwends as it’s released tomorrow, and don’t forget to buy tickets to one of their shows as they break the world record for most shows performed in a single day!
