The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips is my favorite album of all time. Pitchfork.tv made a really outstanding documentary about it. I’ve read the book about The Flaming Lips and seen their documentary, but this still had tons of new information and insight into the record. Highly recommended watching if you’re a fan.
Fingers crossed that they will play the album in its entirety live in NY sometime. They’ve done it around the world, but have skipped NYC!
When I went off to school freshman year, my Dad rooted around in the basement for a while looking for a record player to send up to Boston with me. Eventually he found my Mom’s old turntable, but we weren’t sure if it still worked, as it hadn’t really been used since she moved in with him shortly after they were done with college. We hooked it up and he went up into the stacks to find a throwaway record to put on, just to make sure everything was working correctly.
He came back down with an original, first pressing, still-in-the-shrinkwrap copy of this album. At the time, only four years ago, and fresh out of high school, I had only heard The Soft Bulletin once in someone’s car - but it was awesome. It seemed way out of Dad’s comfort zone. What in the world was he doing with a copy of a Flaming Lips album?
“Oh, this? I cut this.”
Sure. Of course. So if you’ve got a copy of The Soft Bulletin, either an original or the reissue they put out a couple of years back (because they found him in vinyl cutting semi-retirement) look in the leadout groove, just next to the label. See that little treble clef? That’s the mark of The Don.
(Also, by the way, the documentary linked above is also excellent, and if it wasn’t 1am, I’d finish it right now.)
