The following appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 19th March 1997. We borrowed it, Greg Kot wrote it. "Unlike recent conferences dominated by major labels trotting out established acts promoting their new product, this conference was one for the fringe players and the mavericks... (showing) that the best music, as always, is found in the dithces. Or even a parking garage. Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne pulled off the most audacious stunt of the conference by orchestrating 30 car tape decks - each playing a cassette of music he composed, played, or sampled - into an ambient symphony. Reinventing the rock star as a parking attendant. Coyne shepherded the cars and a crowd of more than 1000 onlookers into a second floor garage, then turned the drivers into push button members of his tape orchestra. The lush, hallucinatory swirl of sound was worthy of Pink Floyd's futuristic 1969 tapestry `Ummagumma'. `I've been doing this stuff for a long time, thinkin up ways of how to do things non-traditionally', an exhausted but exhilarated Coyne said after putting down his megaphone, his triumph of imagination complete."

Back to the main menu...

Back to the news menu...

Back to the news features menu...